FRANKFURT AND PARISFrankfurtThe Commerzbank Stadium is a nice facility…but not made for music, I’m afraid. After our morning routine, we left for the venue around 3pm. I went to write up the set list…and seeing some of our crew, they immediately gave us the word about the poor acoustics of the place. I finally walked out to check it out myself….and could tell that we were in for a challenge as far as the sound goes. It’s covered stadium, and there was a full 7 second delay after striking a note or hitting a beat on a drum. Ouch…a nightmare for us to deal with.
To be honest, it was a nightmare from the beginning. Not only was the sound absolutely horrible in the place, but the volume was very loud for some reason…making it a total “wash”. I could barely tell what I was playing all night…much less hear the other musicians with any distinction. We all struggled though it…and while we all did our best, there was just no way to make the place sound like we would all like. Nevertheless, we managed to put on a pretty decent Rock Show under the circumstances…but I have to admit that I was grateful after the last note was played and we headed back to our hotel.
ParisWe did go out for a bit to the Monoprix (a sort of grocery/hardware/department store on the Champs) to get a few items Rose Lane wanted for her trip to Italy.
The last Paris show we did was one of the best of the tour…it was just a couple of days after Mick’s birthday back in July of last year. I wanted this to be a good one, too…and wrote up a set list that I felt the fans would appreciate and that would be fun for us
The show turned out well….if not as good as the one a year ago. Still, Stade De France was sufficiently rocked, and the reviews the next day were all very positive.
LYON AND BARCELONALyonKeith wanted to run over a couple of songs…“You Got The Silver” was one…and we got that in for the night for the first time on this leg. Finally it was Showtime….and we hit the stage feeling more confident having the other five shows under our belt. It turned out to be the best one so far.
BarcelonaI’ve continued to try and do more cardio in the workout and did about 45 minutes of walking and running on the treadmill before pushing some weights. Afterwards I inquired about a massage, and arranged for one at 7 that evening.
Then we did a little rehearsal in Keith’s room…Mick had wanted to do Streets Of Love this night, as apparently it got a good bit of radio play here, and we all needed to go over it. It sounded fine, and we all broke up into our respective dressing rooms. But as we were leaving, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Bill Richards, who is Keith’s step dad.
Then it was time to hit the stage….another strong show…and that wonderful Latin spirit came through from the Spanish fans. It’s soooo much fun to play to these audiences…they really lift you up and make it a special event.

Belgrade-Bucharest-Budapest-Brno
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-07-05 14:35 by Lorenz.