* Barcelona * Norwich * Cambridge * London * Balingen * Pilsen * Burgum * 2008
What a month, and it went by so fast!
When I first started out traveling to Barcelona I had
no idea what lay ahead of me. In between the flights and car drive, I returned
to work and went on business trips to Berlin and Munich, so it was a lot of
packing, leaving, returning, doing laundry, packing again. I love traveling and I try to get away as often as
possible, but I can't remember when I ever in my life have been to so many
places in such a short time...I should have gone on that damn bus doing the
whole tour with
Queensryche ;-).
Some people actually asked me if I didn't get bored
after a while, and the answer is a definite NO WAY! Every night you learn some
new aspects about the performance, the venue as well as the crowd changes, there
are always new impressions and the music itself is touching my soul - always. I could have gone on like this for
the rest of the year without a single yawn...
While different Rychers and Non-Rychers accompanied me
to the shows, I had such a great time meeting old and new fellow
fans from all over the world. We have been quite an international party group
with people
from the US (Cindy, Sherry, Mike, Lara, John, Chris, Miki), UK (Mark),
Netherlands (Colinde and Wim), Spain (Lordes and Adrian), Belgium (Rik and
Rozelijn), Czech Republic (Pavel, Laser), Greece (Costas, Dimitris and Big Kostas) and
even Japan (Shinobu). We also got to
know the crew, like Fozzy alias Dr. X, Jason alias Nikki, Turner and Sean and
enjoyed having
aftershow drinks with them on several occasions. So cool hanging out with you
guys!
No, it is not me singing :-P Sorry for the poor quality, but my camera
can't capture the sound (which was great that night), and there were too
many photographers in the pit (I'm not that tall) and the stage
quite high.
Besides making front row in Norwich, Cambridge (well,
almost, the first row never got up from their seats), London, Pilsen and Holland
the German Empire's highlight for sure was getting on stage with Queensryche in
front of 20.000 people at the Bang Your Head Festival, doing jury duty for
"Hostage". Still daydreaming about it...