Diamond Head and I go back a long, long way. I saw them for the first time as support to April Wine at the Edinburgh Odeon in January 1981 and I was hooked. They blew me away with those great songs and fabulous riffs. I saw the band many more …

Diamond Head are about to set off on the longest North American tour in their illustrious and lengthy history. The first gig is on 2nd November in San Francisco and the last and twenty-eighth performance takes place on 4th December at a secret venue and location. All will be revealed …

The second day off on the tour was mostly spent driving and we stayed over in Fort Stockton. The next morning we made our way to San Antonio where the band would be playing the Rockbox that evening. We arrived in good time and with an easy load in, the …

I’ve now added another three hours sleep to the four I got on the first night, which brings my total shut-eye since Tuesday morning to an insomnia inducing seven hours. To be honest I was expecting it to be the opposite with the jet lag hitting me like a tonne …

So, with my neurotransmitters fully functioning at 100% I arrived at Heathrow almost four hours before our flight with dangerous levels of dopamine and serotonin bouncing between my cerebral hemispheres. Yes, you could say I was up for this one. A quick text to Ras revealed he too wouldn’t be …

We left Nashville for two gigs in Pennsylvania, tonight in Pittsburgh and tomorrow in the outpost of Sellersville. I say outpost because the staff at the Rex Theatre in Pittsburgh had never even heard of it. I hope the sat nav has been advised of its existence. It was another …

So today is a day off, well actually there are no days off, just days without gigs! With this in mind, some of the guys took advantage of the hotel’s laundry service to wash a few things considering there was no particular rush. Brian was very adventurous, taking a dip …

So we managed to navigate the Alamo without getting arrested and set off for an eight hour drive to Arkansas en-route to tomorrow night’s gig in Nashville, with a visit to Memphis planned for that evening. Debbie took over the drivers seat half way through to give Karl a well …

I had a great chat with Karl over breakfast in LA which gave me an insight into the logistics of setting up a big tour like this. From organising the actual gigs with Dean Swett, to sorting out the van, equipment, merchandise and hotels, along with hours spent planning routes …

So after travelling out of San Francisco for a couple of hours after the gig, it left us with about a four hour drive the following morning to LA for that night’s gig at the iconic Whisky A Go-Go on Sunset Boulevard, so it was an 11:00 van call, allowing …