Lodz, Poland 8 May 2013

With yesterday's successful up-loading, these notes are now officially written and saved in Text Edit then copied onto the website platform.  I realise the font has changed and I've been told how to deal with that, which I'll eventually get to... one thing at a time.  The fact I've got this sorted is a giant step forward as I lurch kicking and screaming into the 1990's.

We checked out of our mission style hotel in Prague, a great place with the exception of it's outdated and inefficient internet system, which I have little to complain about given my outdated and inefficient skills with a computer.  It was a short flight to Lodz, Poland and Liz our flight attendant was already putting out lunch while we were still ascending, a tasty and  filling chicken cobb salad.

Lodz is pronounced Woodch.  I don't have a correct key for it, but the "L" has a slash through the vertical part which in Polish gives it a "W" sound.  Lodz is located in the middle of the country and is the third largest city in Poland with a population in excess of 800,000.  Tonight's venue was the Altas Arena and we were scheduled for an early 7:30 show.  It was a sold out gig but the audience was a little slow coming in and we held the beginning for about 20 minutes giving everyone a chance to get in and seated.

I'll go as far as saying I set the record for in-ear monitor changes and nightmares in a two hour show.  As mentioned earlier, my trusty set I've used for several years, packed it in a few nights ago.  I then went to a spare set that were left overs from 2005.  The moulds of these were brittle and the wires that connect to the earpiece had broken loose and were literally hanging by a thread.  They gave up the ghost shortly after the show began.  I then switched to another spare set that Kerry our monitor man has.  These are not fitted and simply generic ear buds.  I soon found that one side had a short and was intermittent.  Through my guitar tech I made contact with Kerry again for yet another set of spares to be ready.  It took three of us to untangle this set while waiting to go back on stage for the encore and though we finally got that sorted, I never could get them in my ears properly.  In the end I think the right and left bits were in my ears backwards to the point if I moved my head slightly, they would begin to pull out.  Honestly, I don't think I've struggled getting through a show as much as this one.  Having said that, one simply gets on with things and it was a good gig all around with some fantastic playing from everyone.  The Lodz audience was loud and enthusiastic.

A runner and another short flight fueled with shepherd's pie and drinks of choice to Berlin where we'll be basing for the next few days.  With a day off on the 9th, we're all looking forward to re-visiting one of our favourite bier garten restaurants for patters full of their delicious German food and steins of the crisp and creamy Augustiner bier.

So long,

Richard