Boston, Massachusetts

Weird day...woke up at 5:30 this morning, not ready to take on the world but clearly not going back to sleep either. Got some coffee, took care of a few e-mail duties and read the NY Times which sadly told me just how bad the American economy is and that one of my favourite singers Jo Stafford had died. Right, enough of that..down to the gym. It was a Sports Club/LA gym rivalling the facility at the Four Seasons in San Francisco and similarly a separately operated fitness centre that happens to be in a hotel. Massive and lavishly stocked with endless rows of treadmills and various cardio machines, weight machines, free weights, cycling rooms, a full basketball court and so on, a real chamber of torture. The usual 90 minutes measure of humiliation then back to the room. Sat down for a minute and immediately fell asleep for two hours, bringing the grand total for the day to five hours, more than enough. There's an executive lounge on the floor I'm staying which we have access to though I cannot imagine why, but the room card allows entry, had a sandwich and coffee for lunch and cautiously cast a second glance at the Times to be informed that Citigroup's CEO characterised this quarters $2.5 billion loss as a sign of progress. Also cheery news as yesterday's oil was selling at $128 a barrel, down from $147 last week. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. I'm not cut out for this stuff. Back to the room to practise a little before heading to the gig and something that makes sense.

This is the third time returning to Bank of America Pavilion an outdoor amphitheatre on the harbour and a gig we look forward to. The seating area is covered with a sail and the sound can be a little tricky because of it, so we arrived early and ran through a couple of songs for Dave Dixon, our front of house sound engineer. We had many friends and guests tonight who came for the show including actress Glenn Close. Several of the wonderful friends we made from Boothbay, Maine drove down as well including Richard and Kristina Ford. All were in attendance at a very relaxed meet and greet that felt like a living room performance. Also my friends Kate and Mager Walker who live in Boston came by to say hello as well as Isaac Shabtay who has been to every single performance we've done in North America, driving great distances every day and posting a very interesting journal describing his travels and experiences for these five weeks.

We took the stage at 8:30 and played for nearly 5,000 roaring folks, it was a real party atmosphere and this audience couldn't have been better. We tore through the set, a great show from our point of view, loads of energy and very well played. The audience response at the end of the show was deafening

A runner back to the hotel with a police escort's flashing lights and siren all the way. The Boothbay bunch met us at the bar for a couple of rounds and very kindly brought a couple of pounds of fresh lobster mixed with mayo and hot dog rolls the three necessary ingredients for lobster rolls. We gathered up in Guy's room and devoured every morsel of it along with a few drinks and some great music courtesy of dj's Fletch and Crockford. It was dawn before we pulled the plug. Here's to Boston.

So long,

Richard