My plane finally took off from LAX around 9 pm Wed night. My virgin flight was showing bowling for Columbine so i was really looking forward to an entertaining and comfy flight. An english bloke sitting next to me asked me the time. I asked what the weather was gonna be like in London. I mentioned i was just there a month ago. Doing what, he asked me. Touring. Touring with whom? LOVE. No way! he said.

Turns out, this fellow, David Clarke, works in promotions for the label that is releasing the live CD and DVD this fall! small world, ain’t it? well, i get my headphones really for the movi but then i doze off and sleep for 8 hours! when i wake up, we’re an hour from london (and it was thursday now!) The other guys in the band were flying American Airlines and had arrived at the airport 1 hour prior. Since my Guitar and Pedals were at a friends home (who happens to live 5 min from heathrow), rusty taxi’d over and picked em up for me. We all hung out a bit and then got on our flight to Amsterdam.

we landed about 8pm and got picked up by a driver from the Festival, Sil. The drive from A’dam to R’dam was about 45 min. we checked into our nice hotel (which was around the corner from the hotel we stayed in last summer…this one was much better)…and my room came with a pair of complimentary slippers! After we checked in the 4 of us went looking for a pub. (The rest of the group woulnd’t be arriving until friday night)

We found an irish pub called O’SHEAS and proceeded to relieve them of several large pints of lager. Afterwards, we all went back to the hotel. but, while Daddyo and Rusty were very tired, Chapple and I were quite restless and went walking around Rotterdam at 2am. We found a dance club but they wouldn’t let chapple in with the shoes he was wearing (converse all-stars) so we found another club and went in for pints. after awhile we realised this club was filled with Pakastanis and, although no one bothered us (why would they?) we could feel a bit of tension in the place, as it was obvious we were american. we wisely finnished our pints and hit the road.

we stubbled upon an after hours chinese food place and ordered some weird stuff that tasted great. Went back to the room and crashed out. woke up on friday at 4pm! we’d slept 14 hours! went walking for dinner around 5pm, mistakingly telling the hotel doorman, “guten morgen” which was really stupid becasue 1) it was evening and 2) that’s German, not Dutch! went looking for food but wound up at Mc Donalds, which breaks my “avoid the golden arches” code but what can a guy do?

Although it had been 9 months since we were last here, the girls were still pretty and still very tall…the street trains still alomost run you over and Rotterdam is still as diverse and brustling as ever. So, around 10pm, we headed back to O’sheas and there was a funk band playing that were very good. They were doing all cover songs, but classic american 70’s funk. And people were wearing fake afros and stuff and we were drinking more and more lager.

i got tired and left the guys at the bar and headed to the hotel, where i ran into the Singer who’d just gotten in and was angry cause he had a 4 hour layover..and Gene wasn’t around to get cussed out….he wisely stayed in New York for this trip! Ran into (celloist) Anna and (Violaost) Andreas at the hotel bar. Then Rusty and the rest of the guys showed up and then Glenn and Kose showed up as well and we ordered a bunch more lagers and stuff…tried to bill it to Glenns room but he caught me so i billed it to Rusty’s room. AFterwards, i was hungry again and went BACK to McDonalds like a real sucker and got 2 cheeseburgers. life on teh road, huh?

finally went to sleep around 2am (again), woke up this morning (now saturday) about 8am. tried to have breafast at the hotel but they wanted 16 Euros and we were like, no way Jose, ok? Guess where we went? to Mc Donalds! i was almost done with my egg mcwhatever when i got sick! i ran to the hotel as fast as i could and barely made it to the bathroom…serves me right. so then we went to the Venue for soundcheck and nothing is right and everything is behind schedule. that was 30 min ago. Glenn told me i had 30 min to kill so i decided to write this.

Mike Randle