Welcome to the first of my tour diaries from Japan. It has been full on, and we have been rehearsing for three weeks in Tokyo. We have Luis Conti ( my good friend who I played with last year) on percussion, Alan Darby ( another old pal) on guitar, Ed Poole on bass (the funniest man you could ever meet, who keeps everyone in fits of hysterics constantly), Snake Davis on sax ( the most soulful player you could ever hear), Kyoji Yamamoto on guitar and Abbachan on keyboards. We also have three singers, a thirty-piece orchestra and an eight- piece horn section. Our time in Tokyo was great fun, although hard work, but I did get to hang out one night with one of my favourite drummers, Kenny Arnoff. He was in town playing with Michelle Branch. We had a great night that finished off with us throwing peanuts around the bar at each other... Ahh the spirit of Rock and Roll !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My good friend Sidh Solanki who was in the production chair for the Busted sessions I did before coming out here, came over to hang out for ten days with us all. After his 14 hour flight I took him to see my mate Ian McNabb play a solo show at a small club called ' Marz' in Shinjiku.  Ian was amazing, and after the gig I took everyone to a small Scottish bar I know where we duly sampled all the whiskies we could down. Got the guitars out and sang as many Beatles, Kinks & Stones songs we could remember... a great night. I think Sidh was a bit shell shocked after.

I ran into my friends from Manhattan Transfer who I met last year and on our last night in Tokyo.  We all went to their show at the 'Blue Note' ... they were amazing. We all hung out in the bar afterwards and Larry the sax player told us too many (and unrepeatable) stories about some of the greatest artists ever
known!

Oh forgot to mention I also ran into the tour manager and out- front sound man from my first band Europeans, Paul Owen who is the monitor man for Metallica. So of course we went to see the show.  ITS LOUD. It was great to see him and I had the chance to say hi to Lars Ulrich. 

So now we are in Sendai on the other side of Japan from Tokyo where we have been doing production rehearsals. We found a small Irish pub where we seem to have set up camp.  They play great Jazz music and Ed had the place in stitches the other night with an array of magic tricks. During the second day of production rehearsals we had a 6.5 earthquake. The whole stage started to move around and I found myself looking up to see where I was sitting in relation to the trussing. Let me tell you I was scared for a moment. 

Well its just after 5am on the 15th and we just had another big quake. My whole room was shaking around... funny you find yourself wondering is this the start or the end of this and you freeze, waiting to see. Lots of police sirens going off everywhere but I can't see any damage anywhere as it is dark outside.

Its Show 1 tonight and we're all excited and ready to go.  Shows start here at 7pm so I'll let you know how the first one goes.

Geoff