25th March Sao Paulo - Brazil to London - England
Well, we've reached the end of another leg and I'm sitting on the plane after a six hour delay, winging my way back to good old Blighty. We have a two week break which will be most welcome. I'm looking forward to being able to practice some piano and seeing my cat, Scratchy. I hope you've enjoyed my blog so far, and will be back in two weeks to keep you all appraised of our forthcoming endeavours.
24th March Sao Paulo - Brazil
Well the final gig was another good one, except for a small hitch in the Hammond which meant I had no top end for the first two numbers. Alfie, key-tech extraordinaire, managed to fix the problem without too much trouble however. Our final band dinner was at The Fig Tree restaurant which is a fantastic place that we actually visited five years ago. It was built around a massive fig tree, with arms stretching throughout the entire restaurant.
I would just like to point out to everyone that my complaints about the meat in the restaurant in Argentina was in no way a slight on Argentinian meat in general, merely the meal we had that one time. Five years ago we had a fantastic dinner in Argentina comprising excellent quality meat in a similar restaurant. So apologies to all the people who serve good meat in Argentina !
23rd March Rio - Brazil
Finally, after a couple of days off we have a gig day. What a great audience ! They were loud and appreciative and sang along to almost everything. The generator went down in Perfect Sense and we lost all power to the PA and monitors which meant a small impromptu break before Leaving Beirut. Looking forward to our final gig of this leg which is in Sao Paulo tomorrow.
21st March Rio - Brazil
Today a group of us (Snowy, Andrew, Carol, Graham, John, Ian, Holly and Richelle) visited Jesus, up on Corcovado Hill. It starts with an amazing tram ride through the Rio jungle. It's like being in a James Bond movie, I kept expecting Baron Samedi to play his evil flute and then blow a poison dart into my neck. As you can see below Jesus was rather impressive. Having descended the mountain we headed to Copacobana beach for lunch where we were accompanied by some local buskers. Back to the hotel for a nap and then out to a great local restaurant for dinner. One of the best so far !
20th March Buenos Aires - Argentina to Rio - Brazil
A travel day today. Rather simple, rather dull, but great to be back in Rio which is a great city. Checking into the hotel was somewhat of a disaster, more room changes by almost everyone in the band than ever before. As a result of this we were offered a free meal in the hotel restaurant, situated outside surrounded by tropical trees and heat, and as chance would have it, many cats. The pleasant setting was marred however by the unbearably awful keyboard player with his drum/bass backing track playing more Elton John, James Blunt and Barry Manilow hits than any human being should ever have to endure.
19th March Buenos Aires - Argentina
Another lazy day spent by the pool today. We drank high quality smoothies and I played cards with the old man and won $30. During the game he was asked to sign over a dozen or so CD's including a copy of Pulse. The promoters ignorance was swiftly rewarded with the word "Wanker" rather than "Roger Waters" on the cover of his CD.
Richelle and I then had dinner with our good friend, the charming Simon Slater (Assistant Tour Manager). We went to a great Thai restaurant and ate more than we could handle. A vast improvement over the dinner three nights previous.
18th March Buenos Aires - Argentina
Today we ventured out to San Telmo market and sat in a much nicer part of town than our hotel is situated in. Richelle picked out a very nice piece of vintage clothing and then found it to be sold by the time she had come back with the money. Poor Richelle.............We spent the rest of the day lying by the pool drinking smoothies and eating sandwiches. The gig came and went and my brain wasn't quite working properly, I hit a few duff chords during Perfect Sense, but such is life.
17th March Buenos Aires - Argentina
Well, today was gig day. Richelle and I got up late and went and had a pizza in a local restaurant. A nice couple, probably from Russia, translated "decaf", for the waitress who thought I wanted a coffee without the "coffee". The gig was fun and I even managed to take some snaps. Here's how the gig looks from my point of view..............
16th March Buenos Aires - Argentina
Today, Richelle and I spent the day taking in a couple of sites. We first visited the Recoleta Cemetery which is filled wall to wall with mausoleums. It was really quite amazing, many fine sculptures and effigies surrounding the many burial sites. Also it was full of cats. I love cats, having had them all my life so this was a pleasant surprise. They were well taken care of, not skinny and wretched, and there were bowls of water laid out around the site to keep them in drink.
During the evening the band all met up for the promoters dinner at a local meat restaurant. I am a great meat lover and have enjoyed steaks from all over the world. I can safely say this meal was filthy. Steak that requires chewing more than twenty eight times does not deserve to be eaten. After the dinner we were taken to a tango/theatre performance which was rather enjoyable. The band were situated about twenty feet above the dancers and played greatly to accompany them.
15th March Buenos Aires - Argentina
Having spent much of the time catching up on lost sleep there's not really a great deal of things to write about. Many of us however have been ill (crew and band included) due to, we believe, the band/crew dinner in Peru. The doctor came and gave injections to those of us that wanted them, bringing instant relief.
Dave "Killer" Kilminster was trying to sort out his stolen credit card for an age this morning whilst we were all checking out, which meant he wasn't quite ready to leave the hotel at the scheduled time. This, combined with a faulty head count by one Simon Slater meant that the Killer was left behind and had to catch a cab to the airport ! Poor Killer. My lovely girlfriend is here now and we're going to explore the city and all it has to offer.
13th March Santiago Chile
We left Peru this morning at 5:30am, having had about 2 hours kip. As you can imagine we are all very tired and looking forward to spending some time in our fantastic Grand Hyatt rooms and by the best pool ever, which has a waterfall that you can swim under.
I've been feeling under the weather for the last couple of days so decided to hole up in my room and watch The Godfather 2 as soon as I arrived. Unfortunately though I fell asleep almost instantly until 18:30. I did then however get up and go for a swim in the freezing pool before coming back to my room to watch the Godfather 2 and fall asleep again.