The view from the window of my cabin is really beautiful this morning as the
ship sails back towards Stockholm, past hundreds of tiny islands. That and
the fact that we are calmly sailing on vast, smooth water, reminded me of what a
beautiful world God created. I hope some day we realise that we are
supposed to be taking care of it and not destroying it in our greed!
But I
digress…..
It was time
to shower, pack and meet the guys for brunch to chat about some of the details
of the mini-tour we’re doing in December. After we disembarked, the guys
were headed back to Norway and I was whisked off to the centre of Stockholm to
the Tyrol, the club where I was to be part of the Sweden Rock kick-off party.
The
organisation and the staff at Sweden Rock are really first-class and I was very
comfortable from the beginning. I was to do 15 minutes all by myself
between Gotthard and the Sweden Rock All-Star band… a bit like Joan Baez between
Aerosmith and Metallica! But the idea of the event (which sold out within
a week of the announcement) was to have fun and to find out the bands who would
appear at next year’s Sweden Rock Festival…. an event that lots of bands would
love to play because it means 140,000 people over 4 days, a cool venue and great
organisation. Also this would be the second time this year that I had to
play a Deep Purple song because they asked me to jam "Child in Time"!!
There was no Hammond on stage so I had to "wing" it a bit but I felt very
relaxed and, in fact, I was looking forward to it.
Sound check
went fine, dinner was passable but I really needed to get to the hotel, relax a
bit and get a shower before the show started. All was going to plan until
I got a call from my agent Francisco Maganto, to ask if I could play a little
earlier because Gotthard’s singer had a "medical problem" and may need to go to
the hospital. At the time he called I had just got out of the shower!
I was playing-in the new strings on my borrowed acoustic guitar and watching
football (with the volume turned off because the Swedish commentary was quite
confusing) but now I had to change gear…. no problem.
When I got
to the venue I had 20 minutes or so to prepare and when I went on stage I had a
short Q&A with the guy from Rockklassiker, the radio station that was presenting
the show. They had just announced that we would be performing at the
festival next year and I was very happy about that. My little "15 minutes
of fame" was fairly easy really. I was alone and I had the choice to do
some new things or stick to old things. I decided that if I played songs
the audience knew I could have them help me and, in that way, be my "band"!
It worked
okay… The Wizard, Rain and Lady in Black was enough and the crowd (who were
there to rock & roll) greeted it all very enthusiastically. So I was happy
and everyone else seemed happy too….
Gotthard
followed after their singer staged a "miraculous come-back" and then I jammed
the Purple song and got ready to go back to the hotel to sleep for a couple of
hours.
