Memories of past visits to Bilbao fill my head as we drive into this town in the heart of Basque country which seems to have undergone a bit of a transformation in the last 20 years. A major urban renewal project has been under way for many years now in an attempt to shift from the region's industrial history to a more tourism oriented city. Mark, Dan and I all commented on the transformation which is nothing short of remarkable. The developments are centered around a new Metro system designed by Sir Norman Foster and most notably the Frank Geary Guggenheim Bilbao museum. The old port of Bilbao has been moved along the coast and this has opened up vast areas of real estate where most of the new building has been going on.



The most noticeable thing to us though is along the characteristic high terraced streets near the bullring; no longer dark, seedy and grimy, the facias of all the buildings have either been given a serious steam cleaning or completely rebuilt. What was once a dirty, rough sea port has been transformed into a modern state-of-the-art beautiful city which now suits the breathtaking scenery along this Northern coastline in which it is situated. Quite different to the stark contrast of old.



Speaking of contrasts, there was a noticeable one yesterday evident on the faces of the crew as the temperature in Bilbao is so much cooler than the intense heat of Madrid and the load-in and set-up was a breeze. Kerry informed me there was even a little cloud cover, joy. It's been a while since the band have turned up at the venue with the stage deserted, all set up and ready for the show with the crew either relaxing on the buses or eating dinner in catering but this is what happened today.

In catering, Angus, Chris and Mike had laid out a Tapas bar with all the traditional elements including a stellar chicken stew thingy. Most of the band had a few pieces but we were all frankly quite full from a tapas selection an hour before on the plane journey up from Madrid.





The old girl..



Bernie



Mark signs a competition winner guitar...





As is ALWAYS the case in Bilbao, the crowd tonight were wonderful. The gig was fabulous and the atmosphere...well, you know.

After show, once the drivers had convinced a local policeman to move his car so we could get out, Bernie and the team drove us to Vittoria airport, our last run with this team. We said our goodbyes hoping very much of course that we will see them in similar circumstances very soon.



Then it was off to the plane for the penultimate hop back to Madrid.





Just one more to go and we are all looking forward to seeing Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsay again. They will be our support act for the final show.