Raport Nicko McBrain'a - LUBLANA, SOFIA

[WICKER MAN]

Nicko's back in the diary zone
Published: June 8, 2007

Hotel room Sofia Bulgaria
Time 10:30am
June 6th 2007

Well, well, well, I do hope that you all are doing well and are in good health and such, indeed I do!!

Firstly, Happy New Year too all,
I did procrastinate over the last part of the tour with writing me diaries, sorry for that, had the family out and did get a wee bit, LAZY, AAHHEEE!!!! Also one or two serious hangovers were delivered. I was slightly over served on more than one occasion over the tail end of the tour.
Though I do remember that all of the shows were phenomenal!!!
Thank you too all that came and enjoyed them with us!!!!!


Well, as most of you will know we have just kicked off our, 'A Matter of the Beast' summer tour. Well, I can tell you, we have been having a hoot of a time.

Two shows under our belt and they were both rockin gigs. The first was in Ljubljana, Belgrade, on Saturday night. What a blast. I was so nervous before I hit the stage, not having played for 3 months.
There were about 20,000 Billies there, and we all had such a good time. We flew over that afternoon, usual scenario, flew from Stanstead at 2pm on a very nice Citation jet, couple of hours in the air and then on our arrival we headed to the hotel. We were greeted by some fans that had made the effort to wait for us, we said hello and then got straight into the vans.
We hit the stage at 9pm. All went great for the first show. No major screw-ups. Sound on stage was a bit weak but other than that back to the same old shenanigans!!!!!!!!!
After the show we did a runner and were back at the hotel for just after 11pm. I had a shower and then hit the hay. I have to admit I was feeling very tired, Had a nice rest and then we were off too Sofia. We left the hotel a little after 11am and made the flight in a smudge over 90 minutes.
I settled in and later in the afternoon got ready to meet everyone in the hotel bar for a cocktail before heading out for a dinner with our local promoter. He took us to a very classic, local restaurant and we had a very cool time. Food was different, lots of veggies and a wee spot of the dead animal stuff, to be honest I was again slightly over served and the night was a wee bit of a blur if you get my drift, TEEHEE!!!!!!!!!
All in all we had a wonderful evening.
On my return to the hotel I went straight to bed.

Monday was our show in Sofia. We got too the venue at around 8:15pm and met with Rod, who arrived that afternoon. We did a couple of smudges just before we hit the stage at 8:50pm. What a gig, we really played well!!! Everyone had a good night and the crowd was just as wild as they were in Ljubljana. THANK YOU too all our fans for two great gigs.

Yesterday I went walk about in the old town with, Jan 'the man,' 'Geezer' Gadd and Ian 'Daisy Roots' Day we stopped in a church and then the cathedral, beautiful buildings they are too.
We then made a couple of pit stops both in coffee shops the last being at a nice café in the park opposite the cathedral. There were tables set up where the locals were playing chess, a major past time in this part of the world. A couple of times it sounded as though the conflict was taken up from the chess table into real life, not sure whether there was any cheating going on!!!!! Yeah see!!!!!

So after a nice stroll the weather turned and it started to rain. Geezer left us to go visit another church and so Jan, Ian and I popped into JJ Murphy's bar for a spot of lunch. I had a couple of Coroners and a plate of Shepherds Pie accompanied by some Heinz baked beans, lovely jubbly!!!!
After lunch Jan went off on his own leaving Ian and I to get a cab back to the hotel.
I was back in my room for 5pm. I watched a spot of telly and got on the computer, later in the evening I met the with Geezer, Ian and Jan in the executive bar for a night-cap!!
After that I headed to me bad and had a nice early-ish night. For some reason I had a tough time getting to sleep. I kept waking up and couldn't get back off. I hate it when that happens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to get ready for our trip over to Ostrava, that's in the Czech Republic. We're playing tonight and then after the show we will be going back to Blighty.

Stay safe and well!
God bless you all!!

-Nicko-