If I have to blow my nose one more time, I’m going to jump off a bridge. I hate to be melodramatic, but I’m deathly ill, and it’s only getting worse. The only time I complain about being out on the road is when I’m sick, because all I want to do is call in sick to work, crawl in to my bed at home and cuddle with my cats while I feel sorry for myself. That is not an option. I can’t call in sick, I’m thousands of miles from home and from my bed, and my cats don’t even remember me at this point. I know, it’s just a cold, but I’m a big baby about being sick.

Tour is like day care, if one kid shows up with a cold, it’s only a matter of days before everyone has it.

So unfortunately, I can’t tell you that much about Birmingham, since I spent one and half out of two days sleeping and coughing and watching television. We arrived mid-day on the 23rd after a 3 or so hour drive from Newcastle. I fell asleep as soon as got to the room and saw a fluffy white down comforter with 4 huge pillows. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s staying in bed for downright unhealthy amounts of time. The bed doesn’t even need to be comfy, but I’ll take all the help I can get.

The first night we were there a bus was scheduled to pick us all up and take us to a pub that was about 45 minutes away. Our production manager lives near Birmingham and his friend who owns this pub was nice enough to open up just for us and have us all for dinner and drinks. I over slept and nearly missed the bus. Big surprise. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I have a little reputation for missing the bus. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but there were a few weeks where I missed nearly every other one. Oops.

Dinner was great; the pub was adorable, very cozy and cute. I was still pretty out of it from being ill and sleeping so long, but everyone ate and drank too much and had a good time.

The next day was the day I spent in bed. We’ll skip that day.

Which brings us to the shows. I’m sure most of you know about the meaning behind the penguin, it was sort of a mascot for Fleetwood Mac way back when. We don’t see many penguins at the shows in the states, but here in the UK, penguins are taking over. At the first show in Birmingham, someone put this dancing penguin on top of Stevie’s monitor. It had a sensor on it so it never fell off, it just stayed, going from side to side, dancing and spinning. Stevie was having the hardest time keeping a straight face. The first time she came off the stage that night she proclaimed that she loved the dancing penguin and wanted it. I don’t think she realized that she’s at a Fleetwood Mac show, and that the people with the penguin would probably be more then happy to give it to her. At the end of the show, they offered the penguin up, and Mick took it…Stevie ran over and grabbed it out of Mick’s hands. Backstage later that night I had to help her figure out how to turn the dancing penguin off, because after 20 minutes…you just want the penguin to stop dancing.

Continuing the penguin theme, the second show in Birmingham was John’s birthday. After World Turning, Mick introduces everyone on stage, and when he introduced John and announced that it was his birthday, it was like a penguin downpour. There must have been 30 stuffed penguins thrown on stage. It was hysterical. We bagged them up after the show and we are now traveling with a penguin arsenal. You need a penguin? We’ve got a penguin for every occasion! Penguins dressed like Santa, penguins with scarves, penguins dressed as reindeer, penguins with little Fleetwood Mac shirts on, dancing penguins, singing penguins, penguins with sunglasses on….you name it, we have it.

I also have to mention that a fan, or a group of fans, made Stevie a cake. They managed to give it to the right people and it actually made it back to Stevie’s dressing room. It was incredible. Stevie made sure we took plenty of pictures of it. It had little mini album covers on it, painted perfectly. It must have taken them forever to make, so incase any of the bakers of that cake are reading, we were all very impressed, Stevie included.

We drive 2 hours to London tonight, where we have two days off and then two shows. Hopefully the cold that is kicking my butt right now will be better soon, I don’t want to miss any of London.

On a completely unrelated note…if you’ve never been to the UK, you should come for the candy alone. There’s this candy bar called a Crunchie. I’m considering leaving the United States simply because candy like this doesn’t exist there. I would happily live in an igloo in the Antarctic as long as I had Crunchies. There must be some conspiracy as to why we these aren’t sold in the US. My new mission in life is to find out why. I’ll let you know what I find out. Until next time…

Newcastle was okay. I’ve been tired lately and it’s cold here so I pretty much stuck to the hotel the whole time, with the exception of a few meals out. We flew in from Dublin yesterday morning and arrived at the hotel mid-day. The hotel was nice, it was right on the water and there were plenty of restaurants and bars nearby.

Any who…I stayed up too late in the hotel bar, and the lighting guys made me drink a shot of Sumbuca, which is basically liquid licorice hell. Went to bed with a headache, woke up with a headache, and it took a good part of the day for me to feel good again. Like I said, liquid licorice hell. But enough about me…on with the show.

I will admit, the Newcastle show has left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because of the show or the audience in particular, that was all fine and good. But because of what happened after the show…

At the end of every show, when Mick is saying goodnight, I wait up front with the crowd until the house lights come on, indicating to the audience that the show is over. Then I make my way to the front of the stage, squeezing myself between crazy front row fans, to start taking down equipment. Well, last night while I was on my way to the front of the stage, there was a lot more action up front than usual, when I got there I saw that a handful of fans had somehow grabbed Stevie’s microphone stand, which is covered in carefully placed ribbons and beads and rosaries. They had her stand on the floor and they were tearing it to shreds. Real nice, huh? They were like rabid animals. I grabbed the stand and was playing tug-o-war for it with two
guys. One of which pushed me, and it would be unladylike for me to repeat what I said to him, but it involved a lot of words that my grandmother would smack me for saying. I jumped up on the stage to find one of the sound guys helping me pull the stand back up and away from the ribbon-hungry fans. What monsters! Who pushes a girl? There was, however, a very sweet lady picking up sad little scraps of
ribbon/bead shrapnel off the floor for me. When all was said and done, the ribbons and beads were not doing well. They are back in a wardrobe case recovering now, and have been stabilized but remain in critical condition. I just hate that a handful of people can ruin a whole night. Oh well, roll with the punches, tomorrow’s a new day.

After the show I went up to Stevie‚s room to tell everyone about the mic stand brawl, she was not happy about it. But it makes for a good story, doesn’t it?

We went back to the hotel after load out and had a drink before retiring. Tomorrow morning we take a bus to Birmingham for 2 days off and then 2 shows. This leg of the
tour is flying by; it feels like I‚ve been out for a couple days, and we’re already halfway done. For some people who are anxious to get back to their families and such, that would be a good thing, but for me, I’m a youngin, with very little to call my own, so I’m not ready to go home yet…I’m just getting started with Europe.

Today’s Theme: Scary Alien-Like Fish

I am in love with Kiel Germany. Kiel is in the Northern most part of Germany, and it’s right on the water. Needless to say, it’s bone chilling cold here and the wind is not helpful either. But I love this city. It’s beautiful. We were lucky enough to have two days off here. I spent the first day off walking around in what could best be described as the Times Square of Kiel. It’s obviously not as massive as Times Square, but it has the same busy feel and lots of shopping. The streets are cobblestone and mostly closed to cars, it’s just charming. We went to a German restaurant for dinner, I’m pretty much a vegetarian, but when they brought the guys, food to the table, I have never seen so much carnage in my life. It was just a huge tray of meat, sausages and sauerkraut that they all crowded around like cavemen while I ate my dainty cheese plate. We also had a keg at our table. Is that really necessary? We eventually migrated to an Irish Pub where a lot of the crew had set up camp. I planned on getting to bed at a decent hour, but three hours later I was
taking shots called Brain Tumors. I have no idea what was in them, but I’ll just tell you that it tasted twice as gross as it looks.

After sleeping until noon I was prepared for another day of exploring Kiel. We walked a few miles down by the water and came across a small aquarium. It ended up just being a huge room with different kinds of fish in tanks, but it was fun. We took pictures of all the really creepy alien-like fish that don’t exist in America. After the aquarium it started raining so the night’s activities were limited to getting a bite to eat close by, and getting to bed early.

The next morning was show day, we were up and out of the hotel early, but to make a long story short we were arrived an hour early for load in. So there was a lot of sitting and waiting. I personally took it upon myself to find a comfy couch and take a little morning cat nap.

The show itself was good, as usual. It was our last show in Germany, we drive an hour to Hamburg tonight, check in to a hotel for a good 3 hours of sleep and then we fly to Dublin tomorrow morning to play two shows there. I must say, I loved Germany, but we’ve been here 10 days, and I’m ready to roll. We’ve chartered a 737 to take the crew from Germany to Ireland. What a treat, a private plane. Now this is getting good. I’m indescribably excited to see Ireland. Of all our destinations on this tour, I’m most excited for Ireland. I can’t really say why, maybe I’m just a sucker for a good accent. I’m also waiting to see how many pints of Guinness the boys can get down in 2 days. I should keep a running count. We’ll be taking a tour of the Guinness factory on our second day off in Dublin. This has the potential to get real ugly folks, I’ll keep you updated.

Today’s Theme: Disgusting drinks and dirty words

The two days off in Dusseldorf were great. It’s a cute town, with an good public transit system, so exploring the city was easy. A few of us went to Krefeld to race go-karts, which is about a 30 minute train ride away. It was so fun, I think 6 of us went, and I was only the girl racing? I got my butt kicked. The race supervisor looked and sounded like the guy from Saturday Night Live who says? Do you want to touch the monkey?? You know, the Sprockets guy? Anyway, he waves a blue flag at you whenever someone’s trying to pass you. I got blue flagged nearly every single lap. It was hysterical. By the time we were done I think I was 8 laps behind. I am also apparently such a bad driver that I caused Tim, one of the lighting guys, to crash in to a wall. (Don’t worry, he’s fine.) Needless to say, I did not receive a trophy. I placed last. But I’m no sore loser, it was a good time had by all. Even the train ride was fun, the train station itself was this beautiful old building with a clock tower, and the train went all through the countryside. I was ecstatic over seeing ducks and horses while on a train, what can I say, I’m from San Francisco, little things like this please me. I’m pretty sure all the locals on the train thought I was nuts when I started screaming “Look, Ducks!!! Ducks!!” And it’s amazing what You’re willing to eat and drink while in foreign countries, on the way back to the hotel we got these dreadful, foul smelling drinks that consisted of hot mulled wine mixed with all kinds of spices and hot rum. Talk about an acquired taste, yet I drank the whole thing. Why, you ask? Because I’m in Germany, and I’m determined to try new things, no matter how vile they may be.

The gig tonight was in Oberhausen, which is about a 45 minute drive from Dusseldorf. This morning was actually our first morning of how tour usually is. We’ve had rehearsals and back to back shows since we arrived, so this morning finally felt like we were on tour again. Getting up early, loading all your luggage up and piling on to the bus to go to the gig. Today is also the first day I feel I’ve completely recovered from jetlag. It took a week. How’s that for adjustment?

The day went by fast, we had to make sure we were on time today, if not early. There’s a midnight flight curfew in Oberhausen, which means if the bands plane was not on the runway and in the process of taking off at the stroke of midnight, they were stuck in Oberhausen till morning. So we had soundcheck at 5:00PM sharp and the show was to start at 8:00PM on the dot. (Which is when the show is actually supposed to start). Fleetwood Mac is usually a tad bit late to take the stage (not late late, just fashionably late, still, 8:00 was kind of a push.) They ended up starting the show about ten minutes after 8:00. Not bad. And can I just say that the crowd in Oberhausen is seriously one of the best I can remember. They were insane. There as a girl in the front row that kept getting up on her boyfriends shoulders to take pictures of Stevie, no matter how many times our security went to tell her to get down, she was right back up there ten minutes later. The whole crowd clapped and screamed from the first minute to the last. It made the show so much fun. I think the standout song tonight was “Never Going Back”, I’ve heard that song live too any times to count, and it’s always a beautiful song, but for whatever reason, tonight it was heart wrenching. Let’s just say I may have even gotten a little teary. Just maybe.

There was also a lot of commotion today due to the fact that we were recording Peacekeeper for a television show (Editor’s note: it was for the AMA awards). I’m not even sure what show it was for, I just know that there was a television camera crew there, and that I heard the word Peacekeeper 4 million times today. It was the talk of the town.

Okay, my final tidbit tonight is actually a polite request to all you showgoers out there. Please, please leave your tambourines at home when you come to a Fleetwood Mac show. There was a girl behind me tonight that played her tambourine the WHOLE SHOW. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had NO RHYTHM. It drove me up a wall, so much that our security nearly had to hold me back from jumping in to the audience and hunting her down. So please, leave the tambourine playing to Miss Stevie, the world will be a better place for it. Oh yeah, and those little laser pointer things, leave those at home too, nobody likes those, they’re annoying and you know it. I think it’s my bedtime, I’d say goodnight in German, but so far all I’ve learned to say are dirty words. Figures.

Today’s Theme: Frostbite

Well, I spent the morning complaining to anyone who would listen about how cold my bus was last night. Typically tour buses are kept at a temperature somewhere in the mid sixties. When you have 10 people living together in a small space, it’s best to keep the temperature low so that if one person has a cold everyone doesn’t get their germs. I know, it’s a glamorous lifestyle we lead out here. Anyway, my bus had to have been 40 degrees last night. You could see your own breath. It was awful. And the blankets
on these buses are apparently made for people who are 3 feet tall. I was freezing. But I talked to our driver and he showed me all the thermostats, so tonight my bus will be a toasty 85 degrees. I’ll risk catching a cold, I’ll take a case of the sniffles over frostbite any day.

Like I said, we lost 2 hours for load in, so the late start this morning kept everyone perpetually busy. And there was only one loading dock, which means they can only unload one truck at a time. But as always, come show time, everything was ready. And tonight’s show was fantastic. Honestly, all the shows are great, but there are some that just stand out, and tonight was one of them. I don’t know if has to do with the crowd or the band, or maybe both, but there was a lot of good energy tonight.

The only downer for today is that I didn’t get to see any of Berlin, we arrived this morning and we’re leaving tonight, so that’s a bummer. We drive to Dusseldorf tonight, and we have two days off there, so that should be fun. Hopefully our hotel rooms will be bigger than a closet and have less than 23 light switches. (I’m still getting accustomed with Europe.)

If you don’t already know, we (Fleetwood Mac and roughly 80 staff and crew members) have been stuck together in rehearsals and subsequently on tour since February 2003. A few people have since left, a few people have since come, but on the whole, we’ve been together for nearly 9 months(with the exception of a few much needed, albeit short breaks to go home, kiss your loved ones, sleep in your own bed, and remember how to drive an automobile. But then it’s right back to work.)

February, March and April were spent rehearsing and planning for the upcoming tour, which started off on May 7th in Columbus, Ohio. At that point in time we were only scheduled to be out for about two months, five months later we were still on our US tour, which finally wrapped up in Las Vegas on October 17th. We said our goodbyes and headed home for two weeks, and that more or less brings you up to date.

On November 7th we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany for the first show of the European leg of the Fleetwood Mac Say You Will Tour*. That first show in Frankfurt will be our 71st show. Now, although I can’t rightfully speak for everyone, I think it’s safe to say we all have a lot of fun doing what we do, so we thought that we would share it with you.

*(Editor’s note: Stevie did not fly in with the band. She arrived in Frankfurt earlier in the week to prevent potential respiratory complications from the southern California fires — she suffers from asthma.)

Enter yours truly. What you guys see is the final product, a two and a half hour Fleetwood Mac show, but what you can’t see is that there is a bustling world of people, hard work and good times under the surface of that final product. So, for anyone interested, here’s a glimpse into the daily life of our happy little family?

Today’s Theme: Jetlag

We arrived in Frankfurt yesterday morning. The time change is nothing short of evil. As if 15 hours of flying and travel isn’t enough to cause delirium on it’s own? The addition of a 9 hour time change has caused me to feel like I’m living in a parallel universe. A lot of people slept on the plane, so they’re not suffering as much, I was not one of those lucky people. I was too interested in watching Fight Club and Charlie’s Angels on the plane, big mistake. Anyway, we spent our first day here catching up with each other and then trying to catch up with our sleep schedules.

Everyone seemed to have their own theory on how to beat jetlag, some of us slept all day, and were up all night, some of us deprived ourselves of sleep for 24 hours and spent the day looking like the walking dead. And the end result on the following workday was that no matter what you decided to do, you were tired. You can run from jetlag, but you can’t hide. Anyhow, we showed up to the venue today to load in and rehearse. It was slow going, due to widespread jetlag and the fact that it’s our first run at putting together a US set-up in Europe. It’s also our first show back from vacation, and it always takes us a while to get back into the swing of things. But given the things that could have gone wrong, I think everything went pretty smoothly. Go team!

The band arrived around 5:00PM and spent the first hour or so chatting, but finally made it to the stage to run through a few songs. And since we play a show here tomorrow in this building, we don’t have to load out, which also means that we don’t have to load in tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. We don’t even have to go the venue tomorrow until noon. Hallelujah. It’s back to the hotel for a cocktail and a good (and quite necessary) nights sleep.