Kim Wilde tour ’09

So night before last in Hamburg, we get to the side of the stage about to go on, and Kim jumps out of her skin saying ‘ouch did anyone else hear that?’.. transpires there’s a frequency problem with her wireless pack, and its dropping in and out of her in-ears.. not a good start! We then go on and it’s immediately apparent the problem isn’t gonna go away… and it doesn’t. Kim get’s more and more frustrated, and although it finished up a fab gig as ever, we all felt a little deflated afterwards… still, like the genius ‘Tap’ boys say.. ‘we are professionals and we rise above these things!’ After the gig we chilled in the dressing room and said our goodbyes to the drummer Yiannis, bass player Tom1, and Keys player Matt from the John Harrison band (John and his guitarist Tom2 are doing the Denmark leg acoustically). They’re back soon though for the Amsterdam gig. We make our way after that to the bus. This is a new bus.. as our last one was beginning to smell of diesel fumes. The replacement is pretty much the same but a tad newer and generally nicer.. only drag is, it took us 2 hours to get the DVD player to work.. and the top lounge was like a sauna! Halfway through the journey our driver Steffan stopped off for a break, to discover one of the wheels had ripped off from the trailer .. luckily there are two wheels each side but had the other one gone it could have been very dangerous. We called the bus supplier, had a whinge about all these problems.. and hence they have given us a third bus now.. we not seen it yet but by all accounts it’s soooo much better and got all mod cons.. so really look forward to the next journey! I had an early one as the past weeks gigs/shenanigans have left me pretty jaded to say the least!
10 hours later (yeah amazing for me…result) I awake and were in Copenhagen at the Hotel. We all check in and after that get a cab to Amager Bio (the gig) for sound check, where we spend a lot of time trying out different things to make our onstage sound better. Time well spent, ‘cos we all came off to an amazing in-ear mix. After that, we had some great Mexican food and chilled out backstage waiting for the gig. Everyone’s in good spirits in anticipation of yet another corker!! John Harrison goes onstage with just Tom playing guitar, acoustic set, sounded great, and they floored ’em again. Great act, great guys. We go onstage after that. The band played superb as ever, sound was fab, lovely crowd.. all good, and we all come off in great spirits. So after we have a chill backstage and then board the latest bus… and it’s every bit as good as we were told it was gonna be. We have the option to stay in a Hotel, but opt for sleeping on the bus.. as it was awesome and also we didn’t want to wake up and check out at 9am. The lounge at the back is huge with a 26′ flatscreen, so we (Stevie P, Scarlett, Neil, Sean and I) put on a load of Phoenix Nights and giggled all night. Rolled into bed probably 4/5am ish I guess.. and only now just woken at 2.30pm. The bus is parked outside the backstage door, so I get into the club, and it’s amazing. There’s a Steinway piano in Kim’s dressing room.. pool table for the boys.. (where I’ve been thrashing Sean) a huge flatscreen, wicked! Off for sound check..and then some grub now.. I’m Hank Marvin! Sound check in an hour. Laters!!

Posted by Rick Wilde at 7:39 AM