Wake up around 9:30, lobby call at 10am. We're all here today, off we go on yet another route to the gig. We pass the airport this time and notice a 'Showgirls' strip club in an old airliner parked across the street from the airport. Wish I could have gotten a picture (priceless).

Arrive at the gig, run through is not till 1pm. Do a little work, but mostly hang around and hit catering (which is staffed by the 'Eat Your Heart Out' caterers from our American tour). Yummy as usual. Being an awards show, I run into a lot of old roadie friends, Bash from Coldplay, Ian and Nathan from Foo Fighters, Andy, Pooch and Mike from System of a Down, etc. Always a good time catching up with old friends.

Watch some of the early acts on the dress rehearsal, Madonna looks amazing for 47. The cartoon band 'Gorillaz' will be performing before us in a CGI generated 3D form. Amazing technology that looks straight out of Disney World. Finally it's our turn, rehearsal goes well. And after striking the stage we now have many hours to kill. Hang in the dressing room for a bit, then out by the gear, then dinner, then more hanging out by the gear. Finally I take a power nap on the key riser just before the show.

Wake up just in time to go out front for Madonna, and end up standing 4 feet away from her as she exits the stage. Wow, she does look (and sound) great.

Watch the Pussycat Dolls next, kinda the new Spice Girls, but with even less talent (at least Mel C was a good singer).

Next tour bands wins the award for Best Album. Congrats!!

Next up are Gorillaz, a band who only ever appear as a cartoon. They have figured out how to create a 3D cartoon image on the stage and they perform 'LIVE' with the guys from De La Soul backing them up. I'll try to post a photo of the Gorillaz on stage.

Right before we go on, the band wins for Best Rock Act too. they end up winning 2 of 3 awards.

We go on, but are introduced as 'Coldplay', which I think was a joke by the fake Russian host. Song goes well, with lots of pyro, which rains down on me as I'm doing my cues.

We load out as fast as we can, eventually ending up outside and we finish loading the truck just as the show ends. We also load a couple of vans with gear for our 'fly show' tomorrow in Germany.

Now it's off to the hotel for an hour, then the airport to fly to Germany on a private charter. Grab a shower at the hotel and arrive at the airport around 2am. We end up being early, so we wait around and our singer cracks every one up by wearing a Darth Vader mask and dancing around. Finally we take everything through security and board a bus out to the plane. We attempt to help the guy load all the gear and luggage, but he wants to do it himself. Eventually, we end up putting some of the bags on some empty seats in the front of the plane. I fall asleep listening to my ipod shortly after we takeoff.

I wake up as we are descending, because 'Baby Got Back' by Sir Mixalot is blasting in my ears. I open my eyes to see our singer and keyboard player howling with laughter, as they hooked up one of their ipod to my headphones... We land about 6am and get into some vans for the 45min ride to the hotel. Ugh.