Helsinki, Finland

This hotel gets the grand award for the best gym so far. A seriously equipped fitness centre with plenty of treadmills, machines and free weights all clean and in good working condition. I had a sweaty 90 minutes in there this morning then promptly came back to the room for a rerun of yesterday's inactivity. Actually, I spent a good part of the afternoon listening to my new favorite band The Engineers on my iPod.

By the time we got to the venue it was nearly 5:30 in the afternoon and I realized I hadn't eaten a thing all day, not even a cup of coffee and was starved out. I went directly from the car to catering, not even stopping to throw my bag in the dressing room, and inhaled two bowls of soup, some pasta salad, a few buttered rolls and a huge cuppa tea with loads of milk and sugar in it. Once that was out of the way we had a very short sound check before it was time for dinner! No meet and greet tonight, sparing a few unsuspecting Fins a cranky Yank with an Hawaiian guitar.

The gig tonight at the Hartwall Arena was exciting and focused, everybody playing well, a good sounding venue and another great audience. It was a seated gig but after the first couple of numbers people started coming up and standing in front of the stage and in the aisles. Mark's voice was getting a little tight before the show but some hot tea with honey and lemon seemed to do the trick and he got through it well. This show is our eighth in a row and we will all appreciate a day off tomorrow, none more than our crew who will spend their second night in a row in a hotel instead of a bus. I don't know how they do it day after day, but we're all very grateful they do.

I'm taking a night off the vitamin G and will turn in early, just feels like the right thing to do. As it's a day off, I plan to get out in the town tomorrow, haven't had the streets of Helsinki under my shoes yet and Ike and I will be on a vinyl/shellac mission in the afternoon as well.

Our next stop will be Stockholm the day after tomorrow where I'll be sending some more notes from the road.

So long,

Richard