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Have you heard of The Reduced Shakespeare Company? They do the complete works of Shakespeare in an hour, to audience of one, who sits in a motorbike side car. Normal, huh? So welcome to the reduced Rhino company, as I am so far behind on digitising, I'm going to cover 7 gigs in an hour, beginning with a big Hola, from Salamanca in sunny Spain.
4 hours drive from Madrid, started drinking a tad early, 10.30 am at Heathrow in fact. Sadly for my liver, Spanish wine and food are my favourites, and by 2.30 next morning, after a great night on the town, one was feeling a little tired and emotional. Not the worst mind you, one of the pocket battleships I know, by the name of Lyane, was raging, left her to it, thinking an early night would do me good. Next day, gig. SHIT! Sometimes I wake up after a session, and think I've somehow got away with it, and then sometime in the afternoon a f****** great lead mallet descends from a great height and hits the middle of my head at a speed of 7000 MPH, have I painted a clear picture here? Got worse and worse, but the show must go on, a bullring with 5000 Spanish nutters, shame they're such an ugly race, innit? And the weather is so grim, and they're such lovely friendly folk, plus Salamanca is absolutely beautiful, will definitely take a romantic trip there. Any offers? We were all photographed for the local paper whilst we were in a restaurant, very nice too, but when I saw the front cover the next day, it was like spot the drunk. I had no competition, if I can find a copy I'll use it as the new Rhinos Revenge screensaver, if that don't put y'all off bev, nothing will. I know I'm going on about how shite I felt, but Mike Hrano had to stand at the side of the stage so that I could look at him, which somehow stopped me chucking up, it was that bad. Oh, and by the way the gig was fabtastic (new word for today), went on really late (groan), but the Spaniards just don't turn up until they feel like it, so you have to wait. for them. They were certainly worth it. Afterwards, we had tapas and wine on Rick's balcony, made a miraculous recovery, then us and crew went overnight to Vigo, up North. Talking of Mr. Hrano by the way, isn't the new tour stuff brill? You don't realise when you have some of the, if you will, major merchandise companies doing it how little time and thought has gone into the design, Mike's put a hell of a lot of time and effort in ,and as far as we're concerned it gets a big thumbs up from us, and you lot as well, judging from the amount of people we see wearing it at shows... Vigo, sport hall, in fact it rained in Spain, but it does up there, hence the incredible greenness, not a bad gig, but the bullring was pretty special, even with me being 3 sacks (o'cack). Such ugly people, yet again... Saw Nacho and all the hombres and senoritas from powered by Quo, they got a new website, it's at www.poweredbyquo.com, in fact saw them in Holland the other night, not a bad way to see places really, is it, checking out foreign shows... On the bus at present, on our way to the twice cancelled Grimsby show, looks like we're gonna do it this time, Am I right, did the local MP, Austin Mitchell change his name to Austin Haddock to advertise the local fishing industry? Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction ladies and gentlemen. Been nearly an hour on this already, how do they do that reduced Shakespeare stuff? That was end of the Summer European shows, well, except one, came back, and played at Broadstairs in Kent, beautiful day, on a school playing field I think it was, lots of Letleys there, Nine below Zero were playing, I think they're brilliant, and completely underrated, what a harmonica player! GO AND SEE THEM! Steve Harley was also on, bit of a mismatch, but like us, he also has a rich back catalogue to shamelessly plunder (read that in a review of us once) and went down pretty good. The Nine below Zero geezers are also top blokes by the way, if you see them, tell them I sent you... 
Next... The Somme, Hampshire, playing at Broadlands, another stately home, yah, which we didn't even get to see, Carl Palmer opening, that was a bit of strange pairing, but, if you want to see virtuoso players, look no further than his band, only drums, bass and guitar, but man, those guys can play, one of the best bass players I've ever seen, talking to him afterwards, and all he really wants to do is something like Quo! Don't blame him, mind... A wonderful pair of mammalian protruberances were busy doing their things at the front, I'm a sucker for big tits, can I say that? Just did... Rather damp and muddy (the gig!), but that didn't stop band and billy getting their rocks off, worst catering ever, it really was offal..(no, I don't mean awful). Newmarket races. We had a reserved section to watch them, private box, right at the finishing post, I'm sure a lot of the punters thought, who are these slobs, in their reserved posh bit. So did I. Bunny the sound man gave me a hot tip, which I backed. It came last, and he backed the winner! Bastados... Tiny stage, 25000 punters (literally) with our new super duper Heavy Traffic signs over the PA. Unfortunately, they were made of reflective plastic, so the sound in fact came back in on us, a bit like Etna erupting, plus which Bunny had to mix from inside a tent! Apparently he just turned everything up full and went for a pint. Great reaction, hope we do some more like that, it's always great to play to a lot of people who haven't seen you live before, does give it a bit of an edge, and my ears only rang for about 8 days afterwards. What? Speak up! What? It really caned (hurt in yoofspeak) our eardrums. Next, flew out to Tufertschwil in the middle of Switzerland, real cuckoo clock country, other bands were Krokus (cock rock) and Suzi Quatro (not cock rock). I was watching her, she really does get it on, and also has a vast back catalog (cont'd page 94). 
Last show was at Grimsby hall, near Middlesborough, a Palladian style (it said in the book) house. When we arrived, I was confronted by Bernadette, the cook, who said she'd been looking for me, as I had said the food was crap on another tour log, and she was just letting me know that a nasty accident might happen to me if I was to say the same about hers! Well, she needn't have bothered, some of the best non tour catering I've ever had, fantastic people working there, had a private tour of the house, and even rejoined the National Trust. Thanks to everyone there for making the normal boring bit of the day (the wait for the show) dead good.... especially you Bernadette, please don't hit me! xxx Now go away, 
Edwards, (49 and a half in 9 days time)
Thanks to Nacho Marquez Acedo for the Spanish newspaper articles |
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