HELLO HELLO THE NOU CAMP GETS VERTIGO

Forty minutes to go before the start of the show and the stadium is full to capacity and the crowd are in great spirits.

FC BARCELONA NOU CAMP

The whole of the pitch, which is made of real turf, is covered by a special protective covering that allows it to breath. The stadium is one of the largest football stadiums in the world with an official capacity of 110000 it was opened in 1957. Today's concert sold out in hours of tickets going on sale. Today it is hot and humid.

NOU CAMP BARCELONA CATALUNYA

We left Nice around 1:30 a.m and headed for Spain and the possibility of getting caught up in the holiday weekend rush of traffic to the resorts of the Costa Brava. Luckily, although they closed the Spanish motorway to trucks and we were diverted onto secondary roads we arrived at the Nou Camp Stadium from mid-day onwards. The load in started with earnest and by 8:30pm all is ontrack.
The Nou Camp, what can I say, a shrine to football, the home of Barca, FC BARCELONA, that great Manchester United victory against Bayern Munich in the dying seconds of extra time of the European Cup Final, enough of this footie talk! There is going to be a concert tomorrow!!!!

NICE Côte d'Azur

We left the rain and cold of Munich and drove through the Brenner Pass in Austria into Italy, driving across northern Italy we entered the south of France at Ventimiglia, then along the autoroute with the stunning views of the Cote dAzur to Nice. It's good to be in the Sun again and there is a welcoming breeze blowing from the Mediterranean.

MUNICH MORNING MIST

Here are a few images taken this morning. There is a lot of low cloud and drizzle, it reminds me of Manchester or Ireland in a kind of fond way, y'know bank holiday mondays in Blackpool. Anyway all is ready and I am sure a bit of dampness will not spoil another great show.

MUNCHEN

We started rolling the trucks out of a rain soaked Copenhagen after midnight and headed for the port of Gedser, to catch the 7am ferry to Rostock Germany. The southern Baltic was a bit choppy but the crossing only took 1 hour 45 minutes, so some of us didn’t have really enough time to see if we had sea legs or not. Back onto dry land the land lubbing truckers then drove down through Germany, stopping for a break at an autohof (truck stop) and arrived at the Olympic Stadium Munich in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Munich the capital of The Free State of Bavaria, famous for it’s Oktoberfest, where traditionally dressed frauleins serve gallons of beer to the eager thirsty revellers, while they are entertained by the local lederhosen clad, thigh slapping, oom-pah band. I guess they are taking binge drinking to the limit. This extraordinary Olympic village hosted the 1972 Olympics, sadly remembered for the wrong reasons. The focal point of the site is the stadium itself, the home until recently of Bayern Munich, one of Germany’s most famous Football teams. They have moved to a new arena on the outskirts. It was also here that England beat Germany 5 – 1(sorry I could not resist that) a couple of years ago.

A STROLL IN THE PARKEN

The doors are open and the crowds are rushing in and trying to get as close to the stage as possible. It seems like everyone has come to the stadium by bicycle and even rickshaw too! The sun is shining and its a warm day, just right.
WEATHER UPDATE: Soon after posting this, the sky filled with dark grey clouds and it is now pouring down with rain, oh well the garden needs it!

KOBENHAVN DENMARK

"Blue skies are here again, put on a happy face" The Parken is lit up by the bright evening sunshine and all the crews have finished work for the day and are all tucked up in bed with a good book and a cup of cocoa!(Yes I think Denmark is famous for it's fairytales)

PARKEN STADIUM COPENHAGEN

It was another short drive down from Gothenburg to Copenhagen last night. As we left the Ullevi Stadium the rain that had tried in vane to dampen the great concert last night ceased, we headed for Helsingborg and took the short ferry ride to Helsingor in Denmark and arrived at the Parken around 5am this morning. The whole stadium and surrounding park was shrouded in a calm dawn mist. The load in started at 10 am and as always its all on track for tommorows show.

ULLEVI STADIUM GOTHENBURG

We started leaving Oslo at about midnight, staight after the show in Oslo and had a relatively short drive through the extremely pleasant and quiet Norwegian and Swedish countryside to Gothenberg, about three and a half hours. Yesterday was a load in day and by early evening everything was almost up and running for todays show. It's a bit overcast but quite warm and it's all ready for tonight.

Göteborg

The Ullevi Stadium is filling up ahead of tonights show in just over one hour.

OUT & ABOUT IN GOTHENBURG

Whoops Yes its Gothenburg! no excuses as I had just had a walk around the Centre.

AN EVENING IN OSLO

The Audience is being entertained by one of the support bands in the evening sunshine before the band hit the stage.

The Spot Tree

The out front spot tower rises up into the Norwegian sky like a Mad Max inspired Christmas Tree. All is ready for todays show and the weather is warm with bright sunshine but changeable.

OSLO NORWAY

2700 Kilometres and 50 hours later the trucks rolled into the Valle Hoven Stadium Oslo, during the early hours of this morning. The night sky was showing its permanent dawn at this time of the year, being so far north and there was a welcome chill to the air. Today is a load in day and so far there is no sign of "mossies" (mosquitos) but there has been spotted, these huge flying insects that seem to be wearing leather helmets and goggles! The top photo shows the bridge from Denmark to Sweden the one at the bottom is Genny World in place in Oslo.

OLYMPIC STADIUM ROME

They say, "All roads lead to Rome", and after two successful shows and a video shoot (something for the fans to look forward to) the road we took led us here. With traffic jams in the middle of the night and sometimes feeling like contestants in the Italian version of Wacky Races, we all made it here. It's a bit cooler than Milan which is a relief and not so many mossies! As usual all is ready for today's show and we are gearing up for the two day double drive after the concert tonight up to Oslo.

SAN SIRO STADIUM

Two more shots of the San Siro to gaze at.

THE SAN SIRO MILANO

Ah! The San Siro, one of the great football stadiums of Europe. It is home to two famous Italian football teams, Inter Milan and AC Milan. For the next two day's it's our home and of course the pesky mosqiuto's! the local supermarket has run out of repellent. We had a good trouble free drive down from Zurich and all is ready for tonights show, its hot and humid, some of us northern boy's are not built for humidity!

CHANGING A TYRE SWISS STYLE

Even Genny World gets punctures, so the Swiss tyre repairman arrived with his amazing mobile workshop. A few people thought he was setting up a beer tent (no such look) anyway we have an overnight drive to Milan after tonights show. The weather today is very changeable, hot & sunny one minute and thunder & lightening with heavy rain the next.

LETZIGRUND ZURICH

After three great shows to three great audiences, we loaded out of the Amsterdam Arena straight after the show. With fistsfuls of Sunday driving permits we double drove the trucks and buses the twelve hours to Zurich, for a 12 noon load in. It's 35 degrees today and very hot. By 8pm the stage is looking good and and all is on track for tomorrows show.