Berlin, Germany 8 July, 2015

Decamped Wolfsburg (Autostadt) midday and took the train to Berlin.  European trains; fast, quiet, clean and efficient.  America lags far behind in this mode of transportation.  

O2 Arena  tonight.  Soundcheck, meet and greet, a bit of warm up then on stage for a crowd of 9,000.  Don’t know what else to say… we’re all enjoying every one of these shows and the audiences that come to see them.

Staying in Berlin tonight so a runner to the hotel.  We threw our bags in the rooms then met in the lobby for a short walk to an old haunt, Augustiner House.  Full band attendance for what I think is the best beer anywhere, Augustiner Helles.  Heavy litre glasses arrived in no time and wurst was ordered.  We ended up closing the place down… couldn’t have been a better way to end the day.

I’ve had a number of queries about the picture of my pedal board that appeared in Guy’s tour diary from Hannover a couple of days ago.  I don’t usually get into gear talk in these postings, but just to answer the questions…the main section of the board is a “Deluxe Black” made by Benado Effects.  Toward the end of the last tour my guitar tech, wing man and life saver Tom Calcattera and I decided the old stomp boxes had seen better days.  Loved them and they sounded great but  they were almost 20 years old and draining a lot of guitar to amp signal.  I’d begun talking with Sage Benado several years ago about a very simple set up and I contacted him as this tour was approaching.  The pedal consists of: tremolo, delay and over-drive.  These effects are in by-pass mode when not being used, thus allowing the full signal of the instrument to pass through and hit the amplifiers when an effect is not used.  Wonderful analogue sound, built like a tank and bullet proof.  Benado makes a large range of pedals and will custom design anything you might want.  Check them out at:   www.benadoeffects.com

So long,

Richard