THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH – PERFORMANCE IN LILLESTROM, NORWAY:

Another early morning…up at 5:00 am for a 7:45 am lobby call.  Everyone was on time—except the taxis taking us to the airport.  We were supposed to have two mini-vans and one car.  One mini-van  taxi was there and we loaded as much as we could into it.  But he had child seats in the back which took up a lot of the space where our luggage needed to go. We moved those to the seats inside to make room for more luggage.  The second mini-van taxi arrived and we packed everything into it.  We left for the airport and got a call about 15 minutes after we had left that the 3rd taxi was there.

Check in was easy because the band gear traveled overnight and will meet us at the airport in Oslo when we arrive.  We weren’t charged any excess either!

It was a short 55 minute flight.  Pretty rocky taking off and landing because of the high wind.  Our driver – Robin – was waiting for us and all our luggage arrived.  We are staying at another Thon Hotel and they had our rooms ready for us.  Got Howard and David in the larger rooms as I’ve been requesting all along. It’s a nice hotel and we had a little over an hour before we could go to the venue.  It was freezing in my room but when I called the desk, they advised that the heat is controlled for the entire hotel in another location and there was nothing they could do…other than bring me another blanket.

The venue is nice and I remember it from our last tour.  Catering wasn’t set up so I helped get that together because most of the guys were really hungry.  When it was near the end of sound check, I walked across the street to a Sushi Restaurant and picked up “dinner” for me and Jim.

Had about another hour at the hotel and then we left for the show.  Kjell came over to see this one tonight and I sat out front with him for about half the show.  Then I had to go pick up food at the Asian Restaurant for Howard and David.  It was another great, sold out performance.

Got back to the hotel at around 9:30 pm and ate my sushi and it was excellent.  It’s 1:30 am now and time to get some sleep!  We fly to Tromso tomorrow and that is going to be our best chance of getting a glimpse of the Northern Lights!

Jude