Another town we've never been to and I was looking forward to this one as it necessitated a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, something we just haven't found the time to do since we've been in San Francisco. Laurie and Leon had arranged a visit to Pixar to have lunch with a friend, Leon was quite excited about that. I couldn't go as the band had to leave for Santa Rosa by car at 2pm and I learned a long time ago to never rush around on a show day. We set off in convoy making the journey Northwards across town, through Pacific Heights, up and down some of the steepest of San Francisco's streets, onto Lombard Street (not the windy bit), past the magnificent Palace of Fine Arts, onto Doyle Street and onto the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge.



Built in 1937, this beautiful landmark was the longest spanning bridge in the world. On a sinister note, amazingly, (or maybe not) this is the most popular place in the world to commit suicide, an average of two per week. 26 people are known to have survived the jump of 245 feet (75 meters). One survivor in 1979, swam to shore, and drove himself to a hospital. The impact cracked several of his vertebrae. In 2008 Golden Gate Bridge officials voted overwhelmingly to hang stainless steel nets from the sides of the bridge in an effort to stop people from jumping to their deaths.

I rode shotgun in the car with Mark and Paul, happily snapping away en-route to the venue. Just as we arrived the driver pointed out the hall on the right so I took this photo.



This place is very reminiscent of our local Festival theatre in Chichester, West Sussex..very similar in size and layout. As we walked in, the backstage area was cosy and the staff were extremely friendly. We dropped our bags off in the dressing room and most of us nipped into catering to see if there were any remnants of lunch left over. No such luck but the soup for the evening's dinner menu was put out so we dipped in. WOW, is all I can say of this delight. By far the best soup on the tour so far and possibly even the last tour too.

Butternut Squash soup with a pesto drizzle. . . YUMMY




The freshness of the cuisine was evident and confirmed by Steve Ricalis, our tour catering supervisor, in that all the cooking was done on-site. And most excellent cooking it was too. There was Apple pie, a berry pie and a fruit tart for dessert and any traces of self-control I had abandoned me in a moment of sheer unadulterated pleasure, I spooned delicious home-made Apple pie and Ice cream into my mouth.



A very dear friend of ours Nancy Granger organized it for 6 'Little Kids Rock ' students to come and watch us sound check. Since 2002, Little Kids Rock has been dedicated to putting music back in schools, providing students with free musical instruments and instruction that focuses on their favorite popular music styles. Danny, Mike and I spent 20 minutes or so chatting to the kids who asked us various questions about what we do. There were 5 guitarists and a drummer and Dan went and grabbed a pair of his drumsticks and gave them away. One of the questions was "are you guys like, famous?". "to a different generation" was all I could think of to say to that.



I took a few shots of the delightful Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey while they sound-checked. They really are very sweet folks and I can't recommend their music highly enough. I've had many comments from formats and e-mailers about how wonderful they are. I will of course pass these on.





By the way, if you send me emails, there is a good chance I won't reply, mainly due to time constraints. I do read them all but the best way to get a reply is by posting on the forum as I read and respond (when appropriate) to them all!

Wardrobe cases



The show itself was different as firstly the venue was a lot smaller, especially in height. This meant we had to use a cut-down rig and use the house PA. I must say the quality of the in house equipment was very high and our crew boys were most impressed. The audience tonight were nothing short of fantastic, extremely attentive and up for it in a big way. For such a small room they made quite a noise. We had fun, as always and after show itb was back in the cars for the .5 hour trip Southbound to San Francisco once more.