19th June 2013 – Regensburg

Tuna Carpaccio

Feeling the full effects of last night’s over indulgent midnight feasting, I woke late and planned my final visit to the Villa Kennedy gym and pool. Still just enough time to order the Bircher and write a bit of a rushed diary entry, finally posted in the Regensburg dressing room.

We checked out and drove to the massive Frankfurt Cargo terminal area where the General aviation aircraft reside. Once you enter the area, it takes about 15 minutes to actually get to the small terminal building where we were scanned and cleared for the van ride to the aircraft. Regulations state that it’s prohibited to walk the 50 yards to the plane. Well, you never know, we might get sucked into the fans of a passing 747 on take-off.

Once inside our jet we soon learned that the plane’s APU wasn’t fired up and it was about 40 degrees in the cabin. I’m sure many of you have experienced the discomfort of boarding a plane in this condition. It turned out they needed a piece of ‘kit’ to start the engines. This wasn’t an issue as we were in Frankfurt but our destination today was Ingolstadt Manching Airport and if the problem re-occurred, there was some doubt about our evening flight. We were soon airborne in air conditioned comfort and arrived in Ingolstadt which is situated right next to the Audi test facility.

Bernie and team collected us airside and whisked us to Regensburg in no time thanks to German Autobahns and their unlimited speed limit. We didn’t go mad, probably just over 170kmh. The Range Rovers ride very well at these speeds.

I managed to confuse the new iPhone 5’s panoramic software with his shot but I like the effect….

At the venue the heatwave was clearly going from strength to strength and it looked like it was going to be another hot one. Sound check was pretty clammy and so we didn’t hang around on stage. To catering then and the usual difficult choices to be made. Most of us decided not to fill up too much but the kobe style Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut was popular, in fact we asked the catering boys if we could have some to go for our evening flight into Vienna after-show.

Tuna Carpaccio..

Backstage vending…

The show was great fun in the event and the weird looking device on the venue ceiling seemed to do just enough to cool everyone inside the building during the show. Some of Mike’s whistles and flutes, my two low Eb harps and TC and Glenn’s sock devices. They made these with foam tubing and socks to put between the guitars to protect them when the racks are moved. Genius.

TC checks one of Richard’s many-stringed instruments..

After show we learned the the plane had started up without issue and we ran to the cars for the return trip to the airport and short flight into the wonderful city of Vienna. Good news for me as Laurie was already checked in to the hotel and waiting. Whilst airborne earlier, I had noticed evidence of the recent heavy flooding in these regions of Europe and when we de-planed we immediately felt the effects of this at this time of year….Mosquitos! There were swarms of them, a clear outbreak. We spent most of the journey to the hotel swatting them in-car. We were of course unprepared and bitten. At around 1am, we rolled up to the brand new Ritz Carlton for more doses of luxury.