TUESDAY, JANUARY 31ST AN WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1ST, 2023 – NASHVILLE TO MOSS, NORWAY:
Ready to depart for another Bellamy Brothers tour. This time they have 14 shows in 16 days in 14 cities. We should have named it after the old movie (that I still love) “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”. Only in this case, we could add “Plane, Trains, Vans, Ferries, and Hydrofoils”!
Of course, our region got hit with another ice storm the night before we departed. We spent the morning trying to figure out if our fight was going to be delayed. Our plan was to have the Bellamy’s tour bus drive us 4 hours to Atlanta and pick up our flight there. At 1:00 pm, our deadline to make the decision, our flight was still on time so we decided to risk taking it.
Everyone arrived at the airport on time. The Bellamy’s keyboard player had a freak accident the week before our departure and his doctor would not let him travel. We scrambled to find a replacement, change international and several domestic airfares, train tickets, and find suitable replacement backline equipment for the 14 venues! Thankfully Mark Burch stepped in as the replacement. He’s been easy to work with and fits in well with the group.
Just as we were about to depart Nashville, the rain turned to sleet and we had to sit at the gate for an extra 45 minutes while they de-iced the plane. Meant our arrival into Atlanta was late but I never book a connection of less than 3 hours on any trips, so all was fine. We had about 45 minutes to run into the lounge and then boarded the flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. This flight was not a Delta aircraft but a KLM plane. Flight attendants were really nice and food was great.
I planned to work on the flight over so I purchased the $18 flight Wi-Fi. Credit card went through and then the Wi-Fi disappeared. I tried for over an hour to reconnect and finally asked for assistance from the flight attendants. Definitely NO knowledge from any of them, even the purser. They kept trying to tell me that it was because we are “over the water”. PLEASE! I had just taken this flight on KLM in December and the Wi-Fi worked fine. They even asked the pilots and they were no help. So I gave up and slept.
We had about 45 minutes in the Lounge in Amsterdam when we landed so I immediately logged into Wi-Fi to try and get a little work done. One of my first emails was from KLM. It was a receipt showing they had charged my credit card for the Wi-Fi and it gave me a “CODE” that I had to use in order to log on to the Wi-Fi. Absolutely unbelievable. How can a passenger log in and input a code to access Wi-Fi when we can’t log into the internet without a Wi-Fi connection? KLM needs to up their game. Obviously this “new” system was developed by someone sitting at desk who has never flown anywhere and needed to access Wi-Fi.
Flight from Amsterdam to Oslo was only 1 ½ hours. When the bags arrived on the belt, we were missing Randy’s guitar and Mark’s suitcase. As we were waiting to see if more bags were coming, someone paged Mark. Also someone who worked for the airport arrived and crawled into the oversize belt area and “dislodged” a stroller that was blocking all the items from coming through. Thankfully, Randy’s guitar was one of those items. Unfortunately, Mark’s bag got left in Amsterdam and won’t be delivered to our hotel in Moss until Thursday (show day).
We have a driver that we used on our last tour in Norway when we traveled by tour bus. Really nice guy and good driver. It was a 1 ½ hour drive to the hotel in Moss…one of many small towns where we will be performing. It’s a really old hotel that has been renovated and the only hotel where we won’t have an elevator. No one likes carrying 50 pound suitcases up flights of stairs but I lost the battle to get us moved to another hotel. This one is right next door to the venue and very convenient….but definitely not a hotel I would choose. Staff is nice and rooms are nice but “bare bones”. I have a huge corner room with 3 beds and a bathroom the size of a shower stall in the U.S. Seriously, the only way to sit on the toilet is if you turn sideways because there is a wall a couple of inches from the front of the toilet seat. The wall is so close to the sink that it’s impossible to turn sideways so you can imagine the size of the shower. Nowhere at all to set out any toiletries. Those have to go on one of the 3 beds. LOL.
Several of us walked about a block to a Chinese restaurant recommended by our promoter. When we walked in, a Pam Tillis song was playing on their music system! Food was actually good.
My room was freezing and I finally had to go to the front desk and get help. He really had no idea how to adjust the wall heater but accidentally found a control under a hidden “cover”. The room is so big, it really wasn’t warming up even after an hour. Then I discovered another wall heater hidden beside a bed!
Worked until 3 am and got 5 hours of sleep.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND – PERFORMANCE IN MOSS, NORWAY:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOWARD!!!
Woke up to the smell of bacon! Evidently my room is directly above the kitchen. I dressed in my workout clothes and ran down for a quick breakfast. Several of our group was already in there eating. Food was good and I grabbed some fruit for “lunch” today. Was able to work out with “elastic bands” for about 30 minutes then dressed and tried to catch up on some emails. I had a call at around noon from a driver who said he was bringing the suitcase by from KLM airlines. Mark was really happy to have his clothes back.
We walked over to the venue at 1:15 pm for sound check but were shocked to see that there was nothing on the stage except the risers! Evidently there was miscommunication with the venue personnel regarding having all the equipment set up and ready for use when the band arrived. Everything just seemed to “snowball” after that with lots of other issues due to miscommunication. What should have been a quick sound check, turned into a very long sound check ending less than an hour before we had to be back at the venue for the show. Thankfully, all the issues were resolved (although some were only band-aided and will be permanently repaired tomorrow).
I did break away for about a half hour and walk to a nearby shopping mall with Monica (our AWESOME host at the theater) and purchased a Chocolate Marzipan cake for Howard’s birthday. Also, it appears that someone from TSA forgot to put the bag of candles that I had purchased and packed for the trip back into my bag when they searched it! Bought more candles plus balloons shaped like the number 7.
Kjell – our promoter – arrived late afternoon and stayed for the show. So nice to see him again. Because of COVID, I had not seen him since 2019!
Good new is…the show was great. I had picked a nice lady from the front row to come backstage and help me with a birthday surprise for Howard. After David introduced the band, I had her walk out and present Howard with a sausage wrapped in a Norwegian waffle. Seems Moss’s “claim to fame” are these “unique” sausage waffles – only Howard wasn’t aware of that! Since I always play terrible jokes on Howard and David when they are unfortunate enough to have their birthday during one of our tours, Howard’s expression was priceless. I’m sure he was wondering….what next! But, I brought out his “real” cake a few seconds later and he finally realized our prank was over.
Kjell mentioned how great the Bellamy’s vocals still are and how much fun the audience had watching the perform. Their vocals are great because they use them every weekend performing in the U.S.!
So, in the end, the promoter was happy, the venue personnel were happy, the audience was happy and least important … I was happy. LOL.
Stayed around until all the backline was packed up and loaded into the trailer. Then we walked over to the Kebab House to get something for dinner. Hadn’t eaten all day since breakfast this morning. I got Howard a plate to go and I got the Chicken Kebob. When I got to my room, I realized that it was on top of French Fries (Pomme Frites)! I managed to scrap off the chicken and only eat that part of the meal.
Almost 2 am and although I have hundreds of emails that need to be dealt with, they will have to wait until tomorrow on the 3 ½ van drive with ferry crossing! Tomorrow’s show is in Arendal and we have a special guest performing one with the Bellamys – Gunnar Thommesen (G. Thomas). More about him in tomorrow’s report.
Good night, all.