So, after Friday night’s show in Cambridge, we were all hanging out in the LOVE dressing room, feeling good about the show. We even talked about how (the Castle’s) David Housden was sitting in the front row. I talked to him later and he told me he really loved the show. The Singer was a bit hungry and Rosanne, who plays bass in (opening act) DRAW, offered to run to the Kabob cart and grab him a bite, quite to his relief.

Later, we (the ensemble, the group, the manager and the road crew) started up at the hotel bar and stayed there till last orders, which was around 2am. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned our guitar tech/ roadie, DAVEY, yet but I will say that he’s the best and most professional tech I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He’s responsible, smart and just an all around good guy. Of course, he has a very thick Glaswegian accent so I can only understand about 20% of the conversation.

The next morning, we went into town and that’s where I wrote Saturday’s diary but then we went back and started drinking at the hotel bar again but when the bar closed, we all went to (sound guy) Kose’s room and then (trombonist) Bjorn and (trumpeter) Karl started jamming on their instruments and then Ketil joined them on his violin and soon we had a jam session! Ringo had purchased some booze earlier at an off license so we were right sorted out. This went on till 4am and to my surprise, no one at the hotel complained. Went to bed and slept till 1pm Sunday.

A few hours later, the band did an acoustic rehearsal at the hotel, in a conference room. After that, Davey drove us all back into town for some incredible Japanese food near the university and then we headed to the hotel to watch the Tampa Bay Bucs whup up on the Philadelphia Eagles. The hotel bar closed at 11pm, which was when the Raider game was to come on and you couldn’t get the channel on in your room so the hotel manager was nice enough to let us use the employee room to watch the Raider game. So we watched about half that game and drank some beers that we ordered from room service and then played “Yahtzee” with Daddyo, Rusty and Kose, while the Singer and his Manager watched the game as well.

After a while I got too tired and went up to my room and had a ham and cheese sandwich …exciting, right? Went and had breakfast around 9am this morning, which was just juice and fruit and yogurt. I didn’t want to battle another English breakfast with a 2-hour drive to Brighton ahead of us. So after the meal, I laid down some more and noticed an ever-so-slight hangover. But by that time, it was time to get in the bus…with the rain pouring down in beautiful Cambridge.

Mike Randle