BACK TO EUROPE '96 August 6th, to the 18th, 1996

Blues Pepper Steak and NO SLEEP!

BEWARE! When flying Air France, watch out for the ass-holes disguised as German tourists. The french flight attendants will let them get away with folding up your table, moving your stuff and taking your whole row that you were going to lay across! I might have payed for that row. My bags decided they didn't want to fly to France. They stayed in San Francisco for two more days.

First stop, a long drive from Oslo to Notodden, Norway. A "rehab center" disguised as the Bolkesjo Hotel "near?" the Blues Festival. Can you say "Blues Pepper Steak"? This was about the only thing eatable on the Hotel menu. This Hotel is really a nice place stuck in the woods north of town. By nightfall my luggage hadn't made it to the hotel, so Olaf took me to town the next day to buy some underwear. Olaf drove so fast we never even got to see a moose. Oh well, the band saw one on the way to the gig and told us about it. The festival did have a nice computerized cycle converter for our B3 organ. Things went fine until the Swedish trucking company showed up to get our backline at loadout. He was driving a Volkswagen Van.

From Bordeaux, France, we drove three hours to Pau. We saw fields and fields of corn??? Where are the vineyards? The people were most friendly, definitely not Parisiennes. Robert's performance at the Marciac Jazz Festival was videotaped for future broadcast on Radio France and RF3 Television.

The Marktrock Festival in Leuven, Belgium had lots of people, lots of noise, and "I'm Too Sexy" Right Said Fred opened for us. What more is there to say except the food was great and don't look for 60 cycle power.

Our venture ended in beautiful St. Leonard, Switzerland. We stayed at the Hotel Vignes, which offered a spectacular view of the mountains and distant chateaus, great beds and the tap water is pure Evian. All of this, led several of us to renting a car and driving to Zermatt. ROAD TIP: If you are ever driving to the Matterhorn and you get stopped by the Swiss Police because you don't have a permit...Play the DUMB AMERICANS.

After our international incident with the Swiss Police, we went to see Richard "the Rasta Cowboy" Cousins (former Bass player for Robert Cray) who now lives in Switzerland. The Band he is in was playing in Romont. We drove past Lac Leman, ate ice cream at the Chateau de Chillon, went into Montreaux for Mexican food at Don Pedro's but he was closed, so we had to settle for festival food in Romont.