Vienna, Austria...3 July, 2010

A short flight this afternoon to Vienna and our usual venue, Stadthalle. As I've mentioned before, we know some of these places like the back of our hand having played them so often...the layout of the backstage, where the dressing rooms are, what they look like, how they smell, where the catering is set up, etc. None of it particularly useful knowledge, but so it was today. It's very hot in Europe at the moment and the venue was sweltering, on stage, backstage, everywhere. There was a large TV monitor set up when we arrived, the World Cup game in progress and all gathered round to watch Germany dispatch Argentina 4-0.

Being in Vienna, I was hoping our catering wizards would conjure up wiener schnitzel for dinner tonight and sure enough they had. They were absolutely massive, served with a fried egg on top, all sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes. It was a 7:30 show tonight and much as I wanted that schnitzel, I couldn't eat one that close to going on stage. I opted instead for a more sensible salad and small dish of pasta with marinara sauce.

It was a steamer of a show, temperature, playing and audience...a great gig here in Vienna, followed by a runner to the Legacy, everybody in great spirits from the gig. Airborne, Daniella served dinner...wiener schnitzel, mustard potato salad and to my delight, Augustiner beer from Munich! Augustiner is the oldest brewery in Bavaria and one of my favourite beers. There will be many that disagree, but for my taste Bavarian beer wins hands down. A perfect blend of malt and hops nothing is out of balance. A problem I have with so many craft or microbrewery beers is so many are overly hopped or malted, sort of showing off. All would do well to taste a great Bavarian lager as a good starting model.

We arrived back in Budapest, still early and all wandered round the corner to an open air bar and a few more rounds of beer while watching all the good looking youngsters of the city out in their finest for a Saturday night. It's good to be alive and in Europe right now and I can't tell you how lucky we all feel feel.

We will play a show here in Budapest tomorrow night, then fly to London for four consecutive days off.

So long,

Richard