Festival in Zurich, with plenty of snow on the ground.  The hotel actually has room to move around, which is, after the Ibis Budget Hotels, quite a relief.  (water splashed from the sink would hit the pillow of one of those Ibis beds).

Well, we were pretty sure this was gonna be a No-Go gig: it was set up to be a disaster.  The opening bands were all very mellow and “emotional” in a way that we aren’t.  Just felt like this was gonna be like Utrecht in 2003.  But, no!  We opened with Fell into the Water and people were totally into it.  Despite the fact that almost no one there knew any of our songs.  As Clint pointed out, their reaction was the same to Comes Undone as it was to Revolver (it ain’t common that we play those opening Revolver chords and the audience just looks hopeful at us: “Gee, I hope this is a good song.”).  We had to come back and play two encores (in this case Fate and Class War) and we could’ve played more.  We were quite surprised really.  Perhaps it is a virtue of ours to expect nothing (they say pessimists are generally more accurate than optimists).

Later at the merch table a gal came up and said “I’d never heard of you guys before tonight – where have you been all my life?” and bought 2 CDs.  Well, the world has certainly changed over time.

Damn – the house manager even did our laundry while we sound-checked.  So we can live another week!  (this is the half-way point of the tour).  Yeah, talk about rock: I walk out of the club with a bag of laundry in my hand as Jimmy and I walk the few blocks to the hotel in the snow.