18 September 2008
We flew to Riga from Stanstead and arrived in the evening! It was freezing!! We had arranged to meet Andy at 8pm in an Irish bar that he had been to on a previous trip to Riga. Walked into the bar and there was Andy sitting on a table next to Jamie Moses, Danny Miranda and Spike Edney! LOL! Said hi to them then started drinking with Andy. We had our dinner there too – not very Latvian! When the guys from the band left, Danny said ‘bye’ to us! Sweet! Later on, we spotted Pete Malandrone and Justin Shirley-Smith. Justin came over to our table and said he recognised us – from ‘The Cosmos Rocks’ preview party a couple of weeks before in London (where we drank all the beer!). Had nice chat with him about the album and the shows, and Andy went to speak to Pete!
Later on, we left and went to a couple of other bars, one where we found Roger Taylor sunglasses and we scared the locals!
19 September 2008
Gavin and I arrived at the freezing cold queue at 12pm and we were the only people there!
Nobody else turned up until 2pm, when Simon, Martin and Andy arrived – all from the UK! The local fans started arriving about 3pm when they came round to tell us that we were queuing at the wrong door. We moved round to the right door, where they let us stand at the front of the queue (although there were only about 10 people there at that stage!!).
We had ‘fanni plats’ (fan tickets) so our door opened an half an hour before the main queue. Terry turned up just before our doors opened and we all managed to get a good spot at the front of the catwalk, after going the wrong way when entering the venue! Ooops! Viekko saw us at the barrier before the show and came over and shook our hands and said ‘Nice to have you back’.
Before 39, Brian was introducing the song and said hello to the Latvians and Estonians and then said ‘There are some people from England here too….’ We all screamed and he said ‘All 3 of you!’
The best moment of the show was the Latvian Prime Minister, on drums for All Right Now. We knew he was at the show as some of the Latvians near us had pointed him out in the seating area to the left of the stage. Roger introduced him then took his spot to play the tambourine. The Latvian Prime Minister was seriously cool and drummed the whole song! At the end, Roger walk over to help him finish, by jumping up in the air and waving his arms around!
The set list was:
After the show, we walked into the town centre (the long way, thanks Andy and Simon!). Stopped at a garage to get water on the way- the lady didn’t speak English so Terry just kept saying water in various different accents! We got some in the end! Went out for a couple of drinks and food then went back to the hotel to get some well earned sleep!