Goodbye, London! Hello, Raleigh!

Yeah, I know, I'm slack. Never kept my blog up during the run of London shows. Probably because I never sat down and made time to write anything about it. Have to say, this has been by FAR the best vacation I've ever taken. Got to see 7 Mott The Hoople shows altogether (2 in Wales, 5 in London), and got to meet the entire band one afternoon during their rehearsals in Wales. Imagine doing the same with YOUR favorite band of all time…what a rush!

There are many details, too many really, to dig up about the last 10 days. Suffice to say, I had a blast.

Dave and I camped out for 5 nights at the K-West Hotel in Shepherd's Bush, a musician-friendly hotel I've stayed at before while touring. Great location, lots to do, tons of great restaurants and bars around, and only about 8-10 minutes by cab from the Hammersmith Apollo, the venue hosting the Mott shows.

Every night's show was a blast. I managed to video a bunch of the songs over the 5-night run. You can check out those vids on YouTube by searching my member name, ofifoto. Seventeen of the 21 videos that pop up on that search are mine – you'll see 'em.

Helen Johns, the Box Office Manager at the Apollo, was kind enough to give me passes to the venue's private VIP bar every night. This was great, as it was upstairs and away from the crowd. We pretty much spent every night in there, before and after the show. Various members of the band would show up after the show, along with a few of the celebrity rockers in attendance.

One night, Dave and I shared our bar table with Suggs (singer from Madness), Woody Woodmansey (drummer from David Bowie's Spiders From Mars band), Lisa Ronson (Mick Ronson's daughter), Glen Matlock (bass player from the Sex Pistols), and Gary Kemp (guitarist from Spandau Ballet). That's what it was like most every night.

There was no show on Sunday night (the 4th). That night, Dave dragged me out to dinner to meet a friend of his, who turned out to be Simon Kossoff, whose brother Paul Kossoff had been the guitarist for the band Free (I'm sure you know "All Right Now") and after they disbanded, Backstreet Crawler. Had it not been for the Mott shows, that may have been my favorite night in London.

The night of the final show (the 6th), I changed hotels out to the Sheraton by Heathrow, so I could avoid the long commute from central London to the airport this morning.

For now, it's back to work. Had an 11am flight today, London to Boston to Raleigh. Got home around 6pm, started some laundry, and dashed out the door to go see Robin Trower at the Lincoln Theatre. Wow, what a show – close your eyes and it's 1978 all over again. Robin played a nice mix of new and old songs, and lucky for me, the old ones were heavy on tunes from my fave album of his, "Bridge of Sighs."

More posts soon…

Mott The Hoople - Show #2

Back for a second night in Monmouth!

"Hymn For The Dudes" the show opener

"I Wish I Was Your Mother"

Ian playing the Maltese Cross guitar duing "Walking With A Mountain”

Ian playing a 1956 Les Paul, Junior during "All The Young Dudes”

Mott The Hoople - Show #1

Dave and I split for Monmouth around 2:30, this time leisurely making our way there. Having driven to the rehearsals yesterday, we knew the lay of the land a bit more and knew exactly where the Blake Theatre was, along with the nearby car park.

Arrived and parked up a few minutes before 5. Immediately ran into Pete Dutton, the FOH guy, and chatted him up for a few minutes. Then we were off to explore the village’s high street (main road). Checked a few menus as we made our way down to the end of the street, where we popped into The Robin Hood, a fairly large pub.

Had a couple of pints, and then wandered down the street. Decided to go ghetto for dinner, so we grabbed sandwiches and crisps (potato chips) from Waitrose (grocery store) and sat and ate them on a bench along the high street. Probably looked like a couple of vagrants to the locals, lol…

After we finished, we walked back over to the venue and made our way in. The lobby bar’s beer selection was pretty limited. I had a Stella, but it tasted like ass, so I switched to Beck’s. No beers allowed in the auditorium. WTF? That kinda sucked but it’s a real nice place, so I kinda understand.

As we were standing there chatting, Joe Elliott (the singer from Def Leppard) came strolling in with a buddy of his. Five minutes later, I’m engaged in conversation with him and he turned out to be a totally ordinary, nice guy. Like me, Joe’s a lifelong Mott fan. We talked about the Maltese Cross guitar he gave Ian Hunter for his 70th birthday back in June. Said he had two of them made, one for Ian and one for himself. We chatted a bit about our favorite Mott songs, and I made three or four attempts to excuse myself from the conversation and leave him alone, but he kept grabbing my arm to prevent me from walking away. He was SO excited about seeing Mott, maybe as much as I was.

Like me & Dave, he’s going to all 7 shows, the 2 warm-ups here in Monmouth and the 5 shows in London. He’ll even be opening one of the London shows, the last one (Oct. 6), as Joe Elliott’s Down & Outz. The band consists of Joe and members of The Quireboys. Just a one-off gig, not a new project or anything.

He said he’s wanted to see Mott since he was a 12-year old kid, listening to them on the radio. I can relate, except that I was 15 when I became a fan.

Finally slipped away from him, found Dave, and we made our way in. Great seats, except for the guy in front of me, who was easily 6’7” if he was an inch. I couldn’t see a fucking thing with him there, so I went back and stood by the mix position. It was only 4 rows back, so it was fine. Plus, I could see everything from there!

Dave stayed in the seats, kind of sitting across both, such that he could see just fine. With both of us there, though, he couldn’t do that.

The show was awesome. There were a few tunes that both Dave and I wish had been included, like “Thunderbuck Ram” and “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” but overall, it was a great set.

Here’s the setlist from the first Mott The Hoople show (with Ralpher and Phally) since 1973. Thirty-six friggin’ years!

There was no opening act and the show had a 10pm curfew, so we made it back to Dave’s house shortly before 1am.

What a day! I’m in heaven…

Meeting Mott The Hoople - Wow!!!

Wow, indeed! I don’t even know what to think about today. At the invitation of the band’s sound engineer, Pete Dutton, Dave and I traveled 93 miles from his house this morning to Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. That’s where Mott The Hoople has been rehearsing for the last couple of weeks. Today’s the last day of rehearsal – the first of the two warm-up shows is tomorrow night, also in Monmouth, at the 434-seat Blake Theatre.

After parking the car, Dave and I first ran into Sid, Mick Ralphs’ long-standing guitar tech. Sid knew Dave, so he walked us around back, where we walked up to a group of folks sitting around, outside the back door to one of the studio buildings.

There sat Ian Hunter and Mick Ralphs, along with a couple of crew guys. Introductions were made all around. I reminded Mick that we had met at the Bad Company show in Raleigh back in June, where I had told him that I planned to attend all of the London Mott shows. He had laughed then, and he laughed again today.

Ian was awesome. He’s quite the friendly bloke, and very fit, considering he turned 70 during early June.

A fellow came walking out the door and walked right up to me and said “Hi, I’m Martin Chambers.” I’d recognized him as soon as I saw him, and was floored at how friendly he is. Martin, of course, has played drums for the Pretenders since the band started. Amazing drummer, and now, an amazingly nice guy.

Turns out that Buffin, Mott’s drummer, is having a few minor medical issues that will prevent him from participating in the reunion shows. There’s a slight chance he may play a bit at the Hammersmith shows, but that’s a decision that will be made daily during that run of shows.

After a few minutes everyone made their way inside. Pete “Overend” Watts, Mott’s bass player looked up at Dave and I, and asked who we were. Dave had interviewed Overend a few years ago when he was working on his book “Heavy Load” (about the band Free), but they’d never met in person. Well, Overend lit up like a Christmas tree and started treating Dave like they were old friends from long ago.

I introduced myself to Verden Allen, the keyboard player. We know each other a bit through MySpace. He knows me as Bobzilla and laughed that I was a normal human being in spite of the name.

The band ran through bits and pieces of a few tunes, and the whole time, all the hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. When they did “Hymn For The Dudes” I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

As all bands do, they had some nuts and bolts bits to work on, so Dave and I were very politely ushered back out through the open door to the patio in order to give them more privacy. The good news was that we could still hear every note.




After about 20 more minutes, they took a break (Verden was having issues with his Leslie cabinet), and most scurried outside for a smoke.

Turned out the rehearsal was over, so then we all just hung out and the real fun started. Dave and I helped a couple of their crew guys load a dozen cases of backline gear in the truck, and then spent about 45 minutes talking to Ian and Overend.

I asked Ian about his old “H” guitar and the Maltese Cross one. He told me the story of finding the original Maltese Cross one in a pawnshop in San Francisco many years ago. He paid $75.00 for it. What a hoot!

He said he’d recently received a new one as a gift from Joe Elliott (the singer for Def Leppard and a huge Mott fan himself). He excused himself for a minute and went inside, reemerging with the guitar. Here’s Ian and the Maltese Cross guitar.

My favorite anecdote of the afternoon was Ian telling a story about Mick Ralphs quitting Bad Company back in the day. BadCo’s singer Paul Rodgers, a kinda small fellow, is well known as an insufferable bastard, and when he was quitting, Mick said to Paul, “Life’s too short…and so are you!” Hahahaha…

Dave asked if they would be playing “Thunderbuck Ram”, but Ian said that Mick’s voice had dropped an octave over the years. Tough song for him to sing back THEN, so pretty much impossible now. Dave laughed and told him they should do it as an instrumental, instead.

Overend asked me where I was from, and after I told him, he said, “And you’ve come all the way here for THIS?” I told him I wouldn’t miss it for the world. He responded, “But what if we’re shite?” to which we all laughed. It was then decided that they needed to make t-shirts for the London shows that said “What If We’re Shit?” on them. He was genuinely astounded that I wanted to attend all 7 shows. All I could say to that was “You have no idea what your music has meant to me for all these years.” I swear he blushed a bit as he smiled and reached out to grab my shoulder.

There were many more stories, and I was thrilled to be able to hang out with those guys today. It was the highlight of my year!

Tomorrow – first warm-up show…

First Day of Vacation

Yay! The tour is done. Finished last night with the second of two nights at Wembley Stadium. Total attendance over two nights was 141,794. That, my friends, is crazy!

I’m on holiday in the UK for the next 17 days. I’ll be spending the first 11 of those staying at my buddy Dave Clayton’s house in Charlton, down in Dorset, about 2 hours southwest of London. After that, 6 days in London attending all 5 of the Mott The Hoople 40th Anniversary reunion shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. Dave will be joining me for those.

In addition, we have tickets to the two warm-up shows the band is playing at the Blake Theatre (434-capacity) in Monmouth, Wales on September 25th & 26th. Seven Mott shows in total.

Best. Vacation. Ever.

Production Day in Dublin

Had to get away from the venue at a reasonable time tonight. Because one cannot go do Dublin and not go out for a fresh pint (or 8) of Guinness.

Julie and me, imbibing...

Show Day in Manchester

Ste McNally, one of the three guys from BBMak (the band I tour managed back in 2000), came out to visit tonight. He brought me a disc with tons of photos and videos from the year we spent together. I really miss those guys, but I don't miss being a tour manager. It was fun to go through that stuff - brought back a lot of good memories.

Jim and Peanut, the two riggers who ride my bus…

Had a killer office here yesterday and today, with a great view of the stage. Just before doors, and just before showtime…


Jay-Z, our main support act tonight, on stage…

Travel Day to Manchester

Sunrise on the ferry, en route to Manchester…

Show Day in Nijmegen

Today’s the second of two shows here in Nijmegen, Holland, birthplace of Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Can you believe this place has not one single statue, plaque, or other type of recognition of that fact? I can’t.

Got a couple of cool shots from stage right tonight…

Show Day in Paris

Got a final shot of the Eiffel Tower this morning as we were leaving the hotel. Wish I had a couple more days off here…

Spot operators doing their thing up on the delay towers:

Wonder what they’re gonna do with all those leftover beers they poured. Hmmmm...

Production Day in Paris

Photo of me, standing next to a HUGE cell tower I found a few blocks from the hotel.

Went to dinner tonight with Mick and Eric ( merch guys), and Jackie (security). Everyone wanted Mussels and Frites. We wanted to go to Leon’s, but there was a line out the door, and since the place next door had no line, we went there instead. Mick and Eric:

In the contest of Bob vs. the Mussels, Bob won in overtime:

After we got done with dinner, we went next door to Leon's for dessert and ANOTHER POT OF MUSSELS. Seriously, after we had dinner, we went and had dinner again. Hahahaha...

OK, just one pot of mussels, and just to compare.

Next time, we'll stand in line at Leon's. 'Nuff said...

Show Day in Bern, Switzerland

This, folks, this is a road case for a couch. Yep, you heard me right, a couch.

We have one truck out here (out of a current count of 34 trucks) that carries nothing but furniture and other dressing room crap. And there are 2 guys (Ian and David) who do nothing but deal with dressing room ambience.

Took this shot from stage right tonight. Good view of the crowd.

Here's Andy Bramley, our Video Director, doing his thing during the show.

And this is our Video Engineer Ed Jarman, doing likewise.

I almost missed bus call tonight. The load-out went way faster than normal. Suddenly, it was 2:15am and someone on my bus called me on the radio to tell me that all the other buses were gone and they were sitting at the gate waiting for me. I'd been so busy websurfing and talking to R. Kelly's Tour Manager that I hadn't noticed that everyone was done. D'oh!

Travel Day to Bern, Switzerland

By now, you should know I don't sleep very much on buses. Got to sleep just past 4am, and was up this morning by 7:45.

Went up front to sit and watch the countryside roll by. I think my two favorite drives in the world are the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the Swiss Alps. I've been lucky enough this year to do them both.


Mountains so tall, they reach up and touch the sky…






It is just so beautiful here. I would love to come live here for a short time, even if only for a few months.



We went through one tunnel this morning that was 17km (10.5 miles) long. I thought we'd never get back to daylight.

Show Day in Udine, Italy

More random shots from today in Italy…

Toilet in the crew room. Yuck!And no, I don't mean urinal. That's the pooper! What we refer to as a "Turkish Toilet."

The crowd of 41,000+ filling up the bowl.

Riggers Chuck and Jim on stage.

My usual 9pm photo, just before the band hit the stage.

Three shots during "Yellow."



Fireworks at the end of the show.



Headed out to the bus around 3am, crawled into my happy place about 4:30…

Production Day in Udine, Italy

After loading in and setting up my office, I worked for a couple of hours, then bailed with some other folks to go back to the hotel. We're staying at the lovely Hotel Friuli, a few blocks from the center of Udine. We were all kind of puzzled as we were pulling up, because it looked more like a gas station with a hotel than a hotel with a gas station in front of it.

This is Ed Jarman (our video engineer) hanging out of his top floor window. He shouted down that this was one of the finest petrol stations he's ever stayed in.

Upstairs for a shower, and then a few of us met in the lobby to head out for dinner - Eric & Mick (merch guys), Jackie (security) and me. We walked around the city center for about an hour checking out some local sites.




Finally decided on a restaurant that we all thought looked pretty good. This was my dinner, a mushroom pizza:

Dessert was Tiramisu and a shot of Limoncello. This was by far the very best Tiramisu I've ever had.

Back to the hotel after dinner, where I joined a few other folks in the lobby bar for a few rounds…

Production Day in Munich, Germany

Had an old friend waiting for me in my hotel room in Munich when I got there…

Show Day in Dusseldorf, Germany

Not too much to report, but I got some cool shots here…

The stage, shot from Front Of House yesterday morning:

Same shot, tonight during the show:

The house, shot from the stage yesterday morning:

Same shot, tonight just before the band went on:That's 42,000 kids out there!!!

Our truck corral out back:

The confetti cannons cranking up during the band's encore, shot from the back of the stage:

My favorite part of the confetti gag is the third blast – it's a different type of confetti and looks great under blacklight:

Show Day in Hannover, Germany

Here are a few of our fine folks. L-R, Ernie Wagner (set carpenter), Julie Matway (Live Nation tour rep), and Kurt Wagner (stage manager):

Good crowd tonight, about 35,000 or so.

Coming in…

From a higher vantage point:

A sea of humanity:

From the other end:

Early in the set:

During "Yellow"

Just as the confetti cannons start blasting:

As is usual of late, made it to my bunk about 3:30am...

I love this comic. Yeah, yeah, I posted it some time ago, but I just came across it again while looking for some photos. It cracks me up…

Travel Day to Hannover, Germany

Another long bus ride, this one included a ferry from Denmark to Germany. This ferry was pretty interesting. In addition to all the cars, trucks and buses, there was a TRAIN in the belly of the vessel. There were rails on the bottom level that lined up with rails on the dock and dang if the train didn't come right onto the ship and park up close to our bus.

This is Peanut, one of our riggers, standing topside on the ferry. Love his shirt…
You may have to click and enlarge the photo to see the image.

Cool bridge we crossed during the drive today. Sorry about the bugs on the windshield…

Show Day in Stockholm, Sweden

More random gig photos, taken today here in Stockholm. Our show is at the Olympic Stadium, which was built for the 1912 Olympics.

My favorite shot is this one, which I took from up on top of the stadium, opposite end from the stage. If you look at the photo above, I was standing up above the welcome slogan you see there.












CM's guitars:
CM's tech Hoppy, working:
JB's two racks o' geetars:

Set Carpenter Minh Nguyen, who (like me) lives in Raleigh, NC:
Rigger Chuck Anderson:
(As always, click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Just Another Day At Work

In Stockholm. We might as well be Little Rock, Arkansas for what little I'm seeing of the place at this point.

Got done about 8pm and headed back to the hotel. Emailed my friend Tatiana, who came out and met me and some other crew folks at the pub down the street for drinks, turning an otherwise boring day into quite a bit more fun…

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I'm getting a bit behind on posting photos, so I'm gonna try to just dump a few in here and there. These below are just a few random shots from our gig in Bergen, Norway on the 19th:




Jens, our barricade guy:


Delay tower:

Travel Day to Stockholm

Another crazy, all-day drive to the next city. Today's a 16-plus hour drive to Stockholm. This one's worth it though, because when you're done, you're in…Stockholm!

I had my own personal movie festival on the bus today, courtesy of my 17" MacBookPro and some killer Etymotic Research earphones. I watched:

Terminator Salvation
Because I Said So (with Mandy Moore)
License To Wed (yep, more Mandy Moore)
Across The Universe

Watching all those made the day just fly by. And yes, I'm obsessed with Mandy Moore. Have been, ever since I met her back in 2000. She was only 15 at the time, and she was totally cool and nice and dorky (in a good way). Got to hang out with her for a while at a show where she was on the bill along with the band I was tour managing that year. She was so sweet and I became a fan for life.

A couple of shots from one of the stops we made...

A shop/restaurant with a natural roof.

The lake it was located next to.

At one point we drove through a tiny little town that had this river running through it.

View out the bus window late afternoon.

This building was on the fringe of Stockholm (if my memory serves me well...).

Made it to our hotel in central Stockholm around 8:30. Checked email, had a shower, and then hit the Skybar on the 9th floor – ever so conveniently, I was in room 934, three doors away.

Had a few beers and called it a night…

Show Day in Bergen, Norway

My buddy Eugene took that "floating head" shot I posted the other day and did this with it.

And then my Facebook friend Allison took it and turned me into this:

Thanks, y'all…

We've got fireworks at the end of the show every night, but today at noon, we had a different kind of fireworks. There was a dignitary in town today who was worthy of a 21-gun salute and the cannons were atop the hill at our show site. And you better believe those bad boys were LOUD!

Our fireworks guy, setting our stuff off at the end of the night.

Production Day in Bergen, Norway

Today started slow because most of our office cases were still on the trucks, to I snapped a couple of photos and messed around on the computer while waiting for them.

Tomorrow show is being held in downtown Bergen (on museum grounds), about two blocks from our hotel. Our stage, under construction.

I even got time to go through some more of the photos from yesterday's long drive to get here…

Quick, follow that bus.

Traveling through the mountains, there was actually some snow up on the hills.


Seems that the mountain folks here in Norway have some sort of fascination with trolls. One of the places we stopped had quite a collection of them, both on display and for sale.








Had to sit at a road repair/construction spot for a few minutes, so the smokers piled out of the bus for a ciggie and a couple of us got off to shoot photos. The stream by the road.

One of our carpenters, Minh, with the flagperson.