As has become the custom with longer tours, here I will make a day by day diary of the tour – I hope you can join me, even if you’re not at one of our shows, it’d be nice to have you along for the virtual ride. Also, it’d be nice to hear from you – feel free to post on my website’s forum; it would be cool to hear about your experiences of the shows and to see any photos taken at them.
I guess the tour really started the week before we left. We had four days of rehearsals; one thing about the Carl Palmer Band is that we never rehearse unless we: A, have new arrangements to work out or; B, have a new band member. On this occasion it was the latter – we have a new bass player, Simon Fitzpatrick.
We started rehearsals on Tuesday 5th October – precisely one week before our first gig in Canada. Simon had come to my house in Brighton a couple of weeks before, so that we could look over the finer points of the bass parts and talk about details such as cues. So, by the time the rehearsals with Carl came, he was well prepared and ready to step right in. We rehearsed from the Tuesday to Friday and then took Saturday off to relax and pack.
I spent Saturday doing last minute jobs such as sorting out insurance for my guitar and effects pedals, arranging my pedal board and packing for the next 6 weeks (helped by my wife Vanessa – case packer extraordinaire).
