Right
now I am staying at my sister's house in Curitiba, Brazil. The group
and I had just spent three weeks performing in London, England at
Ronnie Scott's and it was great! It was sold out almost every night.
We played 2 sets a night, the 1st at 11pm and the 2nd started at
1am in the morning. So as you can guess we never went to bed before
four or five O'clock in the morning.
We have many wonderful friends who live in London and all of them
came to visit us at the gigs. It was just beautiful!
On one of these nights Paul McCartney came to see us. It was kind
of a funny moment. I was sitting in the dressing room when all of
a sudden the door opens and this guy with a dark beard comes in.
I was petrified. He was drinking a dark beer, and he said "Hello!"
and "How are you?" and was really nice. While everyone
was just staring and sort of stunned to see it was Paul McCartney.
This was during the break and he stayed and hung out talking with
us for a little bit and then he went back to his seat. It was nice
to see him again, he always comes to say hello.
Ronnie Scott's has been a favorite gig of mine for years. I just
love it. We have probably been playing there for almost twenty years.
It is usually packed with the people who have heard us there before.
Some people come every single night that we are there. We played
36 shows while we were there this time. So by the time we were done
and left to go do the rest of our tour in Europe, the band was really
tight and sounding good.We finished our last gig at Ronnie's at
about 2:30am and got to bed at around 6am Saturday night and on
Sunday we had to get up at 10am to go to the airport.
From London we flew to Rome, Italy where we had to go straight to
the sound check and do the gig that night. We were busy like that
for the next five or six days. We played all over Italy then we
were in Switzerland and Germany. On the way to Belgrade the airline
lost all my percussion, so when I got to Belgrade I did not have
it. I ended up doing a solo with some little percussion things that
people had brought with them. I don't remember exactly what I did,
but I think it was good because after my 15 minute solo playing
with "nothing" everyone was standing up cheering.
Belgrade Yugoslavia was great! The concert was beautiful! The concert
hall was beautiful! It was sold out.
Every thing was great on this tour! We just weren't sleeping. We
were on busses and planes, always traveling. I guess I did pretty
well. The younger guys in the band, who are about 25 years younger
than me, were really tired. I was tired too! But my energy was very
positive. I felt great! Also the audiences on this tour were fantastic.
Especially in Belgrade, the people there were wonderful.
After Belgrade the band went home and I had to go on to Greece,
where I was recording with a guitar player named Andreas Georgiou.
