ARIZONA WELCOMES DIAMOND HEAD: “THANKS FOR GETTING ME THROUGH MY PRISON YEARS”

We left Las Cruces, New Mexico at 11:00 for another long haul drive for tonight’s gig in Scottsdale, Arizona. Along the way we stopped at a ‘ranch style’ store to freshen up.

The place was a treasure trove of trinkets and goodies and a few rather more unusual things. I bought a couple of cool t-shirts, Brian, Ras, Abbz and Dean get the usual coffees and sandwiches etc, Karl however, rocked out of the door with a two foot armadillo masquerading as a sheriff tucked under his arm! Don’t ask because I don’t know!

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As we were not too far from the Mexican border, there are a number of border control check points, and further on down the line we had to stop and show our passports. The border control police were cool, asking what is the name of the band, where the gigs are etc. It’s the same at the hotels and I often wonder if anyone actually does check the band out like they promise to do.

If Trump wins the election later on that day and a huge wall is built, then there might not be any need for the check points in future. It could end up being a very good day to be a Mexican bricklayer!

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Two of the Coffin Dodgers are en-route to the airport after their US tour and reports are coming through from CDCC that one of the Dodgers had forgotten his watch, forcing a u-turn to go back and retrieve the said timepiece. Once on the plane the other ol’ git realised he had left his glasses back in Long Beach. So it appears, and not surprisingly at their age, that Alzheimers is rearing it’s ugly head. At least they didn’t croak it in America. Well strictly speaking there’s still a flight to get through and the insurance company must be getting real nervous at this point!

Hella Rock Festival

We arrived at the venue, Pranksters, at 18:30. The bar was really cool with lots of memorabilia lit up in glass cabinets. Most of it however seemed to be Country & Western, suggesting this joint wasn’t particularly a rock venue, though The Tubes had pride of place in one of the cabinets, with Fee Waybill’s huge silver boots overshadowing the rest of the stuff and a really cool signed Alice Cooper poster, though I’m not sure if he actually played the gaff.

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There were two support bands tonight and the openers were interesting to say the least, seemingly having an identity crisis, not knowing if they were thrash, stoner or even country & western! Diverse to say the least, though not bad and quite entertaining.

While the guys were warming up in the green room (dressing room), a random guy opens the door and boldly walks in with a beer in his hand and proceeds to tell all that Diamond Head play ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ better than Metallica ever did!! Er….ok, if you say so!

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He also thanked the band for Diamond Head getting him through his prison years, though everything’s cool now because he’s not crazy anymore!

I presume he enjoyed the gig, as nobody got hurt!

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“Without Diamond Head, none of this would have existed…”
Lars Ulrich – Metallica


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