Beers, Music, Travel

Retired

2011-01-18T11:46:00.003+00:00

This blog is now dormant... it was too much work and I gave it up years ago... Look my profile or www.neilmck.com for more up to date info on what I´m doing these days.

RYEXNK5GCEDM

Your Ad Here

The Italian Job day 4 - Recovering in Milan

2006-09-18T15:36:00.003+01:00

Your Ad Here

The next day, we wake up... the tiredness has turned into aching bones... almost every muscle that supports a limb is sore and painful.

A couple of quick showers freshen us up enough to get us checked out of the hotel.

The idea of airing the clothes to freshen them hasn't worked... with each step a puff of wiffy BO oozes out of the bags.

Although we've been in Milan for almost 24 hours, we still have no idea what the city looks like, what the tourist attractions are, or where they are. We head to the underground, as we seem to be in the middle of nowhere.

After an espresso and a panini, we decide that metro station Duomo sounds most like a historical centre......

....turns out we're not wrong. We get out of the underground and seem to have hit tourist pay dirt:

It's a really bustling historic tourist centre. With a very busy square:

We have a wander around a little bit - go to the toilet in MacDonalds etc... and then take to the cathedral. Normally at this point, I would stick on Nine Inch Nails for a bit of atmosphere, but since Mowgli's here we just do a traditional church visit:

It's pretty massive. It seats 40,000 worshippers... which technically means that Pearl Jam could have played here.... but they would probably have to scratch Do the Evolution from the setlist.

We head outside and wander around the outside of the cathedral. Apparently you can get up to the roof for a view over Milan...

While I'm trying to work out where the lift is... I hear Mowgli say "You have got to be shitting me!!!" He's found someone he knows. I look over and see two women and a guy... the women look uncomfortable as if Mowgli is intruding... I realise Mowgli has found Stone Gossard, rhythm guitarist for Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Green River and Brad:

One of the backbones of the Seatle Music scene...he who composed Alive, Evenflow, Black , Cadillac and countless others.

I go for the whole non-chalant -appreciative of the music thing. He is so subdued it's unbelievable... he says very little. He seems to recognise us as the guys in the kilts, and comments on how much fun the previous evening was. I feel pretty uncomfortable, as if we're intruding, so I'm glad to end the experience. I'm glad I can say I met him, but compared to our experience in Barcelona, it's far less fun.

Instead it's better to walk on with Mowgli through this wonderfully picturesque historical centre rattling off the achievements of the great man who's hand we have just shook. It's pretty strange. Initially, you think. "wow... Stone Gossard. The man who's been in posters on my wall since I was about 12."... then slowly it sinks in what he's done... what he's brought your life, all those personal moments you have with his music, visions of MTV Unplugged, DVD's... posters... photos...guitar licks.... wow!!!

3 down..... 2 to go..... although... If I wanted to get away from Stone as soon as I met him... I can't imagine what I would do if faced with Ed.

Stone is different from Mike and Jeff. With Mike and Jeff, their stage personas have convinced you(Probably wrongly) that you know a little bit of their personality. Stone however, does so little on stage, that you have nothing to go on. It is either a wonderful achievement in keeping his private life private, or he has no personality.

Our euphoria... finds us drifting into a shopping precinct. We meet a Pearl jam friend from the concerts. She is super excited. She's just met Jeff. We're jumping up and down telling her we've met Stone. This is getting so sad....

The band seem to be spending the day wandering around Milan. They clearly don;t have that much of a problem with being recognised, accosted and photographed, although I'm proud to say I still haven't taken the cringe-worthy "Me and Mike" photo, but it's been sorely tempting.

We wander down Via Torino... there is an exhibition of arial photos of Italy, which are pretty spectacular. We're now just aimlessly wandering. Our plane is quite late, and we're wired with adrenalin, euphoria and espresso, with no real party to take it out on. Milan still seems to be closed, so we can't even wander round the expensive shops.

We head back to Duomo square. I'm keen to get up to the roof of the Duomo. Mowgli is less keen("I'm not paying money to stand on a roof. There's nothing up there."). I manage to convince him that while we are too poor to pay the 6 euros to go up in the lift. We can afford the 4 euros to climb the 165 stairs. As we're going through the turnstyle, someone recognises us and talks about our kilts. He tells us that Mike is at the top of the roof, and if we hurry, we might meet him.

We've already met Mike. I don't like to intrude on them. There's 165 steps.....

30 seconds later, we are on the roof, close to vomiting. we rush up to the next level, and then wander onto Mike's part of the roof, relaxed and Non-Chalant. we get a "Hi guys.." There's a group of Norwegians talking to him. So I take the time to get some photos from the roof:

We then it for about 15 minutes talking to Mike. It's good that we've met him before. We're getting to the stage where we feel a little more relaxed about talking to him. It's not like an out of body experience any more. The good thing is that we just talk crap... asking a few things about the show the previous night...asking about his Scottish heritage(He knows nothing).

The previous evening Matt gave a girl in the audience an autographed cymbal. we aked about this. Apparently she held up a sign saying "Matt. Can I have a cymbal". "you never know it's worth a try says Mike"... We inquire if "Mike can I get your 1959 Fender Stratocaster" would get any response... we're told we might get a string:

I could sit up here all day talking crap with Mike. eventually, he tells s its his wife's birthday, he has to buy her a present and he's shit at buying presents. He's human!!!!!

We spend another 20 minutes talking about great Pearl Jam memories with the Norwegians while we wander round the rest of the roof. If you read this guys.... get in touch...

Once back down on the ground.. we meet some more Pearl Jam fans... including the girl from before. She's met Stone and Boom now... I would like to have met Boom.... I imagine he's extremely chilled and lovable... still a good relaxed conversation with Mike in a beautiful setting is hard to beat.

The Duomo square is going crazy for another reason. Another band is in town: My Chemical Romance. I don't know much about them, but they seem to produce music for baby goths, as there are lots of 12 year olds sitting around with eyeliner... died black hair and black clothes, holding posters which profess their ability to carry on thanks to the music with interesting use of English grammar. They're all holding up signs to the camera's coming out of their hotel room. The band are making a DVD apparently.

I'm interested in how this was organised. Did the band actually post on their website. "We will be at X hotel filming a DVD on X date... please turn up with messages for us...." Hmmmmm. Spontaneous. If you ever see the DVD, you'll notice a taller person in the crowd of people holding up messages, whose message appears to be a Pearl Jam live in Italy limited edition poster. The goth kiddies just thought my message was really subtle......

After some lunch, it's finally time to head to the airport. We can stop hanging around Milan waiting for something as interesting as a Pearl Jam concert to happen.

I've been to Orio al Seria airport in Bergamo before... It's tiny. It gets even smaller when our plane is delayed by 2 hours. There is nothing in the airport. The Italian's don;t tend to use their airports to seel things to their captive audience, so you just have to sit around entertaining ourselves... and trying to get a payphone to work to find out how bad Paprika's laryngitis is.

Two very tired Pearl jam fans stagger into the flat in the early hours of Tuesday to get some sleep before another week of work without a relaxing weekend.....

The Italian Job - Day 3 - Pearl jam - Fila Forum, Milan - 17.09.06

2006-09-17T14:14:00.001+01:00

After a pretty good night's sleep which is surprising given that it was on a floor, we wake up late and get our stuff together before heading for the train station.

Between the water-logged gig in the Arena, Mowgli's swimming, Kilts that have seen a 4 Pearl jam concerts so far this year, and the sweat of several thousand Pearl jam fans, we smell of a mixture of wet face cloths and male changing rooms.

The train to Milan takes just over 2 hours. We make the 12:48 with minutes to spare... which means we still haven't eaten today.

We explore the train for a Buffet carriage - no luck... we begin to crave, water, espresso and pasta... the combination that has set us up for so many previous adventures.

When we arrive at Milan main station, we are both famished and astounded by the grandiose architecturse of the station:

We make the stupid decision of heading quickly to the Bostonians Hotel and then getting something more substantial than what's offered at the station.

This puts us outside the hotel, thats in the middle of nowhere for about 4pm.... we assume we can get a quick bite to eat somewhere around the hotel... but we couldn't be more wrong. After an hour of walking around the streets of Milan in the baking heat looking at closed restaurants, we find ourselves tired and grumpy back at the Station, grabbing anything edible in the supermarket within the station.

By now, we are running out of time, so we get a taxi straight to the venue. It's the Fila Forum:

A pretty nice venue.... until we get inside and realise that there is no cloakroom yet again.... what is it about these venues... do they think people arrive from outside in the same attire as they stand in a moshpit in.... We wnder aroudn frustrated for a while before a wodneruflly nice friend who isn;t going deep into the crowd offers to take the bags.... yet again.. we have avoided protecting abag full of stuff in a mosh pit.

The security in Italy are quite strange. They insist that we stay seated on the ground before the bands come on and police this fact like bulldogs... It's maybe just to keep them busy till the show starts, cos it seems to serve no purpose other than to make our legs stiff from knelling down or crossing them.

It's something I've never done at a concert before. When we are finally told to step forward, there is a massive crush as people run over people that are sat down to make for the barrier.

My morning Jacket come on. I get a much better chance to see them tonight.

They are a really interesting band... at times they rock like no other with this huge wall of sound. At other times they are experimental and delicate:

One'things sure they are not consistant. The audience are getting restless, as wonderful as they are. Wolfmother was a much better warm up act.

Once again, we are waiting.... watching the clock.....

Once we hear Master/Slave(The opening instrumental from the first album), we know by now that Pearl jam are going to take to the stage.
What a way to start a gig... last night was the subdued release.. Tonight is the exact opposite..,. Possibly the most in your face riff Pearl jam have... Pearl Jam are here to take the roof off the place, and it's clear from the first note. I'd love to knopw if they warm up before the show... cos this is hards.... and they get it not perefect from the the first note.... Mike From here, there isn't a pause before they rock into Last exit... From the opener of Album 2 to the opener of Album 3....

Instead of going to Sometimes(Opener from Album 4), which would have been the natural progression, they keep the energy up and give us Save you, then World wide sucide. I seem to hear new lyrics in this song every time I listen to it. I've never been much of one to listen to lyrics. I tend to pick them up when I'm listening and then forget them once the song is over allowing me to rediscover them next time I listen. Sometimes I even have to listen to myself singing along to work out what the words are. This time the lyric is:

"That the president took for granted, Writing checques the whole world pays.:

Corduroy - and the audience start clapping to the riff as soon as it starts. This has been a rocking start to the concert.... and the crowd are alive as a result.

I don't have many photos, cos the crowd is pretty rough:

The band go into Severed Hand, the drums play such a role in this song, they are almost like tuned percussion playing along with the riff, antil that electric theme starts... and the bass follows every note... jamming along. The crowd know every word and every note...

Ed says good evening in Italian for the first time of the night, and then launches into a full translated speech.

Unemployable is next. A track from the new album. It was the B-Side to the first single. So it was one of the first track's made available. It's not been played that much this tour, in fact I don't think I've heard it since the Astoria.

Evenflow. It doesn;t get boring to listen to but its hard to put into words againa nd again... even though it's so different every night. For tonight, I have Mike right in front of me again. He's already nodded a few hellos to me which make my night.

I'm sure the band get faster at the solo to see if Mike can handle it....

Matt's on fire too rattling all over the kit and reminding us of his SOundgarden days...

They still don't play Moby Dick :-(

The world is dangerous, but it's safe in here tonight....

It can only mean, I am Mine... The first slow number and the second time I've heard this song. The first being at the Astoria. It's a good rousing song... a waltz... so the crowd don't know how to dance to it. That coupled with the slower nature of the song, means I get a breather from being squashed.

They stay with the slow mood, and give us the wonderful, beautiful, emotional Man of the hour.

MFC - Written 8 years ago on a drive from Roma to Portecali... Which is one reaosn to eb happy to be Italian... It's one of my favourite Pearl jam songs, and I;m glad to hear it. It has a rhythm and flow to it like Given to fly and so many others... that arpegiatted wave like motion that Ed is so good at.

Then... the Cello comes back out fo Daughter... after the song, once it breaks down... the audience wait around to see where the experimental tag to the song will go. We start with a Hey Ho Let's go tag like we got in Arnhem... which then turns into Pink Floyd's another brick in the wall...

"President Bush... Leave this world alone"

The crowd have picked up Ed's experimentationa dn are going with it.... I think it's the best version of Daughter I've heard this summer.

After this, it's another live first for me...Faithfull a meandering song with a meandering bass... it's a really great song... so I don;t know why they don;t play it more often... until the outro... I relaise. Mike doesn;t seem to ge able to rememebr the chords.... Jeff has to whisper them in his ear... They are Human!!!!

Ed announces that comatose will be next... He's either getting more confident about his the ability of his voice following comotose, or they are going home early tonight. It appears to be the former, cause State of Love and Trust comes up next,
and it's hardly a walk in the park. My voice is struggling already. I have never had the time, or clean living to recover my voice between concerts, and no matter how much I try to take it easy at each concert, I belt out the tunes and destroy my throat even more. The song just rocks like no other... and so early in the concert. We've had about three slow songs in an hour and a half, and I've been at the front for the whole time. The Italian's are going pretty crazy, so when the band kick into Why Go...I head out for a breather before I get damaged... It turns out the crowd is rougher a few metres from the front, then it is from the frotn, with full on slam dancing, so it;s a bit of a fight, but I eventually resurface near the toilets.. and head in to rehydrate myself....

When I come out, why go is finishing and I'm glad I went for water. I feel much better, and Ed is dedicating a slow tom waits cover to his daughter and girlfriend. It's pretty beautiful and much nicer to listen to it from somewhere with oxygen....

As Ed continues the slow set with Parachutes(Another first), I find some English girls I know from the Astoria and Verona. It gives me someone to head back in with... and we enjoy the rest of the show together. It was a good decision... cos the band start black, and I can sing along and enjoy the crowd's reaction from a comfortable space. I take my T-shirt off, it is absolutely saturdated in sweat. Having been in crowds in London, Arnhem, Antwerp, Barcelona, Verona and Milan so far this
year. I can officially report that the sweat in Milan is the smelliest so far.

The crowd roars out Black... an extra instrument that the song wouldn't be the same without. By the time the song ends... the crowd have taken over... clapping along their own beat and singing the backing vocals.... it's an amazing feeling....

It's such a warm cheer... as everyone's heart smile's to the fact that Crazy Mary is next. The crowd are in singing mode, and they belt out this as well... This song is one of the best. It provides a really emotional

sing-along, and then gives Boom a chance to shine, followed by a call and

answer solo session between Boom and Mike... Jesus these guys are good.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

A strange selection, this late in the show... Give to fly... which is the screen name of one of the girls I'm with. I boogy away and enjopy my space.. and notice that I reek of mixed concert sweat - eeeurgh.

The energy unfolds into Alive...which signals that the show is almost over... a roar eminates round the venue... as the riff envelops us to cue the sing-song. The crowd almost drowning out the band. The house lights are on and again you feel like you are at one with everyone aroudn you:

Then the solo kicks in and Ed goes crazy.... charging up the audience even more... Mike's on fire... widdling and twiddling upa nd down the frets...

The show's not as over as I thought it was... The band kick into Do the evolution.... maybe cos Stone wanted a solo after Mike's efforts on Alive.

The it's Big wave in case we forgot they have new material....Ed announces that the next song they are going to play is the song that they closed with in their first concert in Milan in 1992. It's leash... the song they never play... the second time I'm getting to hear it...

We rock out... the audience and the band are both on fire... and they keep it going by following leash with Rocking in the Freeworld.

It doesn't seem to last as long as the previous evening, but maybe that was more to do with the atmosphre of the Arena and having Mowgli on my arm.

From there, it can only go one way..... Yellow Ledbetter..... and my smile the width of my face.

We trickle out of the venue.... and try to kick off the party... we make our way ont he Metro system to the area that has been chosen for the after party meet up... we wander around aimlessly for what seems like an hour. By the time we finally get in a taxi and ask forthe bar... it's approaching 2am... and inevitably in this sleepy city that never seems to be open, the bar is shut.

We head back to our companion's hotel to find no room at the inn... luckily we get our heads down by 3am in the little 2 star... our body's aching from two days of euphoric Pearl Jam activity.

The Italian Job - Day 2 - Pearl Jam - Arena di Verona - 16.09.06

2006-09-16T13:37:00.002+01:00

We wake up late in the morning. The hotel is a little out of town. I feel surprisingly fresh given that I drank so much beer and got about 4 hours sleep. A good shower sets me up for the day, and I find myself back kilted and grunged. This gets a few strange looks when we take in breakfast in a little local restaurant.

When we get back to Piazza Bra, it only takes a couple of inquiries to find the other long haired man in a tartan skirt. It turns out that he slept in the park in the centre of Piazza Bra. His phone was out of credit so he wasn't able to find me in the 4 star relative luxury.

Everyone is looking a little bleary eyed.... the thought of 1 litre glasses of beer is turning stomachs. After a few pizza's people start to brighten up, and we find people slowly collecting in the same bar as the previous evening as if they never left.

The people are gathering almost as fast as the rain clouds are and at about 5pm the inevitable happens..... The heavens open....

The Arena di verona is the third oldest roman amphitheatre in the world... built in 30 AD and holding 30,000... This is where they used to feed the christians to the lions, and as such, it didn't come with a roof, but at least we won't need air conditioning:

So as you can see... Torrential rain storms could cause some problems, not the least of which could be a cancellation of the show.

This brings the spirits down... so what else can we do but try to bring them up... we do this by bleaching one of the guys hair. It provides us with a few laughs. The whole sight is quite strange. we are the only people not wearing coloured ponchos, so the concert is going to look like Pearl jam meets the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll circus:

Once we hear the opening chords of My Morning Jacket... we head for our seats.

This is one of the only concerts I have ever been to that has been all seated. I think I saw Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in 1994 when it was seated, but that was one of my first concerts, so I wasn't used to standing...

When we head into the place, the sight is pretty amazing... It really is a wonderful venue:

We find our seats, and then I head for some beer and popcorn. The beer is 4 euros for a small bottle, so I don't think we'll have many. It's Dominator:

It's crap.... it also says produced in Austria at XXXX Breweries GMBH, Munchen.... Bizarre.

Weak beer.... seated concert.... pop corn... this must be what America feels like.

We arrive half way through My Morning Jacket. We know we're seeing them tomorrow night, so we didn't see the point in standing in the rain to see the whole set.

My first impressions are that they are really interesting. They are very psychedelic, but, they also have avery southern USA, bluesy Lynard Skynard feel to them. They get as abstract as Sigur Ros in places, but they also have simple choruses and verses, it all comes together to make for a good band, but they are not the "let's get the party started" band that Wolfmother were.

After MMJ, the crowds start to pour in. We are entertaining the troops around us with a little bit of singing to try and convince them that you can rock out in a cagoul.

Pearl Jam take to the stage........ It's still raining....

They open with release..... it's amazing. The first time I've seen it live, and as opener. The first ever concert recording I knew of Pearl jam was the Atlanta show from 1994. It seemed such a brave way of opening a show.... and it still is. So delicate even after all these years... The rain is pouring down..... we're in a 2000 year old Amphitheatre and we're listening to one of the most beautiful songs in my CD collection.... life doesn't get much better than this.

The predictable move would be to head into something really heavy to kick off the show proper, but instead we get given to fly... it seems perfect... accompanied by the waves of rain which are pouring down on us. We are still some of the only people not cowering under umbrellas. I can't help enjoying the rain... looking up and watching the sheets come down dancing in the concert lights.

From given to fly we hit another favourite(aren't they all!!!), Corduroy. By now we've woken up those around us and we can hear every word getting belted out... That's one disadvantage to a seated concert, you don't know those around you unless you bought the tickets at the same time as them.

Th energy is starting to flow as the boys kick into World Wide Suicide. I'm amazed at how well everyone around us knows the words, albeit with strong Italian accents. The songs from the new album stand up really well to the classics, and I've heard them together so many times this summer that they are at one with the rest of the catalogue now.

The boys stay heavy with Do the Evolution, and the crowd follow... boogying down and singing along. The song is great fun... the band enjoy it and since the rain has started to wain, the crowd are moving around a bit more and removing some of the plastic wrapping. It's Stone's turn for a solo, and while he's no Mike Mccready... he holds his own.

From here it's back to the new album with Severed hand... the song has such a groove. Jeff has a such a great part to play. Sometimes when playing the bass, the parts can get a little boring, but you don't mind if it's a good song, but the bass on this song is really driving. The rhythm parts on the whole new album are like this. Not even dreaming of calming down for a moment.

I get very excited as I hear the opening chords of Love Boat Captain. It;s one of my favourite songs on riot act. Europe never got a tour for Riot Act, so we're as unfamiliar with these songs live as we are with the ones from the new album. The songs another delicate teary one. It's a real strength on the album. It mentions the 9 fans that died at the Pearl Jam concert in Roskilde in 2000, and talks about struggling with love.....beautiful....

Woo Hooo... from emotional... it;s a straight kick into Evenflow. Now evenflow should be getting boring by now. It's inevitable that it will be played, but it remains anything but boring... it seems to get faster every night... Mike enjoys it mroe every night.... floating on bend after bend... then exploding in a fury of notes. He truly is amazing... and continues to amaze.....

Then Matt takes over..... and you just stare in disbelief as the man who provided the back bone of such great bands as Soundgarden and Temple of the dog take his turn to astound. I'm no expert in drum solo's but what Matt does is keeps it short and sweet, and keeps the rhythm constant, just altering how he takes up the four notes i each bar by adding more and more notes, and robustly rocketing round the kit...

I have a great idea of where to go from here... the band should just come back on stage and kick into Moby Dick by Led Zeppelin... alas my telepathy seems to be on a different wavelength, and they just finish the song instead. I say "just" finish the song. Mike and Matt are so fired up that they finish the song sounding like the greatest band who ever picked up instruments...

We get more Riot act after this when the band kick into 1/2 Full. Another one that I know well, but have never seen live:

"Don;t see some men as half empty..... see them half full of shit"

Never a truer word spoken. Mike seems to be still fired up from evenflow, as the solo twiddles and meanders all over the place.

This is the first time I've seen Gone since the Astoria. It is a traveling song, where your trying to escape something... just like MFC, Untitled or Thumbing my way.... it was one of the first songs that was debuted live from the new album. It's an ed solo number thats slowly grown into a full band number. It starts so delicately and apprehensively... possibly cos someone doesn;t know the chords, but pairing the whole thing down into just two notes until it starts seems to add something to the emotion of the song. The song finishes with the refrain:

"If nothing is everything, then I have it all"

Something I still haven't managed to get my head round yet.

From the new to an old classic. I heard Not For You in Arnhem a few weeks ago. It was the type of song on Vitalogy that announced a new attitude in the band. Ed had picked up the guitar and the songs were getting, simpler(The rhythm part slides one chord around the guitar), darker and less accessible. I've alway though this change in direction gave the band it's longevity.

"Small my table - fits just three"

It used to be two... he's made an extra place for his daughter.

The band play Grievance from Binaural. Binaural is another inaccessible album for a few reason, not the least of which is that it's mixed to be listened to on headphones. It reminds me of my days in Byres Road in Glasgow studying for Exams. It's Matt's first album, so I always found myself listening intently to the drums when I first grew to love the songs. It's another song where Ed wonders about what the big guy in the sky is going to do about what's happening on the Earth. These songs are great to hear with the band in such high spirits. Maybe they have always been this good.... but Matt seems to be on fire.. maybe cos he had a hand in writing the song.

Back to the new album, another one that is quickly becoming an old classic, Marker in the Sand. It;s on the new album, so it has the same groove that they have instilled in all the rockers on this album. The drums thump out a riff... simpler than Jesus Christ pose, but still driving the song. we ask the big guy again...

"God what do you say"

The warmth of the B3 hammond organ takes us the finish in the song...

Ed asks for our help singing... as the bass twangs us into Jeremy. It's such a classic, that it feels strange to here. Alive is a rocker so you can just rock out to it and ignore how popular it is, but Jeremy is a sing along. I don't get excited about it, but I really enjoy singing along. Once the song comes to a close I really start to get into it, with the oo's and yeah's.... giving it our all. A choir of 40,000 in a 2000 year old amphitheatre..... the sound is so warm....

It's the first time I've witnessed Wasted Reprise. It;s not really a song, more of a little prayer to a Life Wasted... not sure what that is. but it might be about being a Betterman which it immediately precedes. The sing song that goes along with this has come to be expected. From the Astoria to Arnhem to Italy.... but the time the chorus comes along, the warmth of 40,000 people singing their hearts out just emanates around you. The band kicks in and do their job perfectly... the advice of the woman of the song to find a betterman turns in to a boogy with everyone shaking their rumps and singing along... oo's and ah's again....

Next is a bit of a surprise...Blood from VS. I've never seen it live either. It's a real thrash of a song... it must kill Ed's voice, but he rattles it out and the crowd lap it up.. clapping along and screaming along with him. It takes me a few chords in before I realise it's blood, it's that unexpected. But by the break down... the whole stadium is chanting "hey hey hey hey hey" ed laughs and takes longer to come in.

The band open the first Encore with Inside Job, the grandiose classic that is very quickly growing to a favourite.... Penned by Mr McCready but not losing anything in the lyrics as a result.

"Life comes from within your heart and desire."

It's so composed... owing little to the punky roots shown off in much of their other stuff... you can tell Mike's written it, he has such a penchant for grandiose metal, that we get wonderful band lead ballads like this.... The 12 strign guitar that Mike uses gives the sound an interesting edge.... and when Ed's vocals come in, it gets so emotional and delicate. It's definitely one of my favourite new songs of this tour.

When the song kicks in, you realise how mature a writing unit Pearl jam is. They can groove and rock, and ballad and acoustic love song, and this... I don't even know how to describe it. The song has such a build... bringing togetehr so many elements of their sound, but still drenched with that pearl jam DNA that wrenches at the heart strings....

Next Ed introduces a song in Italian and tells us its dedicated to his good friend Johnny Ramone. It's Come Back. Another first time live moment for me from the new album. I listened to the song before, but I never "Heard" it until tonight. The song is like some classic ballad from the 50's. It doesn;t really fit with pearl Jams style, but it works. The lyrics are so heart felt. Ed wondering what he can do without Johnny and pleading with him to comeback....

"Sometimes in the morning I wake ad I could swear your right there next to me"

a tear rolls down my face... maybe it's inside job... maybe it;s happiness.... or maybe it's just the beauty of the music...

Without a word, the band go straight into I believe in Miracles by the Ramones, as if the song needed any more energy it is charged with the moment of thought we've just given to Johnny... It's an encore song if ever there was one, and the crowd stop holding anything back.... they know it's full on from, here on in.

I'm not wrong, Ed plays a slowed down acoustic opening to Porch, and you just know that the band are gonna kick in..... It rocks away like nothing else... The song that ed always went wild to in the early days has lost none of it's punch. ONce the instrumental starts(with some wailling notes from Mike) The band get into a little huddle and play all four of them together... enjoying the Music and the Jam.. it;s phenomenal to see them doing this, they genuinely seem to enjoy these songs as much as we do. The notes are exploding everywhere... it's a full on Pearl "jam" just like we grew up listening to on Reach Down and so many other songs... Jeff is twiddling around, while Mike wails, and Matt seems to play faster than humanly possible around the kit.. while the Rhythm guitars hold it all together and punctuate it with little stabs of sound.....

When the vocals kick back in the crowd and the band are charged with something that can;t be described. The band sound like they are hardly able to contain the explosion of energy......

One way of ensuring that new songs are tattooed onto our brains is to play them straight after Porch. Life wasted blends straight into the almost delirious feeling we have after Porch. The band have a similar energy to the crowd and the song is really rough and raw. The song wails in the outro, with Mike Tremolo picking his way to explosion.....

Encore number 2 starts, and a some bad Italian counting to 3 signals the start of Elderly woman in a Small Town. It gives us a good sing song. There's little that can be said about it... we clap along and belt out every word... At the end of the song, the band are up to something.... Jeff knocks out a couple of notes, that are corrected by Mike and played in the correct key..... could it be????? The band are actually covering My Sharona. They car on Instrumentally for a little while, then Ed mumbles rhythmically along t the music, then sings "My Verona".... the band can;t do anything for laughing... and neither can the crowd...

Who says this band have no humour?????

From here we get Once... making the set a pretty Ten oriented night.... we started with the last song on ten and we're getting the first pretty close to the end. It's rough and ready and angry....

Alive signals the beginning of the end... and the crowd goes wild. We sing along until mike wails along to the solo, and Ed starts going wild running around, and at one point even slipping on the wet stage...

The last chords of alive finish as the first chords of Rocking in the freeworld start. Boom's piano is hammering out the chords along with the guitars.

"The colours on the street - green, white and red..."

......instead of red white and blue. we seem to be ion Italy.

After alive, this has us up on the tops of our seats. We know the shows nearly over, so we give it our all. we're singing at the tops of our voices. The lights are up and the 40,000 or so people circulated around us are doing exactly the same. It's a wonderful feeling. Mowlgi and I have our arms roudn eahc other's shoulders and we dance precariously along to Rocking in the Freeworld. Like they can feel the crowd willing them on... the song goes on forever. It's extra long... but we don;t care as we soak up the energy of solo after solo.....

From here, only the inevitable will do... Yellow Ledbetter signals the time to look back on the evening and the set list and appreciate just what an amazing night it was... looking at how happy the multi-coloured waterproof clad crowd are.. and enjoy everyone singing to the wonderful tones of mike, who is sitting with his legs dangling off the edge of the stage.

Amazing.... A truly amazing gig. When we get outside, it would appear that every T-shirt printer in Italy has been working for the past month on printing off some of the worst Pearl Jam T-Shirts I have ever seen. Random logo with Pearl Jam written in a random font beside it etc.

Bizarrely(considering we were in the middle of the crowd) we are the first to the bar. Okay it wasn't that bizarre, but I was a little surprised. The little waiter greets us... "table for 2?".... we reply with " No. 40-60 please". It's at this point that I realise that we've attended this concert with such an entourage.

The night is wonderful. We drink sensibly and talk of the memories of the evening. It feels like it was a truly great experience and a concert that will be talk about for years to come, not just because of the actual concert, but everything that surrounded it.... friends... drinks... parties etc.

We leave the bar. We have negotiated a floor to sleep on in an apartment rented by two guys from Boston.

On the way back to the apartment, we come across a bridal party. They ask if they can get photos of us with the bride in our kilts. We get the inevitable ass shot:

One of the bridal party mentions photos of the fountain. It takes Mowgli and I all of 2 minutes to be paddling in the fountain. I'm reasonably sensible, but Mowgli is diving in and out of the pool before long - in a kilt.....

He tries to get me in. Amazingly... the little man can't get the better of the big man. I point out to him, that ten metres of wool and a sporran are not waterproof. Mowgli comes to the realisation that the contents of hi sporran(Phone, Passport and wallet) are soaked... he realised why I didn;t want to go in.

We walk to our beds for the night with Mowgli dripping wet.

This weekend... one down one to go....

The Italian Job Day 1 - Verona

2006-09-15T13:32:00.001+01:00

This Pearl Jam weekend has us in Verona on Saturday night and Milan on Sunday night, so we are heading to to Verona once I finish work on friday.

we arrive at Schiphol and the flight is delayed, so we have plenty time to fill up on some food to fuel the evening's festivities. Pearl Jam are playing at the Arena di Verona....

So the beautiful venue coupled with the small city, coupled with the number of fans attending all 5 of the Italian dates of the tour means that the party is going to kick off tonight.

When we finally arrive at the Train Station in Verona by bus from the Airport, we kind of use gut instinct to head to the centre of town. I have been working to hard, and Mowgli's been catching up on sleep, so we are not very well prepared logistically for this event. The arena is large, and Verona is small, so we make a good job(via a few fellow Pearl jam fans), of finding Piazza Bra. From here it's not difficult to find the largest group of drinking Pearl jam fans. This is centred around the Norwegian's who are following the band round all the dates in a tour bus.

There's lots of friends from previous Pearl jam events, and it really feels like a family affair. As a result it takes us around 30 seconds to have one of these in our hands:

The beer is sold in litres which is just a recipe for disaster. Luckily we arrive late.. around 11... so we avoid drinking too much... but by 4am... the bar closes and we have had in excess of 8 pints of beer. Someone very annoyingly suggests that we head onto another bar... it's annoying, because we accept... so we eventually find ourselves wandering around Piazza Bra at 6am... trying to find a taxi...I'm shattered. It's been a very long week at work... and an all night beer session was not exactly what we needed to prepare for the weekend... but wooo hooo it was fun. All the fans together, super excited about the concert and loving our Pearl Jam summer.

In the drunken wanderings.... I lost Mowgli. I've managed to negotiate a spare bed in a 4 star hotel with some other fans.....

I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Pearl Jam and Wolfmother - Barcelona

2006-09-01T10:27:00.001+01:00

I'm much more refreshed by the time I am boarding a plane to Barcelona with Mowgli, the only problem is that when I finally got that elusive full nights sleep I've been chasing for 7 weeks, I woke up to find that my body had totally failed on me. My nose is running off my face, and the gunge in my throat is making me wonder whether I'll be able to sing along to the last three hours of this week's 9 hour Pearl jam sing-along fest.

We are leaving Luke at home to discover Amsterdam, although I think he's more likely to catch up on some sleep.

Because we've slept, we are already high as kites when we board the plane The journey can't pass quick enough, and our itchy feet are further frustrated when we touch down and realise it's about a 45 minute train ride into the centre(Or it seems that long.)

About an hour later, we arrive at the venue. It's in Badalona on the outskirts of Barcelona.

When we get there, there are lots of Catalans sitting around outside the venue. We are far too early. There's a group of Pearl jam fans who are going round the whole tour in a bus, and we seek them out with a few text messages and phone calls.

We head to a pharmacy to try and find a cough bottle for me. The pharmacist speaks no english at all so lets me go through the back to the store room and look for something suitable. I pick up something that looks like a cough bottle("Por el chesty cough") and pay for it. I could have had anything in the store room....

We get no response from our phone calls and sms's, so we decide to head for the pub instead. Low and behold, all the guys we were phoning and texting are in there already. We catch up on how the tour has been and what everyone has ben up to since the Astoria gig or wherever we last saw them.

A couple of beers in we're joined by The Diamond geezer... he is the real deal Cockney Lad and we know him from the Astoria. He has been looking for the crazy sweaty socks since sometime yesterday. We were the only people at the Astoria that drank in the same style as him. He seems to be continuing the trend, as he has what can only be described as a bucket of Sangria.

We catch up on what he's been up to, get a few more drinks in and then head out to get our tickets.

The place is starting to get busy now, and we pose for a few photos in our kilts.

It's now just a waiting game till we get into the show...... We buy some posters and put them in our ruck sacks, since we have no where to stay as of yet, I donlt fancy the poster's chance of getting home in one piece.

..... we finally get into the venue. We have ten club ticket which gets us in 15 minutes early, so the place is empty when we arrive.

First port of call is the cloakroom to put our bags in. We wander around the circular corridor that surrounds the main arena. Everyone we ask, either doesn't speak english or doesn't know where there's a cloakroom. At one point we get a mouthful of Spanish from security. I say "No hablo espanol", so they just ignore us.

Before long, we're behind the stage. Not back stage as far as we know, just literally behind the stage. There's four guys playing table tennis. We know who two of them are; Mike McCready and Jeff Ament, the lead guitarist and bass player of Pearl jam. Initially I tell Mowgli that we should leave them to it, but he convinces me that I'm unlikely to ever meet members of Pearl jam again.

We walk up to them. What do you say when faced with your all time heros, the people who have written so much of the music that is and was the soundtrack to your life... I decide that we have to treat them like normal guys. I'm determined, I'm not going to approach them with every cliche they've heard before. I think I may take normal a little overboard:

"Guys. The security is a pretty lax in here, you any idea where the cloakroom is, we need somewhere to put our bags."

They are a little flabbergasted. It's either the fact that we were able to walk straight back stage, or the fact that we are in kilts with saltires round our necks...

Mike points at my hat that he recognises from the night before, and says "The hat". Mowlgi is busy accosting Jeff and telling him that he would bet him at Table tennis any day, and trying to show him his 1992 season seattle sonics basketball shirt, that he bought on ebay cos he saw jeff wearing one in an early Pearl jam photo....

The guys are pretty sweet if a little shocked. I'm determined all the way through to give them their space, so I tell Mowgli that we should head off... but only after one very quick thank you...

"Thanks for the music guys. Have fun tonight"

Now considering my whole existence wanted to dive at their feet and shout "we're not worthy!!!!!" I think I did okay. We get back into the main arena, and we sit down. I'm shaking.... Hee Hee... we just met Mike and Jeff!!!!!

We still haven't found a place to put our bags, so we juggle things about a bit, putting the most valuable things in our Sporrans. We speak to some of the security and pay them a couple of beers each to stick our bags in at the sound desk that they're looking after. Cerveza goes a long way.

By now Wolfmother are ready to go on. It's been strange seeing a band three times in one week who are new to you. They've really grown on us, and I know that whatever happens in the future, I'll definitely follow their career. It's their last night on the tour, so they thank Pearl jam and the fans as they play.

I notice Mike is at the left of stage watching them, so I assume that when the singer introduces a special guest, it's going to mike. It turns out to be eddie. He does a phenomenal version of Mind's Eye. This is possibly in return for the Hungerstrike duets that have been going on. The crowd go wild.... It's a wonderful song, and ed adds a couple of extra notches to how good it is. As good as Wolfmother are, Ed out classes them by so much and raises, a pretty good band with a pretty good song, to an experience you'll tell your grandchildren about. Ed even gets some tambourine action going a la Baba O'Reilly

It's over as soon as it started, and we rock along to Wolfmother once again, until halfway through Joker & The Thief, Mike joins the band on stage to wail and twiddle along with andy to the solo... It's some of the best leads I've seen live from mike, mainly cos they are so off the cuff. He's really enjoying himself as well....

Just 45 minutes before, I was talking to him while he played ping pong :-)

Wolfmother head off stage. It may be just me, but I feel they've grown more used to the audience, they seem to be playing less songs, but making them a little longer amore experimental.

Soon, we're at that apprehensive stage again, where we are waiting for Pearl jam to take to the stage. We chat to those around us, and buzz on the excitement of those around us. There's a 15 year old girl, who's at her first concert. It' strange to think she was born the year the first album came out. It makes me feel old, but also brings home just how long this music has been an integral part of my daily life.

The band come on stage and Mike's guitar tech hands him a twin necked guitar. This could mean one of two things, Either they are going to open with Inside Job, the last track on their new album, or they have decided to start covering stairway to heaven. It ends up being the former.

Inside Job is a bit of a strange song for Pearl Jam. It's very "written", and you can kind of feel that... at first, I didn't really like it(I never like new Pearl jam on first listen), but then the chorus kicks in and you get that Pearl jam DNA in the sound that I mentioned I feel in "In Hiding". There's two tracks like that on the new album, Gone and Inside Job.... The rest of them just burn away slowly until you see them live one day and realise they sit fine with all the classics.

Inside job builds with so much energy, that the beautiful instrumental introduction gives way the a thumping power... the perfect opener...

The band kick straight into Corduroy. The audience use the energy well, they are chanting "yeah, yeah, yeah" furiously from the Riff onwards... It rocks as always... and sits nicely beside inside job.

One things clear, it's going to be a hot night. 2 songs ina nd the whole band is dripping with sweat. The audience are the same....

From the new to the old back to the new..... World Wide Sucide is just kicking it every single night. I can play the main chords on the guitar, and its one of those songs thats just great fun to play to. It's strange to think that it was completely new to us only six month before. Mike rips with such ease, and the band hold together like no other.

When Animal starts, it;s such a classic in your head that you have to readjust during the riff to work out which foot to the floor rocker it is. You forget how amazing the stuff from that period was. The lead son this song are amazing, yet he plays them with such ease. Maybe World Wide Suicide isn't that new.

From there, the speed and energy stays up and we stick with Verses, kicking into dissident. What a riff... what a song.... to think i thought it was weak compared to ten when it first came out. I suppose it's proved itself and stood the test of time.

Then the rolling ball of energy crashes onto the shore in a wave that is called Given To Fly. As good as the studio version is... the energy of a crowd feeling the music coupled with the music could be used as an alternative power source.

I don't know who's writing these sets, but the way the play with the crowd is amazing. Maybe it would just be the same if the songs came on at random, maybe its just Pearl jam.. They kick into Breakerfall which uses a (ahem) hommage to "i can see for miles" by the who.... It's such an amazing riff that when the song kicks in it's a great album starter and seems to fit perfectly with the energy we're experiencing at the moment.

Mike spots my hat and give me a smile. The obviously thought we were reasonably bizarre when we walked up to them tartan clad and inquired about cloakrooms.

There's a delicate apprehensive start.... some chords we recognise... and we realise it's an adapted version of In my tree from No Code. I say it so often, but the songs on this album are filled with so much that they can be adapted, and mean so much. I don;t often listen to lyrics, but I've caught these and I think they are amazing.... climbing the tree of knowledge in search of something that turns out to be your innocence. Some acoustic power chords and the song builds on the groove and rips with energy. As it builds to a climax, it gets louder and slower.... and the power and energy builds... I'm very glad to witness it live.

A special treat...... and from it into what has become a required expectation. I think it would be really interesting to see what happened if they didn't play evenflow. Would people(like Mike) ask for their money back. As usual, mike's going for full audience participation during the verses and choruses, he spots me again, and I mime ping pong with him, getting a belly laugh......

....Senor Mike McCready

Bendy bendy... into the one note.. getting more furious and feedbacky... then speed ... bluesy furious speed.... must be the heat. The guitar just wails in his hands... the hands I watched play ping pong not that long ago... the hands that I tried not to stare at...

He builds to join Jeff and Stone on augmenting the riff, before collapsing into noise. and a random little solo of triad chords... Matt is getting more furious as Mike builds to some wailing one note bends... before twiddling his way back down and then getting murky, as Stone starts some sort of arpeggio form.... For a second it becomes a battle... then they are gone and Matt takes over....

Arnhem was really robust and clear, but we're now getting something a little more adventurous... with matt flip flopping all over the toms, with less of a backbone beat to it. It thuds away..... if graphology is the study of personality from hand writing, then there has to be an equivalent to work out people's moods from what they are playing....

The band kick back in and join the audience's energy. The audience yeah and scream along.... before erupting along to Mike's outro riff.

I'm very proud of what happens next. At each concert Mowgli and I have tried to recreate the Argentina bootleg when the whole stadium chant "Ole Ole Ol Purrell Jam Purrel Jam" throughout the whole concert. It's never caught on at any of the concerts, but after Evenflow, the spaniards join in.... if only for a little while.

Eddie thanks Mike and Matt, the evenflow double act and kicks into You Are. A really inaccessible song from Riot Act. Really dark, but a really gem. It's been written by Matt, and you can't always tell what is drums and what is guitar, as the guitar plays througha noise gate and intermingles with the drum beat. It's pretty experimental and also pretty 80's. I really like it and I love how brave Pearl jam can be with their music.

They don't always have to be experimental though, and they prove it by kicking into State Of Love And Trust. A song thats dear to me as it was the first song I played live on the guitar in front of an audience. It was an audience of grandmothers, who were there to see a brass band concert. But to us it was wembly.

Pearl Jam play it considerably better than we did. But it's charged with the same energy.... An energy that doesnn;t abate, as the band kick into Whipping. This song just takes off. I'm always impressed that Jeff can remain zen like, he plays really simple robust intelligent bass lines, but is happy to stay in the back ground and doesn't try to complicate matters by showing off. For 15 years!!!! This song shows how amazing he is. The bass is lightening fast. If I was him, I demand they play it more often. It's a joy to hear, and I'm amazed they can still play it with such energy. I keep expecting them to show their age, but they never seem to.

The heat is begining to get unbearable. The bouncers are passing out water, but you have to hold your mouth open and wait for them to give you about a cap full. It;s nowhere near enough to satisfy you, just enough to keep you alive. The air is also very hot, you feel like you;re just breathing vaourised sweat.

After Whipping we get an alternative(read "mistake-ridden") interpretation of the classical piece Romanza which falls away to give us the chord for betterman. With an audience like this, you don't need vocals until at least the second verse. Ed loves it and seems to genuinely appreciatte the love he's getting from this audience. The band kicks in and we rock off.

ed starts a call and answer at the break down. It almost turns into reggae. I bet the 22 year old eddie vedder nver though that in 1988(or whatever) when he wrote that song, that he's be playing it to 10's of 1000's of people as a sing along almost 20 years later. It;s a funny world.

Do The Evolution just makes me danceabout. It;s a good song, but there's little I can say about it. It rocks away and is a good time for me to realise that I am boiling. The sweat is dripping off me. I am unsure if I can stay right at the front until the end. I dream of sinking my face into a cold basin of water in the toilets.

From Do the Evolution, we take to Life watsed like the water we wish we had to drink. I keep on saying it, but it's pretty impressive how easily the new stuff blends with the old. This is Eddie in the zone. He gets to punk out on this shong,. The words always have augmentations and he seems to really enjoy himself.

Life wasted is still working with me. I'm really feeling the heat. I've got to the stage, that I've no energy left. I'm concentrating on standing up instead of listening to the music. But I'll see what happens next.....

Two nights ago, I heard Black live for the first time in my life. Nothing can compare to that experience. This time I actually get to have an "In body" experience and enjoy it. The Audience are on fire, as they have been all night. At one point it breaks down into nothing except ed and some clapping and it's just an amazing moment. Eddie breaks down to the "we belong together" extra lyrics from MTV unplugged... The music is drifting along on the audiences memories. It's moved beyond guitars and drums... and just rests in the combined feeling of the audience. It's beautiful.

From here, I'm very proud of what happens. We've been singing "ole ole ole since the astoria, with out "Purrel Jam Purrel jam" bad Argentinean/Scottish accents/ Now you can hear them on the boot, and whats more, it develops into a whol audience thing, and then the band join in. I love, when ed tells the rest of the band that the second chords a minor. I would never have though Ed was the most musically gifted of the band. Maybe he just got lucky.

For some reason the last time I heard us influence the band in a bootleg(Astoria Kilt Incident), they started elderly woman behind the counter in a small town. Tonight is no different. I finally wimp out and head for some water. I know its just going to be a sing song. A great sing song, but I need water.

I head out and realsie what the problem is. teh seated audience seem to be able to walk into the main standing area, so there's no one in seationg, ans it;s as busy as the mish pit right to the back wall. The crowds actually pile back into the corridor for about 10 metres with no eyeline to the band.

I get to the toilets, take off my sub pop t-shirt and soak my head in water. It revives me. I can physically feel myself waking which is worrying. I drink about ten pints of water, then fill every bottle I can find and head for a seat.

It's really interesting to take the time to listen without worrying for your safety in a crowd. The band have broken into Crazy Mary while I refreshed myself, and I chill for a little while I drink a few more pints of water while contemplating what to do next. The crowd is thick for about 40 metres. Shoulder to shoulder. I hope I should be able to get "Mowgli-Deep" for the encores. Most important is to take as much water back into the crowd as possiblem as it;s a commodity in there.

As I head back to the toilet, the security looking after our bags comes and speaks to me in drunken unintelligable spanish. I collar a mexican we were talking to in the ten club queue and ask him to translate. It translated roughly to:

" She you... your like pure brilliant.... you gave me beer and I'm looking after your bag, and your bag is soooooooo shafe.... soooooo shafe.... it's like a shafe happy bag , all safe and bag like..."

I think he may have taken a few other bags for cerveza deals.

I go and collect 8 bottles of water and stick them in my waistband... then put 4 pints of water i each hand. I head through the crowd, as boom and Mike are doing some major soloing. Listening back the solom exchange is amazing, there's even a wee nod to the alive solo, but I'm too busy accidentally dropping water on people. They are very appreciattive and even more surprised when I hand out water. My theory is that if they have water, then i won't be breathing air that is so purely sweat, they might excrete some water too. By the time I get into view of Mowgli's trilby. I have one pint of water and one bottle. I give Mowlgi the bottle - he needed it. He;s looking rough, but a quick splash of water and Pearl jam encore will pick up most men.

The band kick into Comotose, and as I say, it;s the home straight from here, which is a shame, but it also means that we could get some really cool stuff from now on. Mike tears apart the lead incomotose as always... leaving as little for later as eddie does with his voice.

From here, the band go into alive. I've come to see it as a reasonably interesting song that makes a good singsong and solo and is a little cliched. How wrong could I be. This version is blistering the solo seems to build in energy throughout and just get more amazing with every note. The song just becoems a mind blowing ball of energy. The chant of "Hey" along to the beat of the solo charges the whole experience with so much, and the band are definately thriving on it... everyone is feeling the groove and driving the groove forward - jesus I'm a hippy.

I'm now settled back down the front of the audience, and I'm soooooooo glad I went to get refreshed. I am now rocking away with all these dead bodies around me.

The second encore starts with Why Go? Now becoming an expected standard.... but owww what a standard.... with its old school Ten-esque sound and it's lightening solo it's just so..... so ...... alive..... as is Pearl jam. 2 hours in and no abating.

From here, ed name checks some more idols and gives us some ramones, but we don't mind. I believe in miracles has become a standard in the pearl jam set. It kicks off and really gets us going. This late in the set, so we can't hope for many more songs, but we're ready for another 20 songs at least during this song.

After this, Ed introduces Andew Stockdale, and they do Hungerstrike. It doesn;t hit me with the immense delight and supise that it did the previous evening, but I still it's an amazing song and I sing away like I don;t need a throat for the rest of my life. And from hungerstrike, we hit Baba O'reilly, which means on of two things. I'm gonna tock out, cos it;s one of my favouritesm but also that we get to watch some intricate tambourine juggling from our vocal team of Ed and Andrew Stockdale....

After such happiness and euphoria....and such an amaxing audience, it can only end.

Yellow Ledbetter spells the the end of the show once again, and what a show. I've never been in such a thick crowd. The heat was immense, unbearable at times, but the feeling of the crowd as one big beast oozing to Pearl jam was phenomenal.

Once the gig is finished, we head back to the mixing desk to pick up our bags. The sozzled security have done their job well and our bags(Including poster) are intact.

We head outside, bare chested with kilts dripping with sweat all along the bottom. It really feels like we are coming out of battle, and we are certainly victorious!! The concert goers all explode onto the street... filled with euphoria, and with ringing ears.. so many smiles and memories...

From here, we meet the diamond geezer and a few others and head along the street a little to the Metro station. By the time e finally get on the metro, it's wall to wall Pearl jam fans... so we start a sing song of the "ole ole" chant. It ges down well and the whole carriage is going for it.

I could travel all night in the tram and just sing all the Pearl jam songs, but we arrive at our stop. We've befriended a couple of locals who are going to take us to a few bars. when we finally get to the bars, it's grungey and dingey, which is god, but it seems to resemble a youth club, so it's not quite our bag... We have a couple of bottles of beer and head on...

We head to the La Ramblas via metro and bus... the only problem is that it's now about 3am... The adrenalin has left us with absolutely no concept of time.

After a MacDonalds, to keep us going(It's the only thing open) we seek out an all night party. We've heard Barcelona doesn't stop, so we're ready for anything. Everywhere seems to be closed,. there's a few clubs open, but the music emanating from them sounds very un-pearl jam, so we decide against the €15 entrance fee.

We spend the rest of the evening wandering La Ramblas and talking to Pearl jam fans who recognise us, our wristbands or our T-Shirts.

The Diamond Geezer has a double room booked in a hotel somewhere on the outskirts and has assured us that it will be like Travellodges in the UK and we'll be able to sleep there. It's now about 5am, so it's going to be a pretty short sleep.

We head out in a taxi. We arrive at the hotel and head to the lift. The receptionist objects. We try to protest, and he says that he's calling the police. I ask him if he has other rooms. His english is not so good, and he just freaks out. He refuses to have a conversation. It may be the kilts, it may be the cockney accent, or he may just be suspicious of people who are awake at 5.30 am and have only had 2 bottles of beer.

The Diamond Geezer heads for his stuff, and then we sit outside and wait for the police to arrive. It takes a little while, but I know that if we walk away we are instantly in trouble. So we sit on a park bench and hope to hell that they speak English. Two police cars turn up. Luckily it's just local police and not Garda Civil. There's about 8 of them. The boss speaks good english and soon realises that it's complete over kill. He checks our passport and then asks us if we want to go back to Barcelona. "that would be wonderful" I say, assuming he's going to be giving us a lift. "Bus number 5 leaves from around the corner!!"

By 6am, we're back on La Ramblas, I'm not relishing the thought of sleeping on a park bench anywhere in Barcelona, about two blocks in we find a hostel. It turns out that it's really nice, and only 20 euros a night.... we settle down for a some well deserved kip, poster intact....

We booked flights to come back late Saturday night in the hope that we could see a little bit of Barcelona on the Saturday. With only about 5 hours sleep, the plane time, has become a nuisance, and we find ourselves wandering round the centre of Barcelona in a daze, discussing memories of the previous evening, other concerts, and music in general. It's a wasted day, but looking back it reminded me of days I used to spend when I was 17... you'd go out on the saturday and then spend the sunday discussing music and concerts and the night before and life...

Thats what this day was like. The only difference, is the bizarreness, that we can take a one day trip to Barcelona, meet Pearl Jam, nearly get arrested, and then hang around the centre, of Barcelona as if it was our back garden.....

....Back to Amsterdam for two week's rest before the next Pearl jam weekend.

Pearl Jam and Wolfmother - Antwerp

2006-08-30T10:27:00.001+01:00

I'm like a zombie at work... but I'm a really charged zombie. I spend the whole day working like a trojan and wanting to tell everyone I interact with that I saw Pearl Jam last night and I'm going to see them again tonight.

Mowgli and Luke are heading off to Antwerp on an earlier train to ensure that if there is any special bit for Ten Club ticket holders that we are getting in the front tonight. This means that I'm getting the two hour train to Antwerp on my own. I roll up in a ball on the seat and try to get some shut eye before I arrive in Antwerp... I wake up with half an hour to spare, and start the ritual of necking cans of red bull and liquid meals and getting togged up... I get a few looks as the rough looking guy sleeping in the fetal position, turns into tartan clad, wide awake Pearl jam man.

By the time I get to Antwerpen Berchem, I'm so excited that I just have to get a taxi to the Sportpaleis. The taxi driver says "Pearl jam" when I get in, I don;t even have to mention the Sportpaleis. Either Antwerp is dead mid-week, or this event is going to kick off.

I meet Luke at the door, and he hands me my ticket... Now I'm ready to rock.... I'm really excited tonight.... I think yesterday, I was tired and had too much admin surrounding the gig. The 2 hour sleep on the train has done me good.

We walk in to the arena, and it’s a much nicer sight than the previous evening. Although it's large, and will hold a lot of singing lungs, it's intimate, we can be right down the front quite easily. Mowgli is already kicking of the audience and has found some Australians to chew the fat with. Mowgli and I leave Luke with them, as we head off to get in the beers.

After asking for about 397 different belgian beers of the bar, we settle for the Bastard Love Child of Tennents and La Chouffe:

We spend a while wandering around and getting acquainted with the venue and our fellow concert goers for the night. We come across some scousers. We start talking to them, cos the guy has got the coolest suit jacket I have ever seen. His Girlfriend made it:

I told her she should start selling them on ebay, so if you see them there, then it was my idea.

We generally wander around until wolfmother take to the stage. Last night I didn't say much about wolfmother. Truth is I've had the album for about 6 months, an they really really Rawk! Anyone who's a fan of meat and 2 veg rock could do worse than go out and buy this album:

Having seen them the previous evening, it's good to be up close and to get a good look at what they do. What they do is provide a great live act over some rocking tunes. They have a really fat sound for a three piece, with Chris Ross moving between bass and organ duties. He actually plays organ in a way that would merit the invention of "air organ"... never residing to be upstaged by the not so inanimate object that he's playing:

In fact the two legs of the organ are rarely on the ground at the same time.

What's wonderful is that the pearl jam fans seem to have taken the band to their hearts and rock out to the whole set, with most fans knowing a fair percentage of the words. We're lucky to be standing with some Australians, so since wolfmother are australian, we suggest getting a sing song going that will make them feel at home. The ozzies respond with a tuneless chant, of "c'mon lads, show's yer tits. Get yer titz out son... c'mon", hilarious....

Once Wolfmother have left the stage, it's a case of waiting and keeping the energy and excitement up before the boys take to the stage. We wave the Saltire, and Mowgli starts a chant of "There's only one flag in Belgium":

It's soon joined by some guys at the front flying an Irish tri-Colour, so we sing "there's only 2 flags in Belgium"....

Pearl jam wander out on the stage to rapturous applause, as always there's little said by eddie or anyone else, they just start a bit of Pink Floyd- Interstellar Overdrive... a little more raucous than the subdued start of last night...It's the same start as Reading... and it fades away into Corduroy.... The clapping starts to the riff and and then the real gig starts as soon as Matt hits that first note, and the band join in.... and then it just kicks off "The waiting drove me mad".... maybe a dry joke relating to Pearl jam's never having played in Belgium.

It's much better being at the front, and its actually not crushed at all, just comfortable and 1 metre away from your idols.

Ed alters the lyrics and says "Can't buy what I want because it's peace... can't be what I want because I'm peaceful"

Once the song breaks down, we get our first mike wails of the night, I love the Vitalogy period wails, they are so bluesy that you can almost smell the dust. He really lets rip.... and we all know he's just warming up.

There's no stop and they are straight into Animal from VS. If Ten is the holy grail, and Vitalogy is the album that opened them up to experimentation, then VS gets lost in-between as an album full of amazing songs. It does in my mind anyway. Daughter and Rearviewmirror are obviously constantly on set lists, but animal's one I often forget about.... and how can you, it has some of the fastest Mike lines in their canon...

It's a pretty in your face beginning, and they don't let off. It's straight into Hail hail from No Code. Probably my favourite album if I have to decide. The band are on fire. Matt's ride cymbal kicks in at the chorus, and you know that they're upping the ante an playing a little faster than they should be. It's pumping along with the adrenalin flowing through our hearts...

They're just not going to let up tonight.... Ed with an Ebow in his hand, means that it's World Wide Suicide next, a classic, and it's only been out 6 months:

The band seem to clearly enjoy the new stuff. Mike dances and shakes a groove all the way through... he seems to have specific actions for all the different parts of the song... and side by side with World Wide Suicide comes Severed hand. It sounds like a foot to the floor simple rocker, which it is, but there is a ,lot of complexity in what they do. The trick is to make it sound simple. I suppose thats why the band has been around for so long. Their new stuff drips with both simplicity and professionalism. Mike still gets a chance to twiddle his way out of the song, which the rest of the band are a rock solid back bone providing the groove.

Back to vitalogy, and we get the moody Not For You.... I love the grimace sing that Ed does on this song. He's got an issue with a few people and he isn't afraid to put it in a song. You would not want to make an enemy of this man. Although Not For you isn't fast, it's loud and churning with attitude, and balls. Thats 6 loud rockers that get the heart pumping, with no pause... no hello, no nothing... just rock, this case Bluesy rock of the Vitalogy nature same as corduroy. When it ends... Ed starts a little arpeggio and lands on a tag of Modern Girl by Sleater Kinney:

It's beautiful. Maybe Ed knows that if you hit hard with 6 rockers, and then go delicate, that it makes the light and dark so wonderful. I don;t have time to ponder. They continue the delicacy with In hiding, my favourite track from Yield.

I love this track. Loads of fans go on about Yield as being Pearl jam's best post Ten album. While I like all the songs, in places it's a little light. This song was the one for me on that album, the note Ed hits in the chorus, can't be done without feeling the music, and the meandering soloing of Mike just carries so much Pearl jam history in it. I can't put into words, but this song was raw Pearl jam DNA oozing out of it. The really old school stuff. Only Pearl Jam could have written this song in my mind for some reason, and now almost 10 years later, I'm standing watching it ive for my first time with Matt classing up the place and driving the whole thing along... The whole thing meanders off and then there's no pause for the "eddie eddie" chants before we hit full pelt again. This time it's back to the new album... unemployable.

The band are the tightest they've ever been on this new stuff, it all seems to gel so well. Every component of the band has their own parts intertwined in the music. Whn it finishes, the band are back to "eddie eddie" ....

Ed responds with a "Goede Abend"...Ever the poet – Eddie says “finally we're here.. we finally landed and thank you for being here to catch us”

Ed says that he's completely fluent in Dutch and French, but that since Belgium can't decide what language to speak, he'll just use english...

Now we ebb and flow into Given to fly... for some reason the song always makes me feel at home with the boys, most of the songs are a secret among those in the know anyway... but this song feels like it's just the fans and the band against the rest of the world. I love the way it closes, it always brings a tear to my eye, there's memories locked in the outro... I don't know what they are, but like smell they can zone you straight in on an emotion.

hee hee....a wicked laugh from everyone present and we kick into evenflow... we're off!!!!!

It's all just foreplay before mike....

Then bendy bendy bend... and matt definately kicks faster as the solo starts... long solo notes getting slightly higher and more furious... like the whoel things going to explode, then tremolo picking and down a wail of notes... then stone stops the riff and mike just lets rip, i can never tell if he's twiddling or bending, but neither can he.... the band explode and groove around mike, who's off in a world of his own.

Always one to mix it up, we get the behind the head soloing here instead of during alive:

we return to an augmented groove on the riff, and mike sounds like he's killing the guitar... we noise solo for a while and then wiggle down the way with a little bit of whammy bar into some furious tremolo picking that rises and heads for a climax, of twiddles and something resembling the riff, then he really goes for it, and the whole thing breaks down... then stops in a watery noise.....

.....we get what is now becoming standard, a drum solo from Matt:

I don't know what it is, but listening back to the bootlegs of these concerts, Matt's drumming sounds so fresh... some of the songs are just a few clicks faster, and he feels like he's doing the impossible, putting even more into it.

He's on fire!!!! He rattle around the whole kit constantly getting this really sold juicy noise out of his toms... I can't help feeling that this is the closest I'll get to making up for not being born before Bonzo died....

The band kick in and you smile and laugh again.... It's just a simple sing song to end the song now.... our last little flair of mike comes at the outro....

Ed dryly introduces us to Matt Cameron after evenflow, and then introduces us to Mike who is going to start the next song...

It's Present Tense. I get a look from Mowgli. He knows it's one of my favourites. There's a delicacy and innocence to both the lyrics and the guitar. The guitar is beyond heavy, but it sits alone and you almost feel sory for it. I love how the guitar is set with the tones low and you can feel the body of the guitar and everything that contributes to this human sound. Eddie's existential lyrics pick up and Matt and then Stone join in to the groove, before it settles on a really slow heavy dirge which seems to ask such primordial questions, that I worry when listening to it that we might not want to hear the answer. The song then suddenly changes.... into a arpeggiatted theme(that is always riddled with mistakes), before the band kicks together by jeff and seems to culminate for the guts of these existential questions. I always feel confused after it. Did we just hear some answers? We get another elongated outro, where there's some wonderful guitar moments from Mike, Stone and Ed. And thats why No code is my favourite pearl jam album...

Unrelenting... Ed kicks off the whimsical by evolving into Do the evolution. It's a foot to the floor number. It seems so long since we've heard one, but Evenflow and Present Tense will mess with a man's head. Ed says we'll continue with the evolution as he kicks into another new cut; Big wave.

It doesn't sound new, cos it just kicks off and locks into place. This new stuff was just made to be appreciated live. They sound like they've been playing them for years.

If there was any suggestion(there wasn't) we were getting bored with rocking, Ed solves it by kicking into the one song that I can play in any weather on the guitar. Elderly Woman behind the counter in a small town. Mowlgi and I have our moment by shouting "I just wanna scream Ahoj!!!"

From here, we continue with the sing songs and head into Jeremy.... It's great singing along to a song you;ve sang along to for 15 years with another 15,000 people.....

They're playing so much from ten these days... Why Go? is no longer a tour rarity. I've seen it live 3 times now.

It's amazing to watch mike wail away on the solo!

After Why Go? Someone throws a T-shirt on stage for ed. It says. "we played Belgium for 4 hours".. he suggests that they owe them 6, an that you can't have 6 hours without a ukelele song. As always, Ed gets the words and the music wrong a few times..... But it's still wonderful.

From here, it's a straight kick into black. It starts... and I realise it's the first time I've heard it live. It sounds almost unreal like it's not happening..... It's an emotional rollercoaster of a song. It's the most real song on Ten. Fine, alive and evenflow and all the rest, rock, but black is so heartfelt. I am singing along with every word, and it's like an out of body experience. By the time Ed is singing " I hope some day you'll have a beautiful life...." I'm no longer there, I've drifted to a higher plain. I don't remember it. I was so lost in the music that all memory had just turned off. I was just zombied standing with my eyes shut letting the music envelop me..... doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

I open my eyes.... I'm not the only one.... 15,000 people are singing along...... but the audience just won't stop singing. The band jam over the 15,000 strong chorus... "we belong..... together"

The band stops..... but the audience have no intention of stopping. Ed eventually has to join in with them.... He's astounded.... They only stop when he starts playing Betterman... playing.... not singing... the crowd do that for him.... Two of the great emtional sing songs back to back!!! Only when the band kick in do we drop back down to reality for a second.

We're well into the gig and the energy is immense, the crowd are just on fire.... I never expected this from Belgians!!!! I don;t really know what I did expect, but they are putting their all into it. The boys meet them at every step of the way.... Black into Betterman into Crazy Mary!!!! Another never-heard-live-before favourite of mine.... Now that they have Boom, this Victoria williams cover gets played a lot more often. It's a good sing along and another camp fire song of mine, but no one knows it outside of the Pearl jam fan base, so it never goes down as well as I feel it should.

Come the solo, boom goes for it.... only to be joined by Mike, then they trade off licks for about 10 minutes. It's such a great moment. A simple little song by a sweet little lady, has been made into one of the most amazing rock trade offs I've heard, while Stone Pummels three chords on an acoustic for 10 minutes.

Mowgli gets up on Luke and my shoulders and does his flash. He has one of my socks on his cock, and he takes it off and throws it at Ed. we get no reaction... maybe its getting a little old.

From here... I could just go home now.... but Comatose keeps us up and announces that we're approaching the end of the show.... They rip through it like it's a reset button, clearing us for the encore which is bound to be truly great....

They kick into Alive.... Always a pleasure, never a chore... a sing along with a mike solo..... as would be expected the belgians are in fine voice when it gets to chanting along to the solo. Mike gets up on a speaker cabinet, and Luke manages to catch one of his plectrums, which is better than Mowgli who only managed to recieve a jeff plectrum on the chin.

The solo last for what seems like ages. When it finishes, mike is still twiddling away, like the duracell bunny he is!!!

Eddie gives a heartfelt thanks for the support that the audience has shown to a bunch of scrappy americans.

I get yet another new experience tonight, Indifference. The bass starts it off and I get chills, then mike just plays this reverby night time guitar. It's timeless. And I get to float on the moment some more. I don't think much can top this... Normally after alive, it should be yellow ledbetter or rocking in the freeworld and then home....

It just gets better and better... Eddie announces he's doing a a duet with the singer from wolfmother. CAN IT BE???

IT IS!!!!!

Hungerstrike by temple of the dog. It should be Chris Cornell. The song's only been performed live about 5 times or something, so you'll understand that the tears are running down my face as the opening lines are being sung.... It doesn't get any better......

BABA O'REILLY

I couldn't have dreamed for a better setlist. Two tambourines fly in from right of stage and Ed kicks off the Who rocker by banging two tambourines together like they;re plates at a greek wedding!!!! Now I'm crying and jumping.... and singing....

It's at this point that I agree with Mowgli that my hat shoul go on stage. Mike Picks it up and sits it on his amp..... My hat is famous!!!!!

Andy from wolfmother and Ed are going for it... both of them trying to brust tambourines over their head.. and both failing... It feels like such a feel good freee for all... The band are having fun and so are we... There have been a few treats tonight... And it can only go one more place....

we're all doing funny dancing to the outro of mike soloing and our wristbanded hands are held aloft:

"We don't say goodbye in the US, we just come toa country and occupy it"

"we'll see you next year"

We close the night to Yellow Ledbetter as always.

For some reason you never tire of listening to mike wail... and wail he does... he plays a little run that I don;t recognise in the middle of the solo. He had been practicing it at the end of alive.... who knows.... we close with mike being beautiful and a crowd clapping in unison.

When they go off. Mike doesn't take my hat, so I tell one of the roadies that someone stole it off me and threw it on stage and that I need it back. I think about telling the same story about my sock, but I think it's a litle less believable.

What a night!!!!!

They played for close to 3 hours. We missed the last train to AMsterdam by about 2 hours.... the next train to Amsterdam is about 6.30..... the three of us hang in Antwerp and slowly make it to the station. We are high on happiness.... we talk czech to a polish dog, get a bottle of red wine, ad walk along the longest underpass in the world:

We stagger into Amsterdam at about 10am...... having had a few hours sleep on the train...

Next gig..... Barcelona...

Pearl Jam and Wolfmother - Arnhem

2006-08-29T10:26:00.002+01:00

I'm meant to be catching up on the past month of blogs and work, so I should really be writing up other things before I write up this, but I downloaded the bootleg of the gig and my fingers just went for it.

I'd been travelling round Eastern Europe on trains for about 5 weeks, and I ruched back to the Nether Regions for the Pearl Jam gig in Arnhem. I worked during the day, but squirmed about like I had beasties in my underwear... before long it was tiem to meet the troops at central station and get the train to Arnhem. Even though I saw them in April, and any gig this summer is unlikely to top that, I'm jumping about like a little kid. I'm really tired, I had no time to rest after my travels. My only night off was spent picking Mowgli up from the airport. I've had a Red Bull just to make sure I stay full of energy...

I'm literally flying to the station in a kilt.

As usual for Pearl jam concerts, we look like a crossbetween Mother love bone and the bay city rollers, decked out with Kilts, Saltires, Wristbands, Seattle T-shirts...

We arrive at the Geldedrome and I'm super super excited.... I need to meet a fellow Pearl jam fan I know from london to give him a ticket... but he's fallen asleep soemwhere, so by the time we get in it's super busy and wolfmnother are just going on. We spend a while trying to get to the front, but there's a second barrier we're not allowed through cos we're too late.

We enjoy wolfmother. I've had their album for months. It's very 70's and is a great rocking album. I don't pay too much attention to them , cos I know I'm seeing them 3 times, this week,a nd I still hold out that I can find someway to get into the front section. Alas it's not possible. Pearl Jam take to the stage!!!!

Release – tears and we head for the main area of the crowd. Give up on getting to the front…. Release is the opener for the Fox Theatre Atlanta Bootleg from April 1994. I always thought that this dirge was a such a brave opener… The tears roll down my face… what a start to a Pearl Jam summer. I couldn’t have thought of anything better.

Why go home, and we just go wild… It’s feels so rare to have this early 90’s staple, even though this is the second time I’ve heard it live. The solo is unbelievable and reminds me that we have a summer of mike solo’s in front of us.

Save you…..and the energy keeps going…some people poo poo riot act, but I think it’s one of the greatest albums in their career with such honesty and emotion, this is one of the foot to the floor rockers from this album… the crowd gets going when the song breaks down and start furious clapping to the beat… It’s F@CKING PEARL JAM, and the crowd is following.

Dutch crowds are usually stoned, so they are the most placid I’ve experienced, but even they are goin wild tonight… the warm cheer emanates from the 30,000 bodies around me… and you know you are with common souls….. We’re all feeling alive….

Eddie starts talking 3 songs in, which is pretty early compared to the Astoria… He seems to be genuinely touched that he can fill a 30,000 seat stadium after all these years. He also starts on the security and making sure everyone’s safe and helping each other out. Then they kick into corduroy – Stevie Wonder’s favourite colour!

Its one that I forgot I could play on the guitar, that I’ve been jamming about with while I was on trains in Eastern Europe. It’s a classic old rocker . It’s got everything, a riff, a catchy chorus and a bluesy bendy solo with enough twiddle to make you think “mike is the man!!”

Now we are into new territory. Severed hand. We heard it in the Astoria, when it was still new to the boys. Now we know it a bit better, and its starting to feel like and old friend like the rest of their canon. When the riff kicks in, we’re bouncing up and down as if it’s a song we’ve been listening to for 10 years. Matt really shines on the new stuff live!!! The toms sing, and he comes out to the forefront…. Sometimes I forget Matt is there, he’s so good. Mike makes the solo look effortless, there’s not letting up even on their new stuff.

Now we get the first surprise of the night… Eddie starts vamping along to a few chords and before he can sing the first line the audience are singing Bob Marley’s no woman no cry. It stops and makes way for betterman…. Eddie doesn’t sing betterman any more… he just strums the opening chords and lets the audience take over. It’s one of those moments where there’s all this commonality with you’re fellow concert goers. Betterman’s just played with a spotlight on eddie, so when they lights are launched and the whole band kicks in, I get major chills. I’m shouting at Luke Skyetrekker – “You see that?” “How cool was that?” The mood totally changes. The band are on fire, they seem to get more ferocious with every passing year. The band then breaks down and we return to a bit of no woman no cry….

The end to Bettermam is such a free for all that you feel something’s been achieved when it closes. I can close my mouth. I’m satisfied that I’m at a pearl jam concert and am just starting to get over the shock. Now the adrenalin can carry me through and I can start enjoying the concert.

World Wide Suicide, and despite not being at the front, we start our own little boogiespot. WWS is really dear to me. Not only was it the soundtrack to the excitement, but it was the theme song for our trip to the Astoria, and now, the boys are bring it back, slightly faster, slightly tighter as a pumping rocker for us to boogie to here in the middle of nowhere in The Netherlands…

The band kick into Insignificance. Binaural is considered to be Pearl jam’s worst album. I have no idea why, I love it’s muddy apprehensiveness, innocence and delicacy. I feel in love with this song when I learned it on the guitar. It’s a got a great riff, and the punky downstroke guitar make you want to go crazy….. yeah it’s inaccessible but so what!

From inaccessible, to the most accessible. Pearl jam didn’t play Jeremy and Alive for years because MTV had overplayed them to the point of saturation, but now Jeff can kick it with his 16 string bass again and give us all a wee sing along the takes us back to the early 90’s again, made even more special because it’s not been played that often. Although most people worship the bass in Jeremy, I think it’s stone that is the hero of this one for me, his rhythm just holds the whole thing together in a groove that I’ve known since I was 11 or 12. By the end the whole 30,000 are oo-ing and ahh-ing again, and eddie can take a break. I’m not sure whether to intonate it as the Ten recording or to do it like he does it at MTV unplugged. Half the audience go for Unplugged and half go for Ten – Pretty comical.

The boys are career-spanning tonight, so we kick straight into “do the evolution” from Yield. Eddie doesn’t care if he gets the words right or not, and stone takes the solo…… Brilliant….

We stick with Yield…. and start on Given to Fly…. A song that’s like the sea… It washes over you and builds up to a sing song chorus…. You can bounce along to it as well. It’s one of my most vivid memories from Glasgow when I saw them in 2000, bouncing along to the hippy strains of the “harder than it sounds” signature, which is a “Homage”, to Led Zeppelin’s Going to California….The energy of the song flows too…. The riff seems quiet, you can almost smell the sea air, but they never fail to fill the chorus with energy that gives you the hit to punch the air and sing along.

You know it’s coming, they play it nearly every night, but you still get superexcited when Evenflow kicks in… and you’re on tenterhooks wondering just how fast mike will be able to play when it comes to the solo, there’s hints sprinkled liberally through out the song, but you shake and become like a coiled spring waiting for the solo, and “move over red rover and let mike McCready take over” after some serious single note banding and drukms which are definitely kicking faster than they were in the verse, we get a great scattered, speed fest of notes, that lands on a bend that makes the hairs stand all along your spine… He’s enjoying himself, and stone picks up a little rhythmic groove that Mike takes on in the solo and it wooshes like water, and into some little triad progressions followed by super fast picking till we’re almost supersonic…… and the groove all comes together…. And fades away to be left with……..

…… Matt……

Our new feature of the tour seems to be that Matt’s doing a solo spot at the end of evenflow, and what a solo spot, the man who thumped the tubs to Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden finally starts to show off the amazing talent that I know he has…. I’m loving it… You can tell Matt’s listened to a few “Moby dick’s”. The spirit of Bonzo lives on,……so does evenflow, the band kick back in, after 15 years of playing the same song every night it’s still special and fresh. I don’t really understand… the outro groove is just wonderful, the band’s laughing and loving it as much as we are.

Eddie says as much. He rattles off the various Pearl jam concerts from the early days in the Tivoli, the Melkweg and the Vera, and says that Matt was with Soundgarden and that he’s glad to have him in the band…

From there he announces that they’re going to play a song they wrote with Neil Young. My heart explodes. I got Shit is one of my favourite Pearl Jam songs. It’s got a delicate start and a rousing chorus and is an example of everything Pearl jam are wonderful, the studio version has the added bonus of a Neil Young guitar solo… but we don’t need it tonight. Tears run down my face, I don’t even know what the words are, but the song always just seems so heart felt. This is what I love about Pearl jam its not the words, it’s the music, the chord progressions that the feeling is locked in.

After the emotion comes the humour, Ed announces that he’s dedicating the song to a Dutch woman who was kidnapped from Utrecht and is being held in America. Matt Lukin, the bass player from Mudhoney is the kidnapper.

LUKIN – The song named after the man. A burst of energy and ferocious singing that lasts less than 2 minutes, but its great and we go mental to it.

2 minutes clearly wasn’t enough cos they kick into spin the black circle, the first single form Vitalogy… as wild then as it is now. My world shook when that record came, gone were the safe MTV sounds of Ten and VS… this band was here to stay, and stay they have.

From here they tease us with a very slow rearviewmirror riff, which quickly builds into the full familiar groove. This is up there with all the other favourites. I predicted(or hoped) when we got even flow so early that we would get rearviewmirror, and luckily I was right. The last time I heard this song was when I was randomly flicking through Slovakian television and the Saturday Night Live Performance from 1994 came on. It was like an old friend when I was far away from what I knew…. and now I’m grooving to the real thing. The song is generally the same all the way through it starts with such a fast pace that the energy has to build from within the players rather than from within the notes.

This makes the energy that’s created really raw. We break it down to a few drum and bass notes and a lot of clapping and ed says “you’re fucking beautiful”, then the tortured climax comes… my spin is popping with energy… I can’t stop moving, every beat of every beat is stamped out and then we do our best to sing three vocal parts at once. Pearl jam are only doing 2!!!!! Then the outro beats along to my heart and create this storm of sound that has to be the heaviest ball of aural energy Pearl Jam can create…. Then we get the big finale……… but you know there’s so much more to come…. I’m crying tears of happiness…. The whole things just begun….. Now comes the encores…

We now have a cello, and a chair. It could be something special, I assume Daughter, Eddie comes out and starts ripping on America. All about being a superpower and not having to speak foreign languages, but we can teach our children to break the cycle.

Ed says he’s sure there’s some ugly fucking people up the back, but that the people down the front are fucking beautiful and healthy.
Turns out we’re getting Man of the Hour, the beautifully subtle arpegiatted song from Big Fish. It’s so sweet that you can play a stadium for 30,000 people and still look small and innocent and sound as if you need a hug. Their intimacy is astounding.

I was write, just premature, the cello is for daughter. It starts as a sing along, and soon breaks down to a groove, where you never know what ed’s gonna do. He usually tags a song onto the end. The people around me start singing another brick in the wall – one of the many tags, and we join in along to the groove. We stop when ed starts a very slow ramonesesque “Hey Ho Let’s go”

State of Love and Trust, wow….. how can a bunch of 40 year old have the same energy as they did in 1992… bizarrely they have… mike is on fire, and matt just fires out the notes…. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen this live, but it feels as though I haven’t go wild with energy. The energy stays with me as they kick into comatose.

I immediately remember what Ed said at the Astoria after Comotose. He said that it fucks up his voice and that he can’t sing anything after it. Lets hope he’s learned to hold back a little. Afterwards it’s clear he has… Ed starts a very slow intro to Porch, which you just know is going to kick into “the” energy song from Ten. We’re not wrong. We are blessed tonight. 5 songs off Ten so far and SOLAT.

At some point in the proceedings, possibly now, ed does something that I've never seen before - He's an inventive little chap - He places the guitar on his head and looks up for a few minutes. No one quite knows what he's doing until you relaise, that he's reflecting the spot light off his scratch plate to be able to target it onto certain areas of the audience. It's pretty cool.

The groove in Porch is to the whole band what evenflow is to mike, and the energy rises a la Rearviewmirror… this meanders and builds until theres about four grooves winding together from different directions. It’s pretty reminiscent of the groove at the end of Reach Down by Temple of the dog… the original energy that started Pearl Jam… it breaks down and ed gives us something to sing along to….. The big note comes before the return to the Chorus, and we return to “bounce and sing” mode. I take a look around me and marvel at 30,000 like souls all bouncing to the same energy,.,,,, the place is on fire!!!! Encore 2 ends much like encore one did….

This time, I wonder for a few minutes whether they will come back on…. Yellow Ledbetter is the clichéd closer, but we’ve had throat stripping versions of Rearviewmirror and Porch….

….. this is no ordinary night, the band are back on, and a cheer goes up when someone come out in a spangley jacket and a bush mask.

The boys shelved Bu$hleager after they got an adverse reaction in the US, but it looks like it’s back. It’s so strange seeing humour from Ed, he comes across as this stern grumpy guy, but his humour is so dry and wonderful….

The crowd sings along… in mass anti Bu$h chants, and watch’s as ed sings to the bush mark, feeds it wine, stand on it… and then drop kicks it into the audience.

“If anything I’ve just done on stage seems violent, nothing is as violent as killing 100,000 innocent civilians. We need to take control of the earth from massive corporations”

Drop The Leash………I almost go into shock. It’s only been played a handful of times since about 1993. A group of fans constantly hold up signs for Leash, but Pearl jam rarely play it. Tonight they do…. And it’s brilliant… fresh… alive….

I’m still reeling from the fact they played live, when they hit into alive… Now we know we’re on the home stretch…. But what a nice home stretch a 30,000 strong mass sing along!

Ed calls for the house lights to go on, and I sing and dance, as I watch my cohorts have the time of their lives. The solo never fails to amaze… it’s starts pretty standard, but after all we’ve seen it, nice to get a little grooving solo rather than 1000 notes a second, this is bluesy instead… and as it tails out, the fist in the air “hey” to every beat, and for once the band is playing along with the audience instead of vice versa, and mike seems to channel a little bit of the energy from the audience down into his fingers…. For a little bit of Kiss inspired noodling….

They’re not finished, the last note of alive is the first note of Rockin in the freeworld…. Another I’ve not heard live…. Ed gets thrown tambourines from the side of the stage and starts rocking away… alive and rocking in the free world are boogie speed, and a little bit of Boom piano emphasises this.

We’re rocking out with nothing to go on but fumes. When the solo starts, the simplistic Neil Young groove sits so well that the solo seems new… even after 2 hours of solo… I love the versatility…It just makes you look back on the whole night…. I’m happy and assume that’s it….

But the show ain’t over till the little skinny man plays the little wing rip off!!!!

“Heel erg Bedankt” – Ed’s learned some Dutch!!

Yellow Ledbetter is just the moment to smile and look back at the gig, to know how great it was…. The band leave mike with his guitar, and he just goes to the zone…. Spends his little moment worshipping Jimi and all his memories. He’s like a little kid… it’s good to know that the person who plays music you get off on, gets off in the same way to something else…

After the show we trudge along to the train station and joina conveyer belt of people on buses and trains and taxis and finally crawl to bed at 4am... it's abeen about 7 weeks since I had a full nights sleep... about the same since I had a solid meal...but my heart is still pumping, my ears are still ringing, the adrenalin is stopping me sleeping and I'm going to do it all again tomorrow. Bring on the Pearl Jam summer~!!!!!!!!!(and maybe just one long lie)

Accidentally arriving in Slovakia

2006-08-12T10:22:00.001+01:00

Having adopted a small English PE teacher, who we'll call Gash Hunter, we head to the station in Krakow with the intention of getting on the 13:30 to Budapest. With time to spare we stand in the information queue for 30 minutes and ask for tickets to Budapest. She tells us there's a direct train to Budapest at 22:30. We again ask for tickets on the 13:30 that changes once. She tells us it doesn't exist that there's a 13:35 that changes twice. Sounds like a plan. We now have to queue in another queue to get tickets.

After 45 minutes.... and roughly an hour and a half in the station to get one ticket, we get to the woman and she shouts at us, telling us that the train was 13:30 and not 13:35. It's 13:31, so we've missed the train. we're told to go back to the information desk and decide what train we're getting. Why do we think there is a 13:35 etc.

We've now missed the train to budapest. So we go in search of the internet to inquire with Deutsche Bahn as to how we can get out of Krakow and poland today without waiting till 22:30 for a 9 hour night train to Budapest.

Our luck is in, there;'s a train to Zilina in slovakia thats 2 hours and 5 changes away, at least we can sleep in a new country tonight..... cos Poland's starting to get on my wick....

With only minutes to spare, we manage to negotiate a ticket to Zilina.

It's clear as soon as we start on this train, that we are not on a tourist backpacker train to the next capital city. It's a very quiet and run down train and it's travelling at about 20km an hour. We make our first change, and get onto a slower more rural train. .....

By our third train, we have no idea if we are in Slovakia, Poland or Czech Republic, which is quite a strange experience. To get from platform to plat form you just walk along the train track:

==Walking along the train tracks.

Eventually we arrive in Zilina. We have phoned one of the cheaper hotels in the city, because the place doesn't seem to have youth hostels. We have a tripple room booked, we just need to find the hotel.

When we walk out of the station, a man starts talking to us in Slovakian. He's really friendly, but doesn't seem to understand that we don't understand slovakian. I get the phrase book out and tell him that we are scottish and that we are scottish and don't understand slovakian, he understands so speaks to us a little slower.

We make our excuses with body language as best we can, and head towards the centre of town. It's a really nice little town:

Our hotel is just off the main square. We check in and apprehensively head to our room. I know from my hotel experience, that you can never tell the state of the room by the state of the reception. It looked nice enough.

We get in the room and it looks very nice. Clean... Comfy.... we go into the toilet and discover a heart shaped jacuzzi. We're laughing and joking about landing lucky(It's between 15 and 20 euros a night each), when one of discovers that the cupboard is not a cupboard, but an en suite sauna.

In all my traveling for meetings and conferences, I have never been in a hotel with an en suite sauna......

There's further hilarity when luke and I discover a mirror above our double bed.

We head out to try and get something to eat, it's now after 9pm, and our luck seems to be out. We settle for a couple of pints of fresh Staropramen that cost less than 0.50 euros each:

We enjoy the luxury of the hotel room, and sleep late, once we're up and showered, we head to the only lonely planet point of interest... zilina has a castle.

We walk back down to the square where Tesco is and get a view over the town:

We follow the road along the river, and eventually we can see the castle. The river is huge:

We get a photo of us crossing the train lines. It's still alien to us:

From here, there's a nice view over the city:

It's strange, there's a peaceful country feel to it, with a motorway running through the middle and a dilapidated ex communist industrialism to the whole place.

After a few wrong turns, we eventually make it to the castle:

They don't make much of it, and we seem to have more video footage than camera footage. We get a guided tour of the place in Slovakian... which is pretty bizarre, but it's quite cool knowing that there won't have been many scotsmen through here.

After the castle, we take a walk along the river. We're not long into our trip, but it's good to escape the bustle of Krakow for somewhere a little more rural:

From there, it's back to the centre for some food, beer and then sleep.

Tomorrow we are heading for Eger in Hungary as a stop off point for getting to Romania.... it;s the home of Bull's Blood. A potent red wine.

Exploring Krakow and Auschwitz.....

2006-08-10T09:44:00.001+01:00

We decided last night that we woul spend the mornign exploring Krakow by Daylight.... because there is a tour of Auschwitz which leaves the Hostel at 13:00... We hummed and hawed all last night as to whetehr we wanted to go to Auschwitz or not... eventually we decided to go... based on the fact that it was a huge part of History, and if either of us returned to Krakow, we may not be with people that wanted/were willing to go.....

First up though is Krakow by day.... what's immediattly clear is that despite the lack of road and huge roadworks which surround the station, this is a really touristy city.... There a re seas and seas of people.... We got some photos of the main square by daylight - hopefully I can uload these shortly.... then we headed down to Wawel Castle.

Krakow used to be the Capital of Poland, so the King would be in residence here. He had a huge impressive castle which sits on a hill just south of the city and beside Kazimierz which is the Jewish District where Spielberg shot Schindlers list.

We walk up and around the castle and get a view across the Industrial south of Krakow.. which is full of High rises and the standard skylines you expect in ex-communist countries. Once we get round the the inner courtyard of the castle, it's immediattly impressive. Really huge with very ornately decorated buildings. There is a cathedral and a museuam and a view of the royal appartments. There are three queues for each of these which looks to be at least an hour long.... We opt instead to take a few photos, buy some postcards and then head back through the centre back to the Hostel for the bus....

Once back at the hostel, we start talking to the other people who are heading to Auschwitz. The tour is 100 zlotys, we could almost definately do it cheaper by public transport, but for ease of getting there the bus is good. It's also a good way to meet other travellers in the hostel and get a bit of a chinwag about where people have been, where to go next, the tricks people use to rip you off etc....

As soon as we're out of Krakow, we are on Country B-Roads.... The scenery remains un remarkable.... too flat for my liking. The conversations and laughing and joking(Bizarrely on a Bus to Auschwitz) makes the journey fly by pretty quickly.

We arrive at Auschwitz and join our tour... They don't seem to a have a toilet at the main gate, so we hop along with the tour.

Since I decided to come here, I;ve been numbing myself to what I'm going to see. The edge is take off it by the lines of tour buses that sit outside of the place and the people with Cameras and Video Cameras.... It says no photos, but the guide was even telling us to take photos... I took the odd one, of Brabed wires fences and such just to say I've been there... It's chilling when you go off on your own and you can imagine lines and lines of tired, abused broken people walking along on the same ground you are.

The tour basically involves standing in a queue of people and shuffling round little corridors as the guide tells you all the facts that you already know.... There's some really moving stuff like huge piles of dicarded shoes and stuff... You some how fel closer to the people in the camp by seeing there belonging all stacked together with little identity or individuallity... We were at the Holcoast Memorial in Berlin... Its' hundreds of Pillars of concrete of varying sizes sitting at varying degrees. We surmised that it was about individuality and human characteristics that from affar can't be seen. The shoes are kind of the same.

After about 2 hours, we grow weerie of the tour... well not so much the tour, but the shuffling. It's hot... we need a pee and my head is getting sore... all in all I feel very uncomfortable... This could be because of what I'm witnessing.... some kind of bizarre sub concious reaction...

After Auschwitz I it's Auschwitz II Birkenau. Auschwitz I was an ex army barracks. Auschwitz II is a flat land with huts and chimney's as far as the eye can see... The train goes straight through the main gate, where the prisoners were divided into fit and unfit and sent into a gas chamber or to a work barracks... There's huts for over 100,000 people... the sheer scale of this death factory is phenominal.....

We head back on the bus and everyone agrees that they didn't really know how to react. I didn't feel I gained much from my trip, but I'm glad I went. I suppose I expected to learn something new about this period of history... but it's so commonly documented that you almost feel like you've been there before, so the horro doesn't really hit you... that and the american standing behind you saying "Gee this is great - get a shot of that Hank...."

We get back to Krakow quite late, and the only things left to do are get a cold beer and some more din dins and then decide where we're going tomorrow.... after studying train timetables online for a few hours, we come to the conclusion that it's Budapest......

Good Night....

Arriving in Poland

2006-08-10T09:34:00.001+01:00

We arrive din Poland on Tuesday night after a long boring train journey. It's strange, I think it makes it more boring having a travel companion. You've got someone to complain too about the boredom. The scenery was unremarkable...... I can't get my photos to upload just now... so this will be a purely textual experience until I do.....We listened to some jimmy Carr Stand up on theiPod. It's hilariously funny, and many people were wondering what type of music we were listening to that could make us snigger so much.

We arrived in Krakow station, weerie and needing a bed for the night. The station was huge and seemed to be one big set of roadworks..... we had already booked a hostel by phone, so set about trekking across the roadworks and trying to make sense of Polish street signs..... The Hostel was nice enough.... very basic, maybe about 3 beds across three dorms.... It was dark by now, and we headeded down to Rynek Glowny - The mian square...... It's huge!!! a huge big square with lots of old impressive buildings, the hugest of which is the Cloth Hall.... It's similar to the Rynek's that I have been to in Warsaw and Poznan... even down to the same chains selling very unpolish food...

OUr first stop is a well deserved beer... it is Okocim....

Having not eaten anything other than munchies and train food for the whole day, we check the lonely planet for some restaurants that are cheap enough for our budget and also serve something a bit more Polish than the Mexican restaurant..... after finding a few closed places, we settle in a little place.... It's very cheap.... so we're not sure of the size of the portions... we wolf down a CHicken Schnitzel and some roast pork in a cumin sauce... very tasty... very hearty.... but not enough.... it will do us for the night though.... we head home for our first night in the hostel.... we finally get to sleep after getting a mattress from the staff because they'd overbooked.....

Apologies.....

2006-08-08T21:22:00.001+01:00

My apologies... I am travelling too much and falling behind on the blog. I've still to write up the trip to scotlnad.... a trip to Italy... a Guns N Roses Concert, an Alice in Chains concert, and 2 weeks in Austria..... We've(Me and Luke SkyeTrekker) just arrived in Poland, after getting a long train from Berlin, where I spent 10 wonderful days exploring Berlin with Paprika.... from now on for the rest of August, we're hopping around eatern europe with our homes on our backs like turtles.... so the blog will be a wee bit more sporadic, while stealing the odd moment of internet time on Hostel Computers.....

Here's some photies from Berlin:

Countries I've been to...

2006-07-09T21:38:00.001+01:00

visited 27 states (12%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Monza - Italy

2006-07-01T10:18:00.001+01:00

I'm on a quick trip to Monza, which is a little town just outside of Milan. I'm glad I'm going here, it;'s a good reche for the trip Mowgli and I will be making her in September to see Pearl Jam in Milan and Verona. I didn't see much, and I don't know that there's much to see. From Wikipedia:

Monza is famous for its Romanesque-Gothic Duomo of Saint John. There Theodelinda's centrally-planned Greek-cross oraculum ("chapel of prayer") of ca 595 (its foundations remaining under the crossing of nave and transept) was enlarged at the close of the 13th century by enclosing the former atrium within the building. The fine black and-white marble arcaded facade was erected in the mid-14th century by Matteo da Campione. The campanile was erected in 1606 to designs by Pellegrino Tibaldi. In the frescoed Chapel of Theodelinda is the Iron Crown of Lombardy, supposed to contain one of the nails used at the Crucifixion. The treasury also contains the crown, fan and gold comb of Theodelinda, and, as well as Gothic crosses and reliquaries, a golden hen and seven chickens, representing Lombardy and her seven provinces. Though the interior has suffered changes, there is a fine relief by Matteo da Campione representing a royal Lombard coronation, and some 15th-century frescoes with scenes from the life of Theodelinda.

It's nice just to walk round a quiet little Italian town with some nice weather.

After my meeting it's a quick rush back to the nether regions to see Alice in Chains and Guns N' Roses.

Scotland day 4 - Ayrshire

2006-06-22T10:18:00.001+01:00

After our island hopping adventures. It;s back to Ayrshire, for some quieter touring. I;ve always through ayrshire was more the domain of old people having day trips in cars. Luke Skyetrekker is going to join us on a lazy trip around Ayrshire. For a change, we've decided to head south to Loch doon.

It;s nice to be somewhere a little different Luke knows it well, cos he's always down here fishing. It's not as high as the highlands or as dramatic as glencoe, but it's peacful and still, and nice for a drive.

From here, we swoop round to Culzean castle. It's the site of many a family or school or scout trip from our youths.

The admission desk want 40 pounds for us to enter, so we decide to drive down to use the student discount entrance, i.e. drive to the beach and walk in the back end of the castle grounds.

This also has the added bonus of letting us show The Cadet and Paprika the ayrshire coastline:

From here it's a nice relaxed country walk through the forrest to get to the castle. It's strange being somewhere that you knew well as a child, everything seems so much smaller now. We go the the swan pond. I remember a lake, but it turns out that its actually a pond.

We wander round, stopping a couple of times to chill and generally enjoy the peacefulness:

From here, it's not far to the actual castle:

It's more of a castle of the country house variety than one of the ruined historical landmark variety, but it's still nice to look around the grounds and admire the view out to sea. We wave at my parents who are on Arran, but the inconsiderate sods they are don't wave back.

Everything i closed, an it's slowly crawling into the evening, so we head back to the car and slowly make our way home back along the coast of Ayrshire... we get back in time to get some chinese and then have an early night ready to head to the airport to go home the next day......

Scotland day 3 - Mull and Iona

2006-06-21T10:10:00.001+01:00

We wake up and cook a good old Scottish camping Breakfast:

On the ferry:

Torridon Castle:

Further round mull, we get to visit Dunvegan castle that wesaw from the ferry crossing. It looks much more the part than the country house, and I'm glad that Mowgli and I are wearing kilts:

The weather's not as good as our earlier ferry crossing, but it just makes for more dramatic scenery:

The first relic we see on the island is a stone cross from the 12th century:

As you folow the road round, you come to the Nunnery. It's ruined, but immediattely gives you a sense of the age of this island:

Once we've walked round, we can see the abbey:

The facade of the main church is made up of pretty old bricks:

Inside, there are several room which are positioned around a really small main courtyard.. it's very cute and quaint:

Beside the abbey there's a museum, which contains some of the relics which are sensitive to the weather:

Scotland day 2: let's hit the road ....

2006-06-20T19:26:00.001+01:00

As usual, the early start is not what it could be, and Paprika and I are beetling it to Glasgow at around 12pm.

We're picking up Mowgli and The Cadet outside the Barrowlands:

So Paprika gets to see the Barrowlands on a Saturday, a Glasgow experience that should not be missed.

When Mowgli comes out of his flat, he's already in his kilt. It's going to be a good weekend. We're heading off on the well trodden path towards Loch Lomond. We can't get our tape adapter to work with the laptop so we're tuneless for once. Instead we just have to take in the scenery:

The weather remains undecided when we get out at Inveruglas for more irn Bru and a few photos. I love taking people to Scotland for their first trip. You head up to Loch Lomond and they are awe struck, and I start to get really excited, cos I get to imagine their faces when they see Glencoe.

After a quick stop at Tyndrum, and the serenity and solitude of Rannoch moor, we see the familiar sight(well familiar to 3 of us) of Buchaille Etive Mor on our left. From the flatness of Rannoch moor it looks like a gateway....

We have some fun at Glencoe, flashing random cars in our kilts as we take photos at a view point... everything is so green compared to the snow covered peaks that Mowgli and I saw(climbed) in April.

This time we drive on past the Red Squirrel campsite that we were at last time. We've decided to head on round to Oban and see what we can find to do round there. Thats not before we stop at my grandmother's house in Appin. She's not in(She's down in Glasgow for my brother's graduations... remember), but we get to take some picturesque scenes of Castle Stalker and Loch Lhinnie in her absence.

It looks as amazing as always, and it's even more impressive to those who haven't seen it 1000 times before on family visits...

From here, we trundle on through the early evening light to Oban. we're going to go camping.....

We drive round and round Oban trying to find a campsite that will let us have a camp fire on the beach, we give up and make do with the campsite that has a view over the Loch:

Once we've set up camp, we head back to Oban in the car to get some supplies from Tesco. Following this, we treat Paprika to a traditional scottish dinner of Omega-3 oils wrapped in complex saturated fat molecules.... otherwise known as the "Fish Supper"

When we are sitting looking out to Mull and the islands from Oban High Street we realise just how large a fish supper this is. Several onlookers comment on the size of the fish compared to the size of Paprika....

After the fish supper we feed the rest to some extremely aggressive seagulls, who wolf it down as their regular evening meal.

We get back to camp and head down to a jettu on the Loch side for the second course. We bought cheese and wine in Tesco and we sit and let the sun go down as we slowly get chessily drunk:

we drift off with full bellies ready for more adventures in the morning.......

Scotland day 1

2006-06-19T15:51:00.001+01:00

It's always good to be heading home, but during the conference season, it's even better to be returning to home comforts. This coupled with the hopes of seeing home in good weather has me very excited. I am so busy between May and October, that I only have about three weekends in Amsterdam during that time. So I do the crazy thing, and use them to make a trip home. By luck, it's my brother's graduation, and Paprika is also coming over to see where these crazy hairy people derive from.

I arrive on Thursday and immediately its good to be home. The weather is looking good and its good to be back. My parents meet me at the airport, and we head off to The Glasgow School of art to see my brother's degree show:

His work represents a culmination of a journey which I've watched develop over the past few months... it's mostly found objects and accidental discarded art from the streets of Glasgow. It means quite a lot for me, because Glasgow's very fond to me and full of memories, and there is an invisible imprint of both the city and my brother written across the work.

Degree shows at art school are a very strange thing indeed. It's rare that I visit galleries of modern art, but usually you have a diverse mixture which goes from the reasonably understandable to the very abstract concept. Art students spend 4 years learning to understand concepts and a field which extremely alien to "normal" people. Art is so Subjective. Most people know what they like, so it is rare to be able to pick out something that you have a real affinity with in such a sea of abstract concepts. Much of the very conceptual work on display doesn't look like it took a tremendous amount of effort to create. My dad often says that art should be something that he can't do himself. i.e. it should contain some sort of skill. When the skill is an abstract concept which you have no access to, the output of four years work is also not very accessible. Every now and again you see something that you are able to position your own concept on and it means something to you. Not necessarily as the artist intended, but you get an enjoyment or meaning out of it, so it becomes art. I think it's very much like music. It needs some sort of training to learn to attach to concepts, be it through a step by step evolution from one thing that you like to an extension of what you like, or a formal training, if you aren't in that zone, it's just a bizarre surreal trip..... Jesus, I'm a hippy.

Conceptual art is not the only thing presented, there are various other flavours and endeavours presented in different departments, the most impressive to me is the Jewellery section where concepts are outlined in intricate silverware and other works, you can clearly see the evolution and the effort. Jesus... I'm an engineer....

Anyway... after a brief journey into the world of Art, we are heading off for a family dinner in a local Indian restaurant. Family that is, plus my brother's girlfriend, and Mowgli... my date for the night.

This really feels like home, as everyone gets to catch up with travels, and life and what not......

We head home to Ayrshire for an early night......

....................................

It's an early start in the morning. It's the day of my brother's graduation. Mowgli and I start off by heading off in the Beetle to meet Paprika off the plane. She's a trojan, she left berlin at about 4am or something, and she still looks bright eyed and bushy tailed. We have a few laughs at Mowgli's latest hair style before we head into Glasgow...

My parents are meeting us at about 11.30, so we give Paprika the guided tour of the centre of Glasgow. Buchanan Street... Argyll Street... George Square.... and Kilt shops.... The best thing about Glasgow is the people. It's great to be in a country where people are friendly again.. There's few cities where people are more welcoming(I blame the drink....)

By 11.30.... it already feels like we're late for lunch. Everyone seems very excited because of the "event". It doesn't seem like 3 years since I was standing in a kilt in the July heat at 10.30am wondering why I was in a kilt but not drinking.

After some lunch, Mowgli, Paprika and I head to my old seat of learning Glasgow University:

Beautiful int it!! Truth be told, I actually spent most of my in this concrete monstrosity:

Or moving even closer to the truth, I was meant to be in the above, but spent a fair amount of my time competing in pub quizes here:

We are pretty early, so Paprika gets a tour of the west end of Glasgow:

We head to the main uni building to meet The Cadet and lap up the atmosphere. Paprika is very excited as she get sot see lots of people wearing kilts. They have chosen to do they whole bonnie prince charlie well dressed for graduation kilt rather than the just woke up hungover and couldn't find clean trousers grunge kilt that Mowgli and I have been known to employ.

The Cadet runs across the main entry of the university as we are talking to a lecturer that Mowgli and I have in common, we are discussing Mowgli's degree results that he has just received. He asks if I am happy with my degree results. It;s either a joke, or in the lives of university lecturers, three years is quite a short time.

My parents arrive, and I head up to the Bute Hall:

Mowgli, Paprika and The Cadet are heading off for a wander until the ceremony is finished. You can read about their adventures in their blogs(If they ever start writing one).

Sitting in the Bute Hall is quite impressive for the first 5 minutes... then it's clear that we are here to listen to a list of names for the next hour or so. I realise I should apologise to anyone who attended my graduation. As they finish the last syllable of my brother's name, I excuse myself and head for the toilet.

Outside, I join the troops again and we wait for the new alumni of the Glasgow School of Art to spill out.

On a nice day, the courtyard of Glasgow University is beautiful... out the back it looks onto the soon to be re-opened Kelvingrove Art Galleries, and the south side of Glasgow:

We get lots of family photos and those that aren't driving enjoy a champagne.

My parents are heading back to the isle or Arran from Glasgow, and Paprika and I are heading to Ayrshire to recharge out batteries before we embark on a roadtrip tomorrow with Mowgli and The Cadet.

After a long day, we finally roll into my parents house... we have little energy to prepare dinner, so I treat Paprika to the joys of Scottish Chinese take away.... I donlt know what it is, but we tend to use, more oil, salt and sugar to ensure that, in my opinion, other european countries just can't cut it when it comes to Scottish chinese.

......good night......

Bulgaria day 5 - The scenic route home

2006-06-17T12:30:00.001+01:00

I wake up at 7.30 - a time that has become increasingly early in these past few days....after an essential cup of coffee and whatever breakfast we could manage... it's time.

Predictably, we step out to be met by three buses... all of which are white. People shuffle onto the buses, and then it is all teary waves goodbye and promises to see each other again. This conference has really felt like a school trip.... very strange....

We take to our bus, and set off... we are a party of ten with Italians, Canadians, Brazilians, Portuguese and Belgian....Cosmopolitan as always. Our Bulgarian driver doesn't speak any english, so we are putting a lot of trust in whoever gave him the instructions...

We reach the end of the road to the hotel and turn left.... I'm pretty sure Rila is to the right, but I keep my mouth shut for an easy life.... 10Km down the road, I realise I was right... what I didn't know is that we are heading for a trip round Bansko......I'm pretty pleased, as I didn't feel that our trip to "Club with no name" gave it it's full coverage as a town.

We hop off the bus in the centre and take a wander around. Immediately we are standing in a picture postcard pirin mountain setting:

There isn't actually that much to see in Bansko. It;s a ski resort... and given that it's 30 odd degrees at 1000 feet, there isn't much skiing in June.

We visit the Church:

It is quite nice inside... a little too dark to see many of the ikons, but a good appetizer of what's to come in Rila and Sofia. After this we take a wander around the little winding streets:

I amuse a family when I take a photo of their horse and cart....

We pass the "Club with no name":

We try to use a Cash Machine... the Italian is first told that France is unavailable and then on the second attempt he gets the following:

He;s a linux, geek, so is none too pleased with Bill keeping his card. Luckily it spits it back out when it's rebooted.

Back on the bus, we get back on the road for Rila.... It's about a 2 hour Journey through the Lush Green mountains which are now so familiar.

An hour into the trip.... we turn off the road towards Rila, and Portugal and Brazil start a sing song.... it's really sweet and reminds me of Scottish road trips.... there's something about singing on buses with strangers. Some cultures do it and some cultures don't. If you ever get the train from London to Glasgow, and you're lucky(or unlucky), you'll notice that as you leave london, various people in suits are typing away on laptops. There's the odd few people who look like they are out on an adventure to london...The special clothes bought for the occasion. Shouting at their companions in amazement at the fact that the tables fold down or whatever... all in all good quality Scottish trailer trash scum...

The ratio of suits to scum changes as you move up the country. People are less relaxed and have less inhibitions... they are more likely to talk to you. By the time you cross the Scottish border, there's a full sing song going on with most of the carriage. If you don't join in, you look like a prude....

Anyway, we are being treated to some Portuguese and Brazilian songs, and the odd bit of Italian Opera.

The road climbs steeply up the mountain as we pass through Rila village. It's very backwater and traditional....

Eventually, we come out through the tree covered roads into a clearing, and the Rila Monastery appears before us. The place is immediately impressive. A large gate surrounded by tour buses sits before us, we head through and are greated by the colourful wonder of the Rila courtyard:

The courtyard is surrounded by a hexagon of walls, which house the church and tower that sit in the centre:

It is decorated on almost all sides by ikons and religious murals:

Inside the Church, no photography is allowed. It is a really beautiful Bulgarian church. Very dark.

The Rila Monastery has a museum with the standard 5 Lv for Foreigners and 0.5 Lv. The museum is bland and has no descriptions in anything other than Bulgarian. There's various elements of Rila's history; Ikons, Lithographs of Ikons, and (curiously) the priests' armoury of guns and knives, in case of attack.

The highlight of the Museum is Raphael's cross:

It is a cross which is intricately carved with religious scenes.

We head out the back of the courtyard and have a wander around. The heat is almost unbearable. There's various cafe's and restaurants catering for visitors.

It appears to be cherry season, cos their have been people selling them on the street all over the place:

We have a walk around the woods which surround Rila. The Rila mountain range is beautiful. Somewhere down the line Rila is derived from a word for water. It seems to be a good name. The mountains are covered in a lush greenery, and it's a pleasure to walk through the woods. A river flows down past the Monastery.

We settle down to a lunch of fresh trout from the river:

WIth the ubiquitous Shopska Salata:

A refreshing Zagorka(Even though we are well over the height of Ben Nevis, it's absolutely roasting)

Some people have the Shkembe Chorba which is a tripe soup:

I also see Banski Starek on the menus, so order some of that, cos I didn't see any in Bansko.

After lunch, it's back on the road to head for Sofia. we go in on a different road, a road that seems to travel at 10Km an hour for the whole way through road works. Eventually, we trundle into Sofia and arrive at the hotel:

It's a really lush affair, with a big swimming pool and a casino. Once we've refreshed ourselves with a very expensive(For Bulgaria) beer, it's time to go on a quick guided tour of Sofia. Our first port of call is the National Library....

...from here we walk over to the Alexander Nevski Church:

It is really beautiful and very grand, especially inside. Unfortunately you can't take any photos, and the postcards that they offer for sale aren't up to very much.

I've now seen my fair share of Orthodox churches. The Alexander Nevski is very nice, but I still prefered my own little trip to Nessebar, where it seemed that I had all the Ikons and history to myself. I'm also in a group, so I don;t have the iPod pumping out Nine Inch Nails, which really seems to improve the experience, maybe next time.

From here we walk closer to the centre, past the Ivan Vazov National Theatre....

..... and then on to the St. Nikolai Russian Church...

The style is completely different, and you can tell it is Russian from the different cross on it's spire.

We near the end of our walking tour at the Party Headquarters.....

There used to be a big red star on the spire... which they are going to replace now that Communism has been gone for long enough. Just across from here is Presidency, which has some uncovered ruins of Serdica(The roman Sofia) in the middle:

We then finish our tour at the Svetka Petka Smardjiiska Church:

From here. its very close to the shopping street. We stop for a well deserved coffee in Lavazza.

It's getting late and I have an early flight, so a large group of us go for out last Bulgarian dinner while we watch Italy draw with USA at football.

It's been a wonderful trip to Bulgaria.. and I'm sorry to be going home... there seems so much more to discover..... but there are more adventures to be had back in Amsterdam...

.................

I arrive back just after The Kiwi has arrived home from clubbing, so I have a few hours sleep before heading over to Diemen. My first meal back in Amsterdam is a Bulgarian one:

I'm home!!!

Bulgaria day 4

2006-06-16T10:48:00.001+01:00

Surprisingly.... I wake up late..... the morning sessions of the conference aren't relevant for me. I start the day with my standard lengths of the pool, followed by a sauna. I could get used to this:

After lunch, the conference gets more interesting with some technical presentations... after this, it's more swimming and saunaing(is sauna a verb?), before we head up the hill behind the hotel to have a farewell BBQ:

We get a table together... There is already a glass of rakia beside each salad:

There's also a couple of bottles of Melnik's finest... it could be another good night, although one course in, it;s clear that while everyone is relaxed and happy(it must be the sauna), there isn't the same energy and excitement of the previous evening.

There are two guys in the corner one on guitar and one on keyboards, they are singing various songs, some traditional, some Bulgarian, some in English, some not. By the time we have had a good fill of protein from the Barbecue, people have taken to the dance floor... a swift rakia puts me up there beside them... it's the same routine as last night....and a lot of fun....

We carry on like this... utlising the young Bulgarian girl to get us red wine refills.... SLowly various people head back to the hotel.... we have an early start tomorrow. I have taken the opportunity of a seat on a little minibus which is going to stop over in the Rila Monastery on the way to Sofia tomorrow. This makes up for me missing the excursion on he first day. There are very strict instructions concerning the buses in the morning. There will be two coaches.... and one mini bus..... those on early flights should take the white bus... we repeat... the WHITE bus..... Someone asks what I was wickedly thinking... "What colour are the other buses?" Unamused... we are informed that the bus for early travellers will definitely be white, and thats all that important.....

Within an hour, we are the only people left up on the hill.... we have watched the sun set behind the Pirin Mountains... and the food is digesting away nicely:

We've been up here for about 45 minutes on our own. I feel sorry for the musicians.. they have been sitting vamping away fro our benefit for some time..... I send our young interpreter over to tell them they should go home and not stay for our benefit. When she returns, she has a naughty smile on her face... she informs us that she is going to be playing the next song.....

We take to the stage..... she plays a nice little song... and then I get egged on to play some guitar.... To say I'm unpracticed is an understatement..... My guitar has been gathering dust for weeks. I pull out the old faithful of a couple of Pearl jam songs... I feel a little embarrassed, cos the Bulgarian guitarist was very good.

After this, the dancing starts.... We have Italian tango lessons, and then I'm asked to teach them Scottish Country dancing. I decide that since my attempt to teach our little pianist the blues failled, that my Bulgarian music descriptions aren't good enough to describe reels and jigs.... Instead I dance the Gay Gordons with a Romanian while singing the music....,. all very silly.... but a lot of fun:

We decide to call it a night and take a walk back to the hotel down the darkened hill....

All that is left of our holiday... sorry conference... is a quick few games of pool(Incidentally, a romanian finished with the shot of the conference) before bed and an early start.....

......uggggg.....Bed......

Bulgaria day 3

2006-06-15T10:30:00.001+01:00

I get up early to write my presentation, which doesn't really agree with my wine and beer intake from the previous evening... luckily I know that I can get a swim from 9am onwards.... 40 lengths chases away the hangover...

................

By the end of the day... our little clique are all really knackered, so we decide to turn down an excursion to Dobarsko before we go for dinner. Instead, we head for a sauna and a swim before we get a taxi to Bansko for dinner at night.

The taxi takes 30 minutes to arrive, by which point I've told all the Billy Connolly jokes I can remember.

It puts us in good mood, and we're ready to rock by the time we enter the Mehana. We're a little worried about being late, but 30 minutes late seems to be early in this country.

The Mehana is a traditional Bulgarian Tavern/Pub. As we arrive, the staff come alive. A small band starts to play traditional music. It's great.... wild and fast, some where between folk and jazz. It's almost impossible to work out where it's going to go next... they are going full whack... They don't seem to realise that there is only six of us at the moment... we try to explain, but it is impossible. We give up and sit outside with a cold beer...

After about 20 minutes the tour bus arrives and people pour in....

We are soon sitting at the the table drinking melnik wine and tucking into a Salata... Tonight is a traditional culture night so we are introduced to a new Bulgarian custom.... Rakia with the Salad:

It's a little warm.... but we drink it anyway... The good thing about Rakia at a conference is that anyone who isn't from Eastern Europe or Russia(or anyone with sanity) takes one sniff of it and decides that they wouldn't put it in their car, never mind their mouth.... It is extremely strong, but it's one of those drinks that tastes fine after you've had a few... i.e. once you've burned the taste buds off your throat, the taste doesn't seem to bother you. Most people leave it sitting on their table.... more about that later.....

The band have not stopped.... literally.... if anything they've got faster.... I don't know if they drink rakia while they play, but if they do, the music is so random structurally that it sounds like they are falling down stairs while they are playing.... it is full of energy and bounces around..... I know some of the songs from last years wedding, and some of the songs sound like(or are) music from the Serbian films Underground and Black Cat White Cat:

Our Serbian and Romanian guests know some of the words, and the party is getting going as we tuck into various meats and salads... There are six of us. Apparently when a Scotsman says six it sounds like Sex("Can I have a Taxi for Six" becoems interesting) , this coupled with the Italian fondness for describing things as "Magnificent" means we are the "Magnificent Six". Comparisons to Enid Blyton go unnoticed:

"lets have a spiffing time with lashings and lashings of rakia"

After dessert(Banista), some of the Bulgarians at other tables have started to follow the band and dance one of the dances I know from the wedding.... I'm for a bit of that.... we join in. The music gets faster.... and faster..... and we go round and round in a kind of side on conga while doing a dance step that's very Scottish country dancing.....

We weave in and out of tables.... dance outside... back in... more weaving... faster and faster...... People are starting to drop out.... I learned from last time that this dance is longer and gets faster than you expect..... with a couple of Rakia refuels, I manage to stay to the end..... The Rakia is readily available, as no one at the other tables drank theirs. I'm sure it's not a connoisseurs drop, but it does the trick.

I think some of the more conservative conference goers are a little perplexed, but when in Rome..........

From now on, the dancing doesn't stop.... we drop in and out of various dances and there is singing and generally a lot of fun.... When we don't know the words(which less face it, is quite often), we use the Billy Connolly Generic drunk singing form:

Ser-i-bee

[Three word Phrase]

Ey- di-faw

[Another three word phrase]

I knew it would come in handy......

The night seems to draw to a close far earlier than we wanted it to.... we were just getting started. When they tell us to drink up and get on the bus, we decide that we will investigate Bansko to see if we can continue the party.....

After a last rakia to keep us warm on the road, we say "Leka Nosh" to the bar staff and head down the road...

We get outside.... it's dark, but it doesn't look like the centre... There's the summer remains of a river running down from the mountains to our left... We walk along and follow the directions we were given to the centre... I'm a little concerned, as we are walking along dark, empty streets with the vague aim of heading right at some point.

We head along a reasonably main street and find what appears to be the centre... It;s completely dead, but there is loud music eminating from a little place called "Club with no Name"

The Serbian guy and I are a little concerned about our safety..... We can;t see in the club, but there seems to be no other chance of getting a boogie. I phone the Bulgarian Bride, to ask her how dodgy Bansko is..... The answer... Not at all...

We head inside. It;s clearly not dodgy.... dodgy would require other people to be there. There are few other patrons, but we do have a Bar Girl, Bar Security and a DJ. We get a Zagorka from the Bar Girl:

We start to dance to the really really bad music that is blasting out of the speakers... It;s really loud, and all non distinguishable Bulgarian pop.... This goes on for a little while till the beers are finished... we ask the barman for more. He motions to the Bar Girl who is over at a table doing homework with a friend. 15 minutes later when she's still not returned, we ask if the security guard if he can give us a bottle of beer from the fridge.... The answer seems to be no.....

We dance unfuelled for a while longer until the bar girl returns...

Half way through our second beer, we decide that we've had enough of the music and drink up... we are just about ready to go when from left of field the DJ pulls out a class... "I want it all" by Queen:

It;s as if he sensed that we were going to leave. Having not heard a familair note in the past hour, we go wild.... There's jumping... There's Hair..... There's Air Guitar.....

We leave on a high and fall onto the street to source a taxi....

The only person on the street is another Security guard for the club... I ask if he speaks english.... but to know avail....

Taxi... sesh..... Hotel Katarina......dobri.....Kartof...... netika..... it's not going well in Bulgarian. Luckily he hears some Italian and becomes pretty animated... A taxi is negotiated in Italian....

A taxi arrives... it;s the same taxi that we took to the Mehana, which makes me think that there is only one taxi in Bansko outside of the Skiing season. When the taxi arrives, we are told that 6 of us can't go in the taxi, as it may cause problems with the police... The security guard will have to drive us in his car. I have the feeling this "Favour" is a deal between him and the taxi driver to charge us double... but we need to get home...

The car journey is good fun...My italian isn't the that great... but it appears he has a knowledge of numbers... basic conversations and almost every swear word in the language... why he has this knowledge, I still don't know.

When we get back to the hotel... we are not the only ones still awake.... The Canadians with jet lag seem to be living on Canadian time and ignoring time zones. We share a few single malts until its about 4.30 and head to bed.......

I can tick off Bansko as a city I've been clubbing in........

Bulgaria day 2 - Melnik

2006-06-14T13:30:00.001+01:00

I get up at 7am and head down to the pool to get a swim in before I sort out my computer problems.... the pool doesn't open till 9am.... There's a day trip to the Rila Monastery.... I really wanted to go, but if I can't get a presentation together in the hotel, I'll be doing some major off roading.... phoning round internet cafe's to find powerpoint and then getting a taxi to some town I don't know anything about. It would be a nice adventure to tell the grandchildren... "There used to be this huge company called Microsoft who sold software... before everything was made open source in the great code war of 2015, and one day I chased a copy of one of their products around Eastern Europe in a taxi"

I think it would be a bit irresponsible to ignore it and go to Rila. I wouldn't relax either...

I go for breakfast early and then assess the situation. It turns out the hotel has a wee computer room with a few computers in them. They aren't very fast, but they have a powerpoint and an internet connection. Problem solved... if I can't get a pre-prepared presentation from my boss I have time to put one together.

It's now 9am....I head downstairs and book а massage to celebrate. I sit through the first session. Almost everyone is at RIla. I have no laptop or wireless internet as a distraction, so I have to listen and take notes to get me through it... There's some interesting stuff, but nothing groundbreaking. At the coffee break, I slip out and phone my boss... I get an irate agreement that he'll send me a few powerpoints to piece together.

I curse myself for not having went to Rila....... Did I mention it was a Spa hotel... I head down and cleanse myself of frustrations and stress in the pool... I have a time for a shower before my massage and then a floppily pack some lunch in before the afternoon excursion leaves... I change to camera, iPod and Lonely Planet tourism mode instead of Notepad and conference proceedings mode.... I also can resist a couple of shots out of my Bedroom window:

The afternoon excursion is a visit to Melnik/Мелник. Melnik is a wine region in Bulgaria, and the little town of Melnik is the centre of that region, and also the smallest town in Bulgaria.

On the Bus, the tour guide tells us various facts about Bulgaria and it;s history. I know much of it. Judging by his tone and how he tells the stories.. it would seem that things were better before the democratic change according to him.

We drive through the same lush greenery that we traversed the previous day, only today there's a blue sky above it. This lush greenery is actually us crossing between mountains in the Pirin range so that we can continue south to Melnik... Its about 50 km... but it's going to take about 2 hours. I am lucky to travel well... I wouldn't advise anyone who can't sit on a warm bus for hours going through windey roads to try to be a tourist in this part of Bulgaria without a helicopter...

We pass as close as 10km to the Greek border(I send Paprika an SMS), and the tour guide points out that the home of Baba Vanga is very close... I later learn that Baba Vanga was a sooth sayer, who had great success in finding things that were lost and healing people.... there seems to be some truth in it... she died in the mid 90's which intrigues me a little, as these stories are usually from long ago.

Eventually we stop in a Layby and get out to get some photos of Melnik:

There's a even Vinyards:

We continue down to the street in Melnik... It;s clear as soon as you get out of the bus that this is a tourist town. There are people sitting around everywhere selling wine for astronomical amounts... sometimes it's just in a 2 litre coke bottle. The prices are astronimical... more than you'd pay for a reasonable bottle in the UK. I surprise them by heading into one of their shops and buying Bulgarian phoen credit for a friends sim card I have in my phone.

We continue to walk deeper up the river in Melnik(The river Melnik???)..

It's a quaint little village that was much larger 100 years ago before the industrial revolution. The old style houses are still evident, and before them there are even roman ruins... Melnik is also kown for the sand structures which tower over the village in pyramids... they are quite strange:

Eventually we reach our destination... the home of a wine merchant of Melnik where you cans sample the local wine. We walk throught he house and see the 17th century traditional decor:

There are double windows to make it look like the house is more grandiose than it is and has more floors:

Underneath the house is a wine cellar... which has a constant through draft to keep the wine cool:

Beside this... we get to taste wine:

I've tasted Bulgarian wine before, and ain't bad. There are many types of Grape... Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc... this appears to be the Bulgarian "Tourist" grape. I'm no connoisseur, and maybe the bottle was corked, but this is some very bad wine... there's more expensive Merlot next to it which tastes pretty good... but the local brew isn't up to much. If this is on purpose, to make you buy the merlot, then I think it's a shame. Bulgarian wine could very well be a growth industry as Bulgaria enter Europe and some tourist trap appears to be doing their best to advertise it;s lack of quality to an international group of people... again.. maybe I'm wrong.....

We discuss the wine with various other people. There's an Italian woman I know from previous conferences who is ripping into the quality of the wine with an Italian guy... He turns out to work in the Louvre... very cool.....

Once we are back out on the street, we head back to the Bus. Whiel we're waiting for folk to catch up, a Romanian girl asks if my name is American, as the "Mc" at the start is a little like MacDonald and thats American. I come on a bit strong with my putting her correct, but it had to be done.

Back on the bus... I exchange headphones with the two romanians and it while's away the journey. I needed some ИIN to wake me up and they asked what I was listening to at the wrong moment... i.e. one of the heavy bits.... they turned out to be able to handle it no problem. They had a selection of off the wall metal and punk to treat me to.

Back at the hotel the conference goers are preparing for the Social evening... There is a choir of 5 male singers warming up. I catch my 10 year old Bulgarian friend and get her to fill my phone with credit.... I can barely do it in English and in Dutch, so I doubt I'd manage it in Bulgarian she manages it no problem.

The social event consists of some champagne and a 5 man choir singing greensleeves I start to talk to the people around me, but get into trouble from the tour guide for not respecting Bulgarian culture. Since there's another 25 songs before we get food a quick word in the ear of the Italian guy puts us in the sauna 5 minutes later....

By the time we get back up, the singers are singing their last song..... we are presented with a Conference tie and then we get to have food....

Our dinner party consists of a Serbian, two Romanians and the Italian.... a very Multicultural lot...

After dinner we drink a better quality Melnik wine and have a few games of pool....

We get on like a house on fire and are all quite merry by the time we go to bed.......

Bulgaria day 1 - Getting there

2006-06-13T12:08:00.001+01:00

I'm off to Bulgaria for a conference. It is about 10 months since I was last here. It was such good fun last time I was here, that I think it should be fun. This is about as exotic as you can get on a European Conference, in that it's not a European Country, it an "Other Country"....

It's an early start, and I am in Summer travel mode... hair down...three quarter length shorts... converse, Pearl jam T-Shirt, Checked shirt, Oakley's and straw hat... it's a kind of Grunge take on the British holiday maker look... my pasty white skin doesn't look good in any summer clothes... I'm warm on anything except a sheep strewn cliff in Scotland, so no matter how fit I get and how much exercise I take... I'm a sweaty white scotsman...

In Schiphol, I'm on a high! I'm off on an adventure... This isn't a day trip to Brussels, or a weekend in Paris. This is uncharted territory. All my Bulgarian friends have given me tips, warnings, advice and shopping lists. They have told me to watch Sofia... that it can be pretty dodgy.... at this end I'm getting picked up from the airport so it shouldn't be a worry. Hopefully, they mean Glasgow level dodgy and the warnings stem from the relative safety of Amsterdam as a big city.

I get on the plane to be greeted by a very Bulgarian looking Stewardess... she is stunningly pretty, very young looking(although probably older than me) and thin as a rake. I remember from last year that Bulgarian women are beautiful, but most of them could do with a good plate of mince and tatties....

I take my seat and discover that there is an exception to my analysis of Bulgarian women, she's sitting on the seat next to me. I sit down and due to the heat, and the tiny plane designed for either Bulgarian Gymnast frames, or holiday makers, I'm crushed in a seat with half of the woman beside me bleeding over onto my seat... I lean over to the right to avoid passive sweat... as I do this another larger than average man sits on the seat and knocks the cheap structure back about a foot towards me.... it could be a long flight. I twist into the space allotted to me and switch of to Ænima by Tool:

It took me a while to get into tool. I didn't like his voice at first, but given that I tell people that they will appreciate Smashing Pumpkins if they can weather any dislike of Billy Corgan's nasel whine, I decided to take a dose of my own medicine a few months back and really quite enjoyed it. It's pretty impossible not to enjoy the Drum lead prog metal and it is perfect when you want to just switch off completely.

When the food arrives, I take i ditch the laptop and start eating... the woman beside me immediately starts talking to me... I forgot that Bulgarians have a similar quality to Glaswegians.... they talk to each other. Seems like such a simple concept, but its not something you often see. It turns out that she is traveling with her son and they live in America... they are returning home to visit relatives. The son appears to love all things American and finds Bulgaria a little frustrating and backwards... all the things he complains about are the annoyances that I think ensures that (at the moment) the country remains different and vibrant for a traveller...

We land at Sofia and join a huge queue to get through passport control... it looks very serious... I psych myself up for a bit of an adventure.... but with a grunt, the stoney faced border guard waves me through.

The airport is tiny... one conveyer belt spews out luggage from 4 flights onto the floor and it's a free for all to try and get your luggage. Some people try and arrange the luggage thats blocking the conveyer belt from delivering more.... I try to help, but can't help but enjoy the disorganisedness of it all. I'm still in hair down converse mode.... and I'm certainly not with the various people in suits with frowns on their faces who just arrived on the London flight and are worried for what they are in for.... will the menu's have Atkin's diet options?(Answer: They might not be in english).... will they be able to read the street signs..(Answer:You've got to find one first....it's not as easy as it sounds).... will they have starbucks?.....Will "Bigska Macski" get me fed in Sofia?

Learn to Swim!!!!!

Maybe I've been listening to too much Tool....I get excited just looking at their faces....

Once I've liberated my bag, and got some water(Вода), I achive my dream of walking out of an airport and having someone standing with a sign waiting to pick me up... from here it's onto a bus for a 3 hour plus journey south... as soon as I've stepped on the bus, I am reminded of School trips - probably the only time I've been on buses for any longer than a 2 hours. It's hot, sticky, the bus is almost full, and I don;t have a detailed enough map to let me chart my course and work out where I am.

We drive through the outskirts of Sofia, and see everything you would expect... the grittiness and grottiness of any outskirts... I decide it's not that interesting and crack out the Lego Star wars:

It makes the journey fly by....

The odd glance out of the windows reveals an overcast sky which caps rolling planes, with the odd green hill... It's not really that interesting... Eventually, just after I see a sign for the Rila Monastery(this tells me that we're not that far away), we stop for a piss break at a petrol station. I get talking to a Scottish Norwegian guy I know from a previous conference. I try to show off a wee bit of Bulgarian, but he returns with fluent russian, which coupled with a brain means he can work out what most things say...

We turn off the main road and enter dense lucsh green mountains. The road winds and meanders through these scenary as the moisture seems to envelop the bus... I'm not even sure if it's raining... it just feels wet.

A little while down the road, and the youngest daughter of the co-ordinator of the conference, excitedly tells us that we have just passed a 5km to go sign. She is Bulgarian, 10 years old and speaks pretty good english. She speaks with the same accent as Obi Wan Kenobov which is pretty cute. Her humour, forwardness and cheekiness is also similar, so it must be a Bulgarian thing.

We get into the hotel, and get to our rooms. Just like a month or two back in Montreux, I'm greeted by a beautiful view of a mountain range:

Better than this, the Hotel is a top class Spa complex with indoor and outdoor pools, about 6 different saunas, 40 different massage treatments. I don;t even put my bag down.... I just unzip it, empty it on my bed, strip naked, put on my swimming shorts and head for the pool....

I love swimming... it's one of the few sports I can do successfully... and since I got fit, I love it even more, cos there's all this extra energy... I swim about 40 lengths and then head back to my room, get showered and spruce myself up for dinner... swimming was a great way to get the traveling out of my system... I'm ready to meet and greet... it turns out that most people didn't go for a swim and are pretty dead... I talk to no one... The food is self service "acceptable" mass produced Bulgarian meals... It's nice to have Tarator and Shopska salata on tap though. I pack myself full of salad and protein after my swim and head back to my room......

I open my powerbook and the screen doesn't work!!! I have two powerbooks... my powerbook - the old faithful that has been going strong for almost 4 years, and a super high spec one that belongs to work... it's not been right since it was taken out of the box. The screen goes... you can wiggle it and it comes back... now it doesn't take an electronics graduate to know that wiggle = loose wire.....

When I first phoned the registered apple dealer... he confirmed with me that powerbooks were the silver ones and iBooks were the white ones... their expertise didn't get any better. Even though I suggested that it was a loose wire... they replaced the logic board.... a common fault in some apple laptops apparently... this took them three months.. when we got it back, we wiggled it and the screen went grey again.... we took it back and suggested to the apple official repair people that it might just be a loose wire... over the next 3 months they replaced the screen..... 6 months later, I was confident enough to take it to Bulgaria.....

This may mean I have no access to my presentation, no means of writing a presentation... suddenly the middle of no where surrounded by nothing but peaks higher than Ben Nevis and no idea where the nearest Internet Cafe, copy of powerpoint, or overhead projector is is not relaxing, but frustrating.....

I'll deal with it in the morning....

A quick trip to Paris

2006-06-10T14:08:00.001+01:00

I took a quick trip to Paris for some meetings... I love Paris. I've been lots of times and it never loses it's romance.

On the first night, we go for a meal with some friends. It;s very nice to be integrating with local france... It;s a very nice bottle of wine, but we have early meetings, so it's an early night, without seeing much paris.

...............

After a day of meetings, beside the pompidou centre...

..... its a social dinner in an unremarkable restaurant followed by (expensive)unremarkable beer in an unremarkable bar. There's so many of these little bars in Paris. I call them "Amelie bars", the atmosphere in them is very far from my preferred drinking environment.... so to bed without seeing much more Paris....

..............

Friday, and another day of meetings. This time, we have the evening to ourselves, so we head off to my favourite restaurant:

Vin de Pyrenees is a restaurant I discovered by accident the first time I came to Paris. I was visiting the street where Jim Morrison died, and by the time we found it, we were really really hungry and tried to get into a little restaurant beside Jim's flat.

The maitre d' was the usual parisian surly when I asked if he spoke english.... I then told him I was Scottish and he welcomed us in..

It was one of those places where you have a candle lit dinner for two but on long tables with benches, so we had to step over other patron's knees to get to our table - or more correctly our bit of the table. The food was wonderful....

I finally found it again, a few trip sto paris ago, and it's changed owners a few times, but the food is at least as good, or possibly better.

We survive the sticky weather by having a rose before we get stuck into some Cote De Boeff....

Satiated, we head off back to the hotel with a meander round the Marais....

FInally I got to see some of Paris. The Marais is always great, and tonight is no exception... it's dark, but there's so much light, and its the middle of the summer, so everything iss bathed ina beautiful glow that(coupled with the protein overdose), makes everything seem absolutely beautiful.

.........

We have a half day of meetings, and then I head back up to Amsterdam. My trip is entertained by Lego Star wars:

It;s great to combine star wars with lego.... and you feel like you're 8 yrs old...

...back in Amsterdam, I head straight to the pub to meet The Kiwi for drinks... I'm shattered, but the weather is good, the beer is cold, and a summer of travelling has just begun...

Bon nuit...

World Press Photo exhibition

2006-06-05T14:07:00.001+01:00

I wake up after my road trip.... I've not been to the gym in what seems like weeks. I had wondered about heading north on my bike, but I've decided that if I sicken myself on tour cycling this early in the summer, it would be counter productive, so I pack my gym ba and head off to another Tourist attraction... The oude Kerk:

I'm not just going to the Oude Kerk.... It;s also home to the World Press Photo exhibition every year:

This is where all the award winning press photography is displayed. It's part photography exhibition and part overview of a year of world events. I've never been before, and it closes on the 18th of June, so I've decided to take advantage of the Bank Holiday monday.... Unfortunately half of Amsterdam seem to have decided to do the same... this means that the queue requires the serious attitude of Trust No one by dave Navarro:

This makes the queue disappear... Once inside... I walk round the large group of Americans at the Hurricane Katrina photos and check out the rest of the exhibition...

After viewing a photos, I realise that The Stone Roses is going to cut it better for photo viewing...

The building itself is as impressive as the photos:

The photos are good, but I am not as impressed as I thought I would be.. They successfully depict the past year of world events, but I expected more very good photos. Maybe I've been spending too much time on flickr...... There's a couple of crackers, but in general... I'm ready to head off to the gym within an hour.... It;s been a while since I've been so I jump in at the deep end....

It's been a strange weekend... The Kiwi was in Paris for the french tennis open all weekend, so the flat has been a quiet place, and I have went almost and entire weekend without alcohol... I've done a lot, but it was all new things, and I feel ready for a summer of travel - maybe even with some of that in the Nether regions.....

I hit the hay... tired... relaxed and happy.... ready for a trip to Paris in a few days....