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November 12th 2005
Couldn’t sleep… strange bed, room too warm etc., so I got up earlier
than I wanted to and set about organising the room that will be home
to me for a lot of this trip.
My laptop wireless set-up isn’t
compatible with the hotel network and that’s a bit beyond me so it’s
going to be a challenge staying on top of e-mail and routine
business unless I can find another way to do it!!
After breakfast it was off to bit
of “essential” shopping, picking up those little things that are
easy to forget.
I’ll need a siesta this
afternoon… one Spanish tradition that I have really grown to love!!
Ooops… I forgot that I have to
change some guitar strings so the siesta will have to wait but I did
meet my new bass player, Morty Black, at lunch and we had a nice
chat. Morty has a lot of miles behind him so we have a lot of war
stories to tell which will no doubt come out during the long car and
boat rides that are normal when you tour in Norway. His time with
TNT sounds similar to some of my own experiences, albeit they
happened a decade later than mine!!
Morty and Eric are part of the
band that will play after me tonight so we are getting connected
early and I am already looking forward to rehearsals….
There were a lot of “friendly”
football (soccer) games today so the timing of the show was set
around that. I got to watch a little bit of the England-Argentina
game but Norway lost so there were a few people that were drowning
their sorrows in the bar of the Rock Café… this would prove to be a
challenge later!!
Sound check was pretty straight
forward, I just had to work with the sound engineer and get the
monitors right. All the equipment was there because the venue is a
regular rock club.
Show time… I was still a little
tired, said my usual prayers and headed for the stage to polite
applause from the audience, picked up the wrong guitar (I told you I
was tired) and struggled through the first song (in the wrong key)
although the audience was very kind and enthusiastic so I settled
down a bit after that.
These solo shows are always
interesting and always different because it’s just me alone on the
stage, the audience is seated (for the most part) and I try to
present it as an opportunity for us to get closer, musically and
personally, than is normally possible. I play some favourites of
course and I present stripped down versions of song like July
Morning to show where they originated and I also offer totally new
songs, wholly or partially, to give a look at where the music is
going.
This was a noisy crowd (we were
just to the right of the bar area) and that makes things difficult
in these situations because I am not as loud as a band so I can’t
play over them!
But all in all it went well and I
think the crowd enjoyed it.
Funny though… all I could think
about was how hungry I was!!
So I went back to the dressing
room and packed everything ready to go back to the hotel. I ran the
guantlet of fans outside the club some of whom were horribly drunk
and the club owner took me across to a chinese restaurant that was
closed. They opened for him (he had obviously done that before!) and
I picked up some spicy shrimp to take back to my room. They threw in
a beer for good measure and I was ready… except that we got lost on
the way… again!! I hope this doesn’t happen too often… twice is
definitely enough. The smell of the food was driving me crazy so I
was very happy to get to my room and dig in!!
All in all a good day. I am off
tomorrow so I have chance to sleep, rest and reflect.
More soon… good night!
Next day...
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