Party in Milan

Ok, I love Milan!

We had our last day off 2 days ago in Milan. So after arriving with our mobile home bus we quickly got showered and put on our finest clothes to hit the Fashion City. Roine, Sebastian, Daniel and me headed to the center of town only to find out we were in another soccer city. When we went to Madrid the UEFA Cup final was just being won by Atletico Madrid, now Inter Milan just won the Championship of Italy, so more honking cars and banner waving fans all over the place. But we loved it. And apart from that the weather was a steady +21 celcius so that was great. Sebastian and me bought new sun glasses, Daniel got his Inter Milan shirt (I tried to get him to buy a Sneijder shirt but he bought the Eto'o one) and we found a great place to eat Indian!

We found out later that Neal, Todd and some more guys had dinner at the exact same place and left just half an hour before we arrived! Of all the restaurants in such a big city... How weird is that!?

The gig yesterday in Milan was just fantastic. I really thought The Whirlwind was very emotional. The music just grabbed me and I felt something special. Every time I almost got tears in my eyes, but then someone would come to my stand to ask how much the t-shirts cost... I still cannot stand people that go to buy merch during the concert! But well, that's just me...

I was thinking about a thing that Mike used to do during Dream Theater gigs: he would throw a stick to some guy backstage and that guy would throw it back and Mike would continue to play. Very cool to see, IF it actually works ;) Otherwise Mike pulls his sad face and everyone still thinks it's great.

Just 30 minutes after thinking about this (Duel With The Devil just ended) during the applause Mike looked around and saw me at the merch booth. He waved, I put two thumbs up and suddenly he threw a stick at me! It was a reasonable distance and somewhere halfway in the air the stick left the lit area so I could hardly see it... the stick flew right over my head and ended up behind me. Actually it got stuck in a barred window behind me, so I pulled it out and threw it back. The stick made a nice flight and ended up right in Mike's right hand. The crowd went nuts and then I realized how nasty it would have been if I messed up! But I didn't hurrah! It was great! I sure hope someone filmed it, I would love to see it back!

Ok, I'm gonna eat. We're in Pratteln, Switzerland now and I'm looking forward to the gig.

GOOD NEWS: I just had a phone call from the merch company: they are able to ship me more orange shirts to Tilburg. I AM SO GLAD!