Yesterday was a day off in Chicago, the weather was about as perfect as it could be for a ball game. Emmylou and a few others went and saw the 10 inning White Sox ball game at U.S. Cellular Field whilst others (me, Danny, MK and Peter) decided tennis was far more important. They all came back from the game sunburned whilst we endured only muscular pain as our court was indoors. In the evening Mark hosted a small gathering at our hotel as the Chicago show is the closest we'll get to Nashville on this tour, there were a lot of friends traveling up here including David Conrad and his wife Karen and Chuck Ainlay who co-produced the album.

Show day and the weather has not complied. The forecast is for thundershowers all day long and as most of us wake, it's lashing down. The venue is pretty open as you can see below and any kind of downpour could be a problem, still by the time the crew arrive the rain has ceased and does so for the whole day. The only problem was the wind and the cool temperature. After watching England progress tentatively into the quarter finals Danny and I wandered out for a bit of shopping and lunch and returned in time to see the farcical Portugal/Holland match. Then it's off to sound check, a meet and greet and an early show time of 7:45. It was still very much daylight as we took to the stage and as soon as we started, most of us knew we were very much under-dressed. Unlike the Toronto show, the stage here is very exposed. The lights usually warm us up nicely but the combination of the wind and the fact that the lights generator failed during the show, TWICE, meant it was a bit of a struggle. The show was beset with gremlins with guitars not working and radio glitches. Richard's bazouki failed to work for the intro to 'done with Bonaparte' so Mark started it with Stuart. We soldiered on with Soldier Field in the background enjoying the fabulous audience who braved the elements and noticed Chuck was one of many who rushed to the front of the stage for the encores.

As we go back onstage for the final encore, I notice the predicted rain starting to fall. After Why worry we came off stage and climbed into the cars anticipating the promised police escort but it doesn't show up and as we drive out of the backstage gate, our driver is asked to stop by an off-duty police officer (we learned later) we said "ignore him" and he drove on very carefully through the audience who were by now streaming out of the venue. The security man gave chase banging on the car and screaming for us to stop shouting "you nearly hit someone". We never did. By this time we were surrounded by the crowd who could see it was Mark me and Danny in the car. There were a few awkward moments before Peter came running out to save the day and guide us on our way.

One more day to go on the Charity Ukulele auction...go on .make that final bid!