Bucharest!!

Got here earlier today, more details and pictures tomorrow.

      

        

Slight change of plans..

So the original plan was to see all 3 shows, Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade with my friend Kevin, we have flights booked to Bucharest and i have a flight booked out of Belgrade to Berlin on the 2nd, however, Kevin had to change his plans at the last minute and cant make this leg of the tour.Kevin's friend was due to drive us between shows as, the distances are not huge , about 5 hours between each but the trains in Romania are horrendous, they go 5 miles north to go 1 mile south! so getting from venue to venue on time and then to Belgrade was proving impossible.

After uuuming and arghing for several hours last night and this morning, and listening to Kit and Emil telling me how werewolves roam the Romanian night trains and it’s the country where Dracula comes from!  I've decided to fly to Bucharest tomorrow,see the show on Wednesday night, then on Thursday i take the night train to Budapest, it leaves Bucharest at 17:40 and arrives at 8:50 in the morning. I then take the 9:25 train from Budapest and arrive in Berlin at 21:15 on the 30th August. That's a total of 28 hours and 35 minutes on the train! I will be missing the Sofia and Belgrade shows but there's nothing i can really d about that. One show is better than none at all and I'll also be in Berlin for 2 nights before Kami and her family arrive.

I'm now at a hotel at Charleroi airport in Brussels ready for the flight tomorrow afternoon. 8 hours of trains, buses and a cab today to get here from Saarlouis and I'm shattered, can wait for 28 hours of this!

More soon….

Help needed...

If anyone reading my blog is driving from Bucharest to Sofia to Belgrade, drop me a message, thanks

Wedding weekend….

 

So i flew into Dusseldorf on Thursday night, arrived around 11pm, checked in my hotel and then took the 10am train the next day 6hours south to Saarlouis, Germany.

Met up with Kevin, Jens, Emil, Nigel,Lars, Joe from Toronto and several others. Our good friend Rainer was getting married tomorrow and we were all invited to the wedding. We’ve all known Rainer for over 10 years, we all toured around Europe together in 2002 seeing Rogers In The Flesh shows and have all remained great friends since.

   

We sat at the bar till gone midnight, i always known when its time to go back to the hotel, some people don't, Nigel didn't and paid the price talking to Huey all night down the big white telephone!!

Rainer has a very successful Floyd tribute band here in Germany called The Final Cut, they play several shows a year in and around the town of Saarlouis. Offstage he the most pleasant,quiet,  calm and  peaceful guy you could ever know, onstage he IS Roger Waters! and takes on a whole new persona! Being a serious Roger Waters fan, his band tend to take on a lot more of Rogers solo work, they have a Mr Screen that was paid for by the local town council with Rainer spending hours and hours doing his own video edits for the projections. I’ve never met a more enthusiastic tribute band who put so much effort into their shows.

Below is a clip of them paying In The Flesh, 6 years ago.

 

And The Gunners Dream from just over a year ago.

The Final Cuts website

Heading back out to Europe…..

I head over to Germany today for my friend Rainer and Judith's wedding this weekend, its then onwards to Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade, followed by Berlin, Dusseldorf and then 10 days vacation around Germany with Kami and her family. Its then back to the UK mid September for two nights followed by the Manchester, Dublin and Paris shows. Se you all at a show near you!

 

Not sure which is the more priceless picture:

  

Pre show pictures…….

 

Thanks to my friend Shane for the pictures below:

Oslo pre show checks

   

Wet bricks in Oslo!                                    Grahams kit being checked pre show

 

Warsaw venue after stage set up                                                    Warsaw lighting tests

 

Getting the Stuka ready before the Warsaw show

   

 

Pig being inflated in Warsaw

 

Test run for the Stuka

Gothenburg, day of the show…..

I slept ok but would have slept a lot better had i been in a hotel! i kept waking up through the night and i woke around 8am in the morning to notice something next to the bed that believe it or not was actually there before i went to sleep but i never even noticed it.

It was a large piece of wooden shuttering board! 6ft x 3ft just propped at the side of the bed, again, i put the following on my Facebook status with the picture below and sat back and waited, people did not disappoint!

“I survived the 1st night!! How is this for service, don't like the softness of the mattress ? simple, just slide in the supplied 6ft x 3ft piece of half inch plywood by your bedside and enjoy!!”

  

I walked up to the venue to meet up with Stuart and Ole, they were able to pick up their tickets from 10am this morning and wanted to get that out of the way.

Tonight's outdoor venue

After picking up our tickets we walked back down to the city centre, there’d been a huge festival on this past week, it was all part of the same festival that Roger played Ca-Ira for a few days ago. There were tents all over with stages, acts and bands and the place was buzzing with atmosphere.

We headed over for a walk around the food market where there were all different types of food from around the world.

Every type of Strudel                                The food market                                        English fudge! (and a picture of the queen!)

The guys had had breakfast earlier so i grabbed a cheese and ham pretzel and we took a walk around the city before stopping off at a cafe bar in the main square.

Ole had met the band and Roger a few days ago in Copenhagen, he got a great picture of him and Snowy together which he had brought with him in the hope of getting it signed by Snowy as he left the hotel  before the show. Stuart and i didn't have anything with us to sign, I’m not really one for hanging outside the hotels etc and only have one autograph from Roger which i got in 2002 in Dallas, Texas. i don't have any of the other band members signatures. I always feel a little uneasy waiting outside for them, i know them and they know me on first name terms. We found a cafe bar right across the street from the hotel, we ordered cokes and sat and laughed our asses off for the next couple of hours. I sent Dave K a text asking if he wanted to join us for a drink and he text back that he;’d come down and join us in a while.

Ole suddenly realised that he didn't have a pen to give to Snowy or any of the band to sign with! ole had his Wall vinyl album with him that he wanted to get signed by Roger too so Stuart decided to go on the hunt for a shop that sold pens! 20 minutes later he came back clutching a plastic shopping back out of which he took a white coloured black sharpie type pen. he also pulled something out of the bag that neither Ole and i had expected, it was a white ball cap that had embroidery on the front that said “ Bride to Be” Ole and i looked at each other!

Stuart then began to explain in his thick Scottish accent that the only pen in the store was sold as part of a “ bridal autograph  package” that one would only buy if a bride was getting married! The bride would obviously take the hat and the pen out with her on her hen night and get he friends to sign it and keep the hat as a memento of the occasion.

   

After realising that the pen was great on fabric but no good whatsoever on glossy shiny material, Ole decided to try his luck and went off on the hunt for a “normal” pen. Stuart and i sat there joking how maybe Ole would come back with a packet of coloured crayons and a colour by numbers book! Maybe we could tell that band that we didn't want autographs but wanted to give each of them a different colour crayon and get them to colour in one of the pictures in the book! We could see who was the bets at keeping the crayon colour inside the lines and have a unique item! Sadly ole was a little more sensible that Stuart and came back in 10 minutes with a pack of two black sharpies, how boring!

We joked how Stuart should get Roger to sign the peak of the hat and he would hopefully be the only person in the world who would have a singed Bride To Be hat! Stuart took on board the challenge and had no fears whatsoever about asking him to sign it.

Roger usually leaves the hotel before the band in a separate car, today was no exception. Ole and Stuart went over the road to join to three or four other fans who were also waiting and i sat and waited for them at the cafe. I had a pretty good view of the hotel steps and saw Roger coming down them to meet the people outside before getting in the car to go to the venue. I took a couple of pictures from across the street and managed to get a couple when Ole was asking Roger to sign his album and also when Stuart was asking him to sign his hat! My friend Nick from the UK had arrived earlier too and was also outside waiting,as i looked over and zoomed the camera in i could see both ole and Roger laughing as Stuart must have given him the hat.

Roger arrives                                       Nick, Stuart, Ole and Roger                Roger looking amused!

    

The guys came back over the road and at this point i had no idea whether Roger had signed the hat or not, i know in the past there's been a couple of things he has refused to sign and he wont usually do personalised items. Stuart was laughing as he came back over and then promptly pulled out his hat with Rogers big scribble all over its peak! he said he didn't even read what was on it and just signed it, Ole had also managed to get his album cover signed too.

15 minutes later Dave K came out and over  to sit with us for a chat, Stuart wasted no time in explaining the story of the hat to Dave and asked him if he wouldn't mind signing it. Sure enough he was more than happy to oblige and it was then 2 down 9 to go! Robbie spotted us and again came over to catch up and say hi.

By this time the band were due to be leaving in 10 minutes, Dave and Robbie headed back over to the lobby and Stuart and ole joined them over there. 10 minutes later they came back with huge smiling faces, ole holding up the photograph of Snowy that he had had signed for his dads birthday!

                                                                                                                                                           

   

All 11 band members! the only one in the world!

Stuart joked that when he bought the pen and the hat he was going to throw the hat in the trash bin before he got back to us, he’s glad he didn't now!

It was gone 4:30 now and i headed up to the Hard Rock cafe to meet up with my friend Anneli while Stuart and Ole took their prized possessions back to the hotel before joining up with Anneli and i for something to eat and drink.

Album link below with more pictures of meeting Roger

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