Sat, Oct 3, 2009 - Day 3:
I slept 9 hours straight! It has been so long since I have got to do that , that I forgot how nice it was! Got up and got ready around 9. Walked over to the bakery across the street and got an apple streusel and coffee for breakfast. Did a little bit of souvenir shopping and sightseeing around the town. Bought a tomato and mozzarella sandwich and chocolate croissant and sat on the bench outside my hotel and ate it while looking up at the Alps. It is just so breathtaking and I feel like I am in a storybook. Our hotel is “quaint” and not all rooms that are on the 4th floor are on the 4th floor. Each floor is “split” with a couple of rooms down one hallway, then you may walk up a few stairs and have another couple of rooms or you do a bunch of twist and turns to find a few more rooms. Very confusing for someone with no sense of direction anyways. I also thought I was locked inside my room this morning. I had put the chain on my door when I went to sleep last night but did not realize there was a little plastic latch on the bottom you had to push up on to release it when taking it off. I pushed and pulled for 10 mins before I figured that one out.
We headed over to the venue for sound check at 3:00. The venue is inside a sports arena and when we walked in the hockey team was on the ice practicing so got to catch a little bit of that. Burrito Deluxe was finishing up their sound check and worked out the “tweaks” for us so ours went smoothly. We all headed back to the hotel for about an hour before walking down to another hotel where we were having dinner. Martin and Helen, who I met years ago here, own a 4 star hotel here and hosted our dinner tonight. It was us, Burrito, a local Swedish band and the sound company. Dinner was amazing! It was veal in some sort of gravy sauce and Rosti, which is a type of potato. Ray and the guys got on a roll with one liners from Monty Python movies and had us all laughing so hard. I really am working with a great group of guys. Dinner was done with around 7 and we didn’t need to be at the venue until 10 so some of the guys came back and took a nap, which was probably the smart thing considering we have a 5:30 AM wake up call . I decided to go on down to the venue at 9 and catch some of Burrito’s show. Ray came in a few minutes later and did a short radio interview. Ray had brought a few cd’s to sell and I told him I would go out there closer to the end of his set and help him sell. About halfway through I look over at the merch table and a gentleman named Leo was pulling Ray’s cd’s out of his bag and putting them out on the table. Leo is a nice guy that is a little “off” but a huge country music fan and friends of the promoter. So I had Thomas, our promoter go over and talk to him and figure out what he was doing. Leo said that he asked Ray if he could help sell his stuff and Ray said yes. The thing is, Leo does not speak very good English and come to find out Ray thought he was asking for a cd. Oh well, it worked out ok. Ray did a great show, he has a very deep voice that the women go crazy for. The promoter and the crowd were very happy. It was about 1 AM by the time he got done with autographs and tear down and saying our good byes before heading back to the hotel. So now I have to decide if it is worth even going to sleep for 3 hours or not. Have a 5:00 AM lobby call to head to the airport and fly back home. Ray and his guitarist are staying over for another 2 weeks traveling to Germany, Belgium and Amsterdam. I will have to call them later on this month and make sure they make it back to the states. Guess I should go pack and get ready to head back home. It has been a great trip with a great band and wonderful promoters. Hope I get to come back next year.