Day 3 started pretty early. I got up at 8 again because I was hungry and went to the supermarket. Thierry was still a bit moody and sort of surprised that I was already up. I got back with some bread, something to read and after my lunch I went back to sleep because I realized that I still felt a bit tired after all. Roughly at 12 o’ clock I found myself awake again, took a shower in the bathroom that was even more dirty than before and put some clothes on. I was ready again, but it took my bitch Thierry a little longer before he was ready to go. I’d gotten him some new blister plasters which made him feel slightly better, and when he realized it was 12 o’ clock he was happy as he told me he expected me to drag him out of bed early in the morning. We went to Denmark street to check some music shops and Thierry explained a little bit about guitars because I’ve got absolutely no idea of what a guitar is and what isn’t, so Thierry was the man. We found a pathetic excuse just to play on some guitars (we are musicians after all), and went back to Wagamama’s to meet up with Tom and Laura. On our journey I made a few more pictures of the highlights of London again:





While sitting there, waiting for our dinner, Tom and Laura came in and said they just met Bobby at the entrance but he didn’t want to come in as there was a queue to get a table. During dinner we started thinking about ideas for banners, and Tom said we should make banners for Hugh instead. I started writing down whatever ideas came up, and here’s the brilliant list:



We had a shitload more, and had great fun thinking of them. While having so much fun Laura pointed out that Tico came in, and in fact he did. He sat at a table, and Tom said that I should give him the list and say that I had a bunch of requests, which is what I did. Me, Thierry and Laura went over to his table and I said “Sorry sir, I don’t want to disturb your meal, but I’ve got a bunch of requests for tonight.” And I handed him the list. He didn’t really know what to think of it and probably thought I was serious with my requests, but I didn’t really care. We shook hands and Thierry asked if it would be alright if we could take a picture with him after dinner. It was alright he said, after dinner, so we went back to our seats and me and Thierry realized that of all times we meet a band member we did something silly like this, but it was a good laugh. When Tico left we got up and Thierry asked him once again if it’d be alright to take a picture and he didn’t mind at all. During our photo shoot Thierry kept shooting questions like “Are you going to play Lie To Me? Are you going to play This Ain’t A Love Song?” and Tico right away said “No, not This Ain’t A Love Song. I’m not sure about Lie To Me though.” Thierry asked him what the surprises for the night would be and he said something like “Just wait and see” and I said “you’re not going to spoil it for us anyway are you?” and he looked me straight in the eyes and said “alright then. Something To Believe In and I Believe”. Thierry repeated his words just to make sure if he wasn’t bullshitting us and he said “no bullshitting, Something To Believe In and I Believe”. Very cool. We took our pictures, when I was standing there beside him he said “get down here will ya?” and I got the only picture on which he’s actually laughing. It was a very cool moment.



After dinner we went off back to our pub to get our things for the show and Tom and Laura already went to Twickenham.

At our pub we took a quick inventory and Thierry sat down on his bed and the following happened:



Pretty neat. He was absolutely clueless and didn’t have any idea of how to fix his own bed, so I did it for him, or he had to sleep in mine. I made up my own bed and sorted my clothes and I think it’s obvious right now who still lives with his mum and who lives on his own.



After I had fixed our hotel room we went off to Twickenham. On the train we started chatting with some fans who were going to see Bon Jovi the first time this tour, so we asked if they knew what was going to be played, and if they wanted to know it. They didn’t, so we said told them which songs they were not going to get. No Bad Medicine, no It’s My Life, no Always…to which the guy replied “Well that’s too bad, I was going to propose my girlfriend on this song but now it’s not going to happen.” We had a good laugh, an easy journey, made it to Twickenham again with its piss poor security and when I met up with Laura, Moron and Tom he offered me a drink of his bottle with Coke. Erm, coke? It was whiskey, and I only realized when I had taken a very big sip. Thierry and Tom were both laughing because they know how Seb never drinks any alcohol, and Tom told me they had 3 bottles of Whiskey/Coke with them. All thanks to the great security.



I let Tom take a picture of our group and joked that we were the Daltons:



Thierry said I was right as the tallest was the dumbest, which wasn't really a nice thing of him to say. Bastard.

When we entered Twickenham The Feeling were already playing and they weren’t brilliant but certainly not god awful either. They went off and the crowd really loved them, so it was already a better start of the show than last night. I think that after the support act I met up with Emil and his friends who had GC tickets for the second show, and I told him about our meeting with Tico and how he would get one of the songs he’d been hoping for for such a long time. He said “Ah, must be 99 In The Shade then!”. No man, not 99 In The Shade. “Blame It On The Love” one of his friends said, and I thought “what the ****, no not that song” but then I saw his tattoo and laughed. “I Believe” Emil said, and when I said that was the one Emil got very happy, which was nice. Must be one of the very few times someone gets happy when I spoil a surprise for someone. He didn’t want to know the other surprise, so I kept my mouth shut. He went back to his old spot, and at 8:05 the intro music started so we knew the show would last 2 hours and 25 minutes long unless they would **** the curfew again.

The start of the show was already better than last time. Jon came on with a guitar and looked like he actually wanted to be there. Rockin’ All Over The World started and was done better than in Amsterdam. It had many solo’s and this band looked like a rock band while doing it. It was a good start of the show, and I was hoping they’d keep it up like this. When Lost Highway followed, however, they right away lost the crowd again. Born To Be My Baby and Bad Name lived things up again, but when Summertime followed with it’s We Will Rock You thingy before it, they lost the crowd once again. Summertime just doesn’t work as a live song, but still Jon keeps on trying. It tanked every time I saw the band doing it, and there’s zero crowd participation during the song as well. Crash followed and with us being so bored already we decided to throw in some fancy dance moves during the song. This was seriously the most fun we had so far, simply because the band were so boring during the first 6 songs and Jon was on auto-pilot once again. I was glad Sleep followed, but there was no spontaneous stuff like what happened in Amsterdam, this again was pretty standard stuff. Again it looked like they were supposed to do more covers, but Jon cut it short. There was no reprise of Mercy as well, Jon just wasn’t into it.

Blood Money was the first proper highlight of the show. I heard the song before this tour but still, me and Thierry were looking at each other and figured we both thought the same. “Jon nailed it”. Blaze obviously followed and again Richie messed up some slide work, and when doing so me and Thierry again looked at each other at the same time and said “Well, he didn’t really nail that one”. Blaze was alright, but not as spectacular as in Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Any Other Day followed Blaze and this song was just one big mess. During the song Jon struggled with the vocals a bit and when the final solo’s were supposed to be done he could not be bothered at all to do a proper band introduction. I introduced Bobby, introduced Lorenza and that was it. It was the attitude of “who gives a **** anyway I’m done with this song”. For the first time during both shows I saw Jon the front man who couldn’t be arsed about anything at all. In These Arms was done again, no need for that anyway but the crowd ate it and when We Got It Goin’ On followed so early in the set I figured that there should be a big encore coming up. While Jon might be done with Any Other Day, I’m very much done with We Got It Goin’ On. And It’s My Life. Both songs should get a rest. I know, It’s My Life was a big hit, but it lacks so much power live that it’s just boring to listen to. hen Keep The Faith was done me and Thierry were wondering if Jon would finally do some improvising which would be nice after 13 songs of auto pilot but it didn’t happen. Right after the guitar solo Jon went on with the song and it was a very boring version of Keep The Faith, no stunning vocals, just through the motions. Maybe Richie would save the show by doing Stranger In This Town? Nope, just There For You again. Have A Nice Day followed, very standard but nice, and then, finally, the first proper gem in the set.