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DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME;
Well, I am at (LOVE Roadie) Ringo's house in York, England, on a bloody nice day on June 19, the day after Ringo's 30th birthday. I'm on Holiday until the 27th, when Rusty and I fly to Denmark to join the other guys before we play Roskilde on teh 29th. I asked Skully to write up London and Dublin but i will give you a little bit of both as well. First off, London was packed and it was a good show. I ha d agood time and the backstage party was a lot of fun. the staff at Queen LIz Hall went way out and the booker, Glenn max, is the man. Great job. It was cool also to hang with Dave, who plays bass in counting crows. he was really nice. Stew had opened up for them 2 nights before in London. After the show, went to the hotel and bumped into Klaus Flouride from teh Dead Kennedys! He's LOVE fan but was either nervous (or drinking?) and kept calling Arthur "Albert Lee". Yep, that was funny.
Took off the next morning for gay paree. Paris was friggin HUMID. But the venue was around the corner from our hotel so no biggie. The show was packed and it sold out as well. Afterwards, the other guys went to look at the Eiffel Tower or something like that and i took off on my own and immediately ran into several cute chicks (and their friends, who were guys) who were at the show. They bought me some beers...2 of them were sisters...and then we all went to a night club where i met the 3rd sister, ok? we were mostly speaking english, although every now and then, i tried to get by on my limited french (hey, i took 2 years of french in high school, but that was a LONG time ago...). After that...ok, get this...i walked to a resteraunt...oh, by the way, it was about 2am at this point....ok..now i walk to this eatery and there's a line to get in to eat AT 2AM FER CHRIST'S SAKE...and the guy said he was sorry but then wait, someone else says...he plays with Arthur Lee and boo-yah, i get my own table. but that ain't all...I get dinner as well and 2 glasses of wine. i tried to pay the bill but the guy said no so i said thanks, see ya. Went back to the hotel and Rusty was still up because it was so hot and humid and the french don't believe in air conditioners so we just kinda laughed a bit and i think i finally fell out about 3am...then we get the call around 9am to get up cause we gotta fly to dublin for the last show. we're all ready down stairs and the driver comes and then he looks lost and he seams dumb and it turned out both were right. The drive to Bouvais airport from paris is no more than an hour...i mean, it's 32 miles! This fool, this total knucklehead took 2 1/2 hours and we just missed our plane (so that grumpy as fan...you know who you are..., that complained about the time between the support act and LOVE needs to chill out. ). lucky for us we caught another that got us to the venue about 45 min before show time. We had to wait in this dingy, humid garage masquerading as an airport for 5 hours! Also, lucky for us, Ringo got all the equipment sussed before we arrived, which made a huge difference. And the crew at the venue were great. Unfortunately for me, my monitor mix was complete shite and my and Arthur's amp were coughing up phlem a bit. But we still rocked it and it's like that, ya'll, and that's the way it is. After the show, our bus was being mobbed by fans who wanted autographs. Arthur thought it best to sign them and then the mob let us go (they were banging on the windows...those Irish...). Got back to the hotel and who walks up but Scully and his girlfriend, Michelle. Turns out they were staying at the same hotel as us. Scully was cool enough to buy us a few rounds at the hotel bar. Thanks, Scully. Also, i got Scully and Michelle backstage passes so they could meet Arthur (and i don't do that for anyone!) But scully has been a real help this who leg of the tour so i gotta say a big thanks to him and also to every person that came to a show or came but couldn't get in becaus ethere were no tix. thanks for coming or trying. This was one of the best times of my life and it will always stand out as something special. I'm gonna run soon because i want to catch "east Enders" but i'll have more very soon.# But to close this out, when we all got back to london, Arthur took us all out to dinner and told us some really nice things, including saying something along the order of,"I couldn't have done it without you guys..." Arthur wouldn't say that if he didn't mean it. The next morning, i caught a train for York, Rusty stayed in london to hang out and Arthur, Daddyo and Chapple went to Los Angeles. Oh, Gene went to Stockholm! I have some great memories and great moments that i'll share in the next diary after they sink in a little bit! Until then, cheers!
Mike Randle |
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