"9th day Edinburgh" July 20th 2013

anything can happen

We were heading to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
Coming from Japan, it felt a little strange when all we saw was a sign saying "Welcome to Scotland" on the freeway we were on to tell us that we were actually entering a different country.
But we just figured that it's a casual thing locally, and we went on the freeway and it was about only 30 minutes away from the venue in Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete's, when we heard this big noise from the engine of the van and it started to slow down.
The van we thought got fixed was NOT fixed in fact.

getting ready quickly

It was only 30 minutes away, but that's by car and on the freeway.
It'd taken hours on foot and we had amps and everything else anyway.
Our tour manager, KIKO made a quick phone call so we could get picked up soon.
But we had just entered Scotland and all we saw was horizon and sheep, and time were just going by.
We had waited for an hour and finally a truck that could pick us and the big van up altogether and drive away had come.
For a moment, we thought we were getting kidnapped because the driver started to drive in the opposite direction.
But it ended up that it was the end of his shift and he had to transfer us to another truck at this parking lot which had us wait for another hour or so.
But they were quite friendly and drove pretty fast for us once they found out that we were in a hurry and made it to the venue somehow.
The gig that night was the only night that it wasn't our own show besides the first two nights with the Wedding Present.
But all the bands were to use our amps and everything else so they couldn't even start the party for us being late.
We were feeling really bad when we finally arrived but they were unexpectedly welcoming and saying things like they had never seen a band came in a van on a truck, and made us feel really easy.
One of the bands even chose not to play so we'd have time to play.
It was a great night again after all and now we owe them big time as well.

The next gig tomorrow was in Manchester which was about 5 hours away, so we had a plan to stay at the hotel half the way from Edinburgh.
But since the car broke down, we decided to stay in Edinburgh for the night and keep the gear and all the equipment in the car in the garage, and were to move them to a new car that we were going to rent tomorrow.
All the hotels in Edinburgh were full for they had the Open Championship nearby, and for that, we ended up at this very nice hotel unexpectedly.
We had really nice luxurious time at this hotel with having no clue that the day after this was going to be the biggest trouble day of this tour.

the view from the hotel