Back on the treadmill this morning after failing to restrain myself when presented with last night's Persian curry-fest on the plane. As always, when you leave it for a few days, it's tougher than it should be. The day trip today is Vienna and the familiar Stadthalle, a slightly antiquated venue but in actual fact, always a great gig. We left Budapest and the riverside Four Seasons hotel mid-afternoon and found the traffic not to be too bad so we were on schedule for a 3:00pm wheels-up. With the plane in perfect working order, still with only one flap motor but apparently that's fine, we took to the air for the hop to Vienna.



A hungarian roof-top pool...



Mark signs a few things at Budapest airport...



A mighty Antinov 268...



Taxi...





Bernie, Dominika and Fabian then drove us to the Stadthalle where we were eager to see the latest scoreline in Germany's match against the formidable Argentina. We have a very happy team of drivers and promoters as by this time Germany were 1-0 up and of course went on to demolish the South Americans 4-0.



For some reason the air conditioning in the building was only switched on when the band arrived and didn't really make too much difference anyway, so everyone was uncomfortable, especially Angus, Chris and Mike in the catering dept. The load in today was an hour and a half late and they were playing catch up all day. Let us not forget that they are first in to make breakfasts and last out with clearing up dinner. Not to mention the shopping trips in the mornings. I really don't know how they do it; with such stunning results too.

Our dressing room had been fitted with a temporary air-con unit and so was by far the coolest room in the building. All very nice for us but I would have happily carried it over to the kitchens if I could.



The showtime was for some reason set for an unusually early 7:30 so it was the usual preparations and warm-ups and then on to the stage once more. The audience were slightly unusual tonight in that they seemed to applaud at any given opportunity, still extremely appreciative, just a lot of clapping. The usual stage rush during the last song was for one eager fan interrupted as a security guard deemed it not time yet and grappled the poor guy away, but a few minutes later, the familiar surge of sweaty faces took place. Pushed up against the front of stage with arms outstretched, they smiled and applauded as the band lined up for the now familiar 'toast'. A quick wave and a pretend chat about what to play next and we were into the encores. This whole ritual was of course modified when Mark had his back injury and we decided to just stay on stage before the encores rather than him have to trundle off and back on again. The thing is, it works really well and has become a nice 'touch'. All songs performed, we were back into the cars with news of a 0-0 scoreline in the Paraguay v Spain match. That's Matt Rollings v Leon Fletcher in band sweepstake terms! The Spaniards went on to clinch an incredible victory as Paraguay threw away the opportunity of a generation.

Pretty soon we were back aboard the plane and it was Wiener Schnitzel on the menu for the post-show dining experience. Resistance was futile.

Back to the hotel in the heart of Budapest and we thought it would be nice to nip round the corner to one of the many bars that stay open until 5am! Pretty much all of us made it out and it was quite a scene with hundreds of scantily clad kids queueing to get into the clubs along the parade. We stood outside at the nearest bar, ordered 10 local beers (not each!) and watched the football highlights which were being shown on a large screen tv. A glance at the watch and it was 2am and that was enough for most of us, I wandered back with Mark and PC and hit the hay.