With a potentially long drive ahead of us this afternoon, most of the morning was spent trying not to get too frustrated by the incessantly intermittent hotel internet. We left the hotel at 4pm in Four cars, as the drive could be around 2 hours we spread out a little. The extra R class was driven by Tim Hook with PC and Richard as passengers. Bernie was as usual driving Mark, myself and Danny in the Hybrid S320 and Fabian and Dominika shared the other band members. It took a while to crawl out of central Milano and the traffic was quite heavy on the Northern Italian autostrades too. we were at the Swiss border in about an hour and a half but then hit very heavy traffic in a town called Cadenazzo about 20 kilometers out of Locarno. We eventually picked up our police escort on the outskirts of the town and pulled into the Piazza Grande where the stage was set up at 6:45 ish. We got out of the car and Pete came up to me and said "looks like you may get to play Sultans tonight". Tim, Paul and Richard were lost. Somehow managing to get the sat-nav to direct them towards Locarno in Italy, they unknowingly set off in the wrong direction as soon as they left Milan. It was only when they were led off the Autostrade and into an industrial estate that Tim suspected something was amiss. A call to Peter confirmed this as we were already in Switzerland. Tim corrected the sat-nav and set off at pace towards the border. They ended up arriving at about 7:30, an hour before showtime. Sultans of Swing was saved.







A slight miscalculation in the mornings food intake meant that I was starving by the time we arrived and I kept my fingers crossed that the local catering was edible. It was. I then took the camera for a wander down to the waterfront and Lake Maggiore.



The colour of the water in all the lakes on the journey looked so inviting as the temperature was a sweltering 40 degrees minimum on the stage in the afternoon. Those crew boys were grateful for the excellent facilities and air conditioned backstage rooms, set up in the local post office, adjacent to the stage. Security was not an issue today.



It was tempting to cool off with a beer....



Trucks tightly packed in behind the stage...



A good friend and previous driver of our, Alex was here today with his girlfriend Bridget. Happy birthday Bridget.



By the time we took to the stage, the temperature was just below 95 degrees Fahrenheit but the setting was spectacular. I asked Bernie to take some shots with the camera....







 The in-ears were perfect and the band energy was great. A fantastic all standing audience crammed in to the square seemed to enjoy every moment and there were many highlights during the set. The drive back was thankfully traffic free and we were back at the Bulgari in the heart of Milan at just before midnight. we were all pretty tired so no DJ'ing tonight, just a few glasses of water, swipe a few mozzies with the tennis racket and off to bed.