Birmingham, England

A 6:00 a.m. wake up call as the kids leave for the airport and their respective flights this morning. Bleary eyed but everyone got on their way including Glenn Worf's family. It was suddenly quiet and deserted in the room, I went back to bed but never really got back to sleep. I spent most of the day adjusting to their absence and my lack of shut eye.

This afternoon we drove to Birmingham, about 1:45 minutes to the NEC Arena. I played here many years ago with Diamond and we met Prince Charles and Princess Diana that evening. She was pregnant with her second child and I have a photo in my kitchen of me with the both of them. Funnily enough, Neil and Co. are just up the road tonight performing at Woburn Abbey, which I also played with him back in the swinging 70's. So long ago it doesn't bear thinking about.

A full house of 10,000+ tonight. Understandably, the six of us are a little tired and disoriented with families departing and the return to 'regular' arena gigs after a week at RAH. It's not often that we're all behind the 8 ball at the same time, but it tends to make for a very relaxed show and in many ways shows a facet of the band not often seen. It's really quite good that way. It also took a few tunes to get used to arena sound again, big and echoey. This was our final U.K. gig. England is like a second home to me and I'm always excited to arrive and sorry to leave.

After the show it was into the waiting cars and the drive back to London where we'll spend our last night before decamping tomorrow, flying to France for a show in Lille and then on to Cologne, Germany for the night.

So long,

Richard