DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME;

"Countdown shows 26-29"

Show #26-May 25, 1996-london, England-at THE GARAGE

This show was packed and was by far, the largest crowd up to that point. I
remember people completely loving the show but I also remember the sound system
sounding aweful, the amplifiers sounding aweful, a HUGE $300 bill for chinese
food ealier in the day (Gene nearly fainted...) and the toilets were out of
order backstage. In other words, typical England!

After the show, we hung out with J.B. and Sean from the High llamas, which was
really fun. We stayed in a really great hotel on Hyde Park and it turned out
another band that we knew, ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT, were staying there as well.
Those guys were nice so we invited them to the show the next night.

Show #27-May 26, 1996-London, England-at The POWERHAUS

This place seemed twice as big as The Garage and it sold out, which was great.
There was a cute girl outside who wanted me to take a picture of her and
Arthur. I did and when she thanked me I noticed a spanish accent. It turned
out she was a student from madrid. She told me her name was INGRID. We
exchanged numbers and, wouldn't you know it but (esp. if you are an avid DIARY
reader), she and I are close friends to this day! And if anyone of the 6
people who bought my solo album can make the connection, the song INGRID is
about you-know-who...

Now I remember this show as being the greatest moment of my life (at the time).
Everything was perfect, in my opinion, for that show. But the best part to me
was the fans. They MADE that show special. If anyone has a boot of that show
they'll know exactly what I am talking about. Those English fans were just
amazing...it was the closest thing to heaven, playing this great music in front
of such a reverent crowd. I know this sounds corner but, the music and the
crowd were one.

After the show, I remember some young, cute (18?) Swedish fan (what's up with a
Swede in London?) trying to hang out and she hopped in my taxi cause she said
she wanted to sing me her songs she'd written. I said I'd listen to some of
them, if she liked. The Rocket guys were in the lobby and Gene bought some
drinks and so me and Miss Sweden went up to my room to hear her songs and the
first thing she says (mind you, she was very attractive) is ,"Would you like to
see a picture of me? I always keep pictures of myself..." So I'm looking at
this picture and thinking about how strange this chick is and then she doesn't
look so hot after the "picture" episode, right? So she sings me these
songs...that weren't bad, to be honest. But then she wouldn't leave. So I
gave her 5 Bob and said, "Hit the road, Jack." I got better things to do than
to listen to Nico sing me songs all night...

Show #28-May 28, 1996-Amsterdam, Holland-THE PARADISO

Although the weather was a little on the cool side, Amsterdam was in full
bloom and it is truly one of the most prettiest cities in Europe. I won't go
into details,but I did spend a "considerable" amount of time in the RED LIGHT
disctrict...Now the show we played, was an "ok" show, by my standards...I
thought the crowd was stoned off their asses. And I wasn't the only one who
thought that, I'm sure. And at one point, a guy ran onstage and started
playing the SINGER's guitar! Gene ran up to stop him but Rusty handed Gene a
tamborine and then HE was part of the Circus!

After the show, a fan gave me some Hash. Now, the year before, I tried it for
the first time in Spain and I was LESS THAN IMPRESSED. So I took that attitude
this time and took liberties, thinking hash was just over-rated. BIG MISTAKE
AND BOY WAS I WRONG. I was so out of it that I invited fans back to our hotel
lobby for drinks...you know," All the drinks are on me, bartender!") Our
friend, Cindy Lee Berryhill, had just finished her tour and came to the show
and then to the hotel to have a drink as well. I excused myself to go to the
WC (That would be a Water Closet, for our friends in Texas) but instead went to
my room and puked and passed out. Or that's how our roadies, Rocky and Ringo
tell it. They said they got worries when i didn't make it back so they went
looking for me and had the maid open my door with her key i was sprawled out on
the bed in my underwear with puke in unusual places...I never got that way
again and I learned my lesson for sure.

Show #29-May 29, 1996-Rotterdam, Holland-ROTOWN

The 1 hour ride from Amsterdam to Rotterdam was spent with my head out of the
Van window, with a FULL METAL HANGOVER and plus Jazmaan was driving me crazy
playing all those Hendrix bootleg tapes...even the SINGER had enough and yanked
the tape out! I remember The SINGER beating everyone (including Ringo, who's a
damn good player) at pool TWICE! The club served us dinner which was aweful
but not as aweful as the hamburgers we had earlier that day. And if you don't
believe me, simply ask Jazmaan. And the club's food wasn't too far behind
either. Although we escaped getting poisoned, i did feel a tad bit woozy from
the food. But we still played a fine show for yet another very stoned crowd.

None of us knew it at the time, but this would be our last show as LOVE for 5
1/2 years. We had no prior knowlegde of the pending court case and only found
out about it after we returned home 2 WEEKS AFTER THE SINGER returned how, as
we played a show in York as Baby Lemonade and then took Holidays there before
returning to Los Angeles. We were all broken hearted that the "system" was
railroading one of it's Rock and Roll heroes. But there was nothing we could
do about it. As of June 15, 1996, there was no more LOVE. (or so we thought...)

=====

Mike Randle
mike@lovewitharthurlee.com

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