Best Night Yet

Gavle is a beautiful city.
We just walked home from the concert hall (which was amazing).


The weather is fresh (very Vancouver like) Lots of beautiful, healthy, fit people, riding bikes and walking. The streets are alive tonight and everyone looks like fashion models.

The concert was the best yet.
Great crowd and we tossed in a new surprise song into the set.
After each show the custom is to give each band member flowers. We don't really know what to do with them but as you can see in this picture, they are very beautiful.

Podcast-1

This is my first attempt at a live podcast. I promise I'll get better at it and work at finding some interesting content. Here is the link. http://tinyurl.com/ag3sl
When I get some time I'll set up an atom feed and a podcast player. If any of you techno fans want to help me . . .PS: We miss u budda


send me an email at colin@colinarthur.com.

Happy Birthday To Mick

The weather is clearing up, it rained last night. Actually it poured. Mick's birthday started off with a laugh. We had a Swedish Karaoke Cab driver. Seriously, he had two screens playing video karaoke. A big screen in the van's backseat displayed low the budget video of "Follow the bouncing ball" to 3 Times a Lady, while Ollie the driver had his owm screen to watch while he was driving. Mick wouldn't let him sing.

Our plane to Stockholm is delayed an hour. Maybe I will try an airport podcast. The CD's are expensive. Well . . . everything is expensive.

Everything is IKEA

If I could describe the hotel that we are staying at in Gotenborg in one word, it would be IKEA.
My room is the size of a shoebox yet it is very practical. The Swedes, like the swiss, have some very creative ways of designing everyday items and making things more efficient. For example, you can only use the lights in a hotel room if you put your key in a special slot (you never lose you key either). I could go on but I hear the band in the lobby getting ready to leave. We are flying back to Stockholm this morning. We then drive a couple of hours to Gavle - I'll update from there.

PS: I tried to upload the podcast last night from the Koncerthaus but the connection wouldn't allow it. Maybe I'll get lucky from the airport.

Not Fragile

We left Stockholm at 6:45 am this morning and flew to Gotenborg. They were photographing some Swedish models in the exit row in front of me on the plane so it made for and interesting flight:)

We are finding that there are some hardcore BTO fans here so we have been dusting off some old classics. A guy came up to Randy at the autograph table and said he had something to show Randy, he started taking off his jacket and shirt . . Check out the BTO tattoo.

We played with Mattias last night. He is a star in Sweden but he has also been a big BTO fan since he was a kid.


He knew the songs almost better than Randy and we rehearsed the tunes exactly like the recorded versions. On the next podcast you'll hear a bit of rehearsal.

Rock is My Life - Stockholm Rocks

The band is in the dressing room as I type this. Tonight was BTO Fan night. We added songs into the set that we rarely play. Randy's playing and phrasing was cool and growly tonight. New songs and peers in the crowd brought out the best of the band.

Mattias from the Swedish Band "Soundtrack of Our Lives" joined us on stage for 5 songs. The place went crazy. Check out the Theatre.

Lobby call is at 6:45am so I will update the blog from Gotenberg.

Gut Mordon - Day 2

I am having a coffee overlooking the cobblestone street below our hotel. Brightly coloured flowers are displayed in the open air market behind rows and rows of bicycles. The pedestrian only street is a shoppers paradise. Interesting shops and boutiques are just opening and the shop keepers are busy pulling their display racks out onto the strasse.

We are taking a flight to Stockholm this morning, I wish we had another hour because on my morning run I jogged by a used vinyl record store and saw a Swedish pressing of an old Elvis Presley record in the window.

Gotta Go

Historic Lund

I went with our tour manager Alf to a recording studio just outside of Lund. The studio was out in the country just past the windmill in the picture below.


We picked up some gear and on the way back to Malmo we drove through the old town of Lund. Lund is a University town and the cobblestone streets are filled with students on bicycles. We toured through one of the oldest churches in Sweden (it's over 1000 years old) I got a strange feeling walking through such a historic place. The dungeons, the crypts, the incredible sculptures and masonry reminded me of a chapter in the Da Vinci code.

I was told that the way Christianity came to Lund was the due to the persistence of faithful Christians. The Christians would come in peace carrying no weapons, the vikings would chop their heads off. The Christians would keep coming, always in a loving manner, in peace, carrying no weapons. The vikings would continue to chop their heads off. Soon the vikings realized these people meant no harm and decided that if their God was that powerful to have people with such great faith, the vikings would welcome them so as not to offend their God.

We sat for a while at a sidewalk espresso bar for a Café Latté and absorbed the culture of such an academic, historic town.

Malmo, Sweden - Happy Birthday Randy!

Tonight we played the Palladium in Malmo, Sweden.

I just finished the gig. We closed with "You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet" instead of the usual "Takin' Care of Business" because "Ain't" was a bigger hit in Europe than TCB. During TCB we wished Randy a Happy Birthday and his wife Denise joined us onstage at which point he shared with the audience that it was their wedding anniversary, a date he could always remember.

Welcome To Sweden

Sweden Tour - Day 1 (or is it Day 2?)

It's 8pm at home but it's 5am in the morning now while I am writing this. I woke up unable to fall back asleep. The moon is a crescent above the rising copper dawn. , brushed black silhouttes of ancient rooflines paint the horizon. Breakfast starts in 1 hour so I thought I write a bit.

Our drummer, Rogé and I arrived in Denmark at about 2pm in a bit of daze. We had a 3 hour layover in London at Heathrow which gave me time to buy a power converter and charge up my laptop a bit. It's almost impossible to get a proper nights sleep on a 9 hour International flight so after the layover and another 2 hour flight to Copenhagen I was beginning to feel a bit light headed.

We took a train across the border into Sweden. I had extra baggage (i brought the vinyl records that Randy will sell at the show plus his guitar and mine) and luckily out European tour manager Alf was at the airport to meet us and to lend a helping hand. Those bags were heavy.
After a short taxi ride from the train station we checked into our hotel

Randy, Mick and their wives were already checked in and met Roge and I in the lobby. We set out on foot to the Markplatz where a variety of restaurants surrounded the perimeter of the square. The menus were posted at the entrance to each patio and were hard to read at night against a backdrop of outdoor tables lit by candles. Some of us had mini flash lights so after 30 minutes of strolling the square, judging the popularity by the number of patrons we compromised on Italian.

Wow what a meal (considering to would be breakfast for Roge and I )

We have soundcheck at 2pm so I might record my first Podcast from there. Stay tuned.

Herman's Hermit

Did a gig with Peter Noone fromm Herman's Hermits. What a hilarious bloke!
His set consisted of alot of British pop hits from his era. Daydream believer by the Monkees, hits by Chad and Jeremy, Peter and Gordon, the Hollies and more.

The best part was our chat backstage. He is friends with Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones and with many of the British Rockstars like Eric Clapton. He told an amazing story about his pub crawl with Jack Bruce (the basss player from Cream) and I won't tell it here because I am going to use it in my podcast.
So stay tuned for "Roadcast" a poidcast from the road. "Something tells me I'm into something Good" :)

We're so high-ee-i-ee-i

I'm on my way to Dallas to place a Classic Rock show at a racetrack with Hermans Hermits. Our regular bass player Mick is in Europe so Randy's son Tal Bachman is going to play bass with us.

Our flights have been wacko - we flew to Toronoto and now we fly to Dallas.
We are sitting in the airport deciding how to impliment "Tal's monster hit "She's so High" into the set.

If any fans get a recording please email it to me and we'll post it on Randy's forum or to the Road Journal Blog. (if Tal gives me the thumbs up)