Piazza del Doumo
Quite a day yesterday. Here’s the venue at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. As you can see, the lights are just going up. Glenn and I wandered around the corner from the hotel and there we were, at the venue. You can’t argue with the setting…The Piazza del Doumo (now officially known as PiazzaPauloVI) was in the heart of the old city and is occupied by th Tower of Pegol and the Loggia della Grida. Also in the piazza is the Broletto, the oldest communal palace in the city. When Brescia was a city state, the Broletto used to be the centre of political life. For someone who came bottom of the class every year but one at school in History, I haven’t done bad here.

Competition No. 3 RESULTS
It’s not often you get a beautiful statue and fountain backstage. The promoter really splashed out here.

Competition No. 3 – ‘What City’ – NOW CLOSED
Congratulations to Oscar Rollan, JÃ rgen Van Bever, Marko Stepanic, Alexander Vardakis, Sebastiaan Fitz Verploegh, Brendan Crimi,and Iris Wyludda for getting the correct answers which were:-
a Hamburg (fooled a lot of you)
b Mexico City (a trick one this, the football strip is the giveaway)
c Lyon (most of you got this one)
d Buenos aires (this one too)
e Montivideo (this was the killer, hot dry climate, I guess you had to guess)
f Rio (easy)
g Sao Paulo (big city!)
h Madrid (well spotted if you got this)
i LA (our dear Bonnie)
j Boston (Cape Cod of course)
k New Orleans (architectural giveaway)
l London (Albert of course)

A prize package will be sent out to the winners.
I think I’ll put together another one of these but I’ll try to find a clue in each photo. Thanks to everyone who participated. (over 250 this time)

Dinner
Before the show in Brescia, the band and crew were treated to dinner at a restaurant just off the square. As you can see it was tremendously difficult for us to enjoy! Seated at the head of the table is Allesandro, our good friend and cuisine advisor, from the record company, who’s birthday it is today. Allesandro took us to THE finest restaurants when we were in Italy on the Promotional tour in November. Happy Birthday Allesandro.

Cafe
Espresso’s in a café just off the piazza.

The birth
Richard Bennett suggested we call this photo ‘The Birth’. Only in Italy have I ever seen paintings hung on the walls of the backstage portakabins. The next picture in the series is not really publishable…but it may get printed in the ‘book of the tour’. (which I’m thinking about compiling, what do you think?, would you buy it?)

OE-HMS
Our Dornier stretches it’s wings this morning.

RSI
Mark’s arm brace. He has been suffering recently from RSI in the left wrist (repetitive strain injury) He will be seeing a specialist when we get back to the UK in a few days. It’s not serious but he does need to rest it quite a bit. “too many Sultans’, too many Telegraph Road’s, too many Speedway’s” he told me yesterday.