Laurie's Travel Blog: RWB's Tour of Italy - Part I

10:30 a.m. 7-14-10
Rome airport, first impression - very warm temps around 90, typical for this time of year.
picked up guitars and luggage. Rusty was worried about how his Epi would fare but all was fine. We met up with Ado, our tour manager. Young, hip with multiple earrings and piercings in his ears, several rings, tattoo sleeve. His English is excellent. Tells us our first stop is Torre Alfina to the North, about a 3 hour drive . We have a small bus with high back bench seats. The air doesn't work very well, but it's enough to keep us from melting.

Surprised how quickly we left the city for a rural landscape. Huge hay bales, fields of sunflowers, craggy hilltops with ancient villages perched precariously, the houses built to the very edges of the cliffs. I'm sure Ado is amused by our video blogging and me taking photos of every interesting looking building along the way, but he doesn't say anything. We're all exhausted so the guys soon doze off. I can't sleep, can't stand the thought of missing some of the spectacular countryside.

We finally turn off the highway on to more rural roads, twisting and turning upward, past olive groves and small farms. Finally we catch sight of the castle in the distance. A real castle. Crenelated towers Beautiful trees make a canopy over the curving road leading into Torre Alfina. We have arrived in a perfectly preserved medieval village dating back to the 8th century. Picturesque beyond description. Narrow cobblestone streets. Flower boxes hang beneath shuttered windows. Not a neon sign in sight. Nor a scrap of litter anywhere. We quickly find our hotel and the guys almost cry with joy to see a sparkling pool. There is also a restaurant where we will eat dinner. No television in the the restaurant or the bars. People enjoy animated conversations at the tables.

Dinner, 7-14-10
They want us to experience a traditional Italian dinner so they ask us to allow them to make recommendations. We tell them yes, absolutely!
First course
carafes of house red wine, sparkling water and regular water (fizzy or flat) platters of crostini, cheese with fresh tomato, beans, pate, ham/prosciutto and cheese
a platter of antipasto – thinly sliced cured meats
pasta – two kinds homemade noodles
egg noodles with wild boar sauce
thick fetticini with an incredibly fresh tomato chili sauce. Ado informs them I am allergic to eggs so they make sure to point out which dishes are safe for me to eat.
platter of thinly sliced (shaved) prime rib with au jus (they described it as roast beef)
salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and sauteed spinach with lemon wedges.
Festival organizer, Carlos, more often than not called El Presidente byt the village residents, sends over a carafe of local specialty wine, lightly sparkling, smooth, wonderful. He explains that this is the wine the locals make. Each town's wine tastes slightly different. If you travel 20 km the local wine will taste different because of the soil the grapes are grown in.

After dinner we walk through the village. Since it is too hot to work during the afternoon hours, the sound and stage crew has worked late into the evening building the stage in the town square in front of the church. Tomorrow they will rig the lights and PA. Its a good solid, large stage. Behind the stage is a picturesque row of stone houses with fine doors, shuttered windows and flower pots and window boxes. There are pots of dazzling flowers and lemon and lime trees everywhere. It is 11 pm and families and children are out in the square, children playing on the church steps.

we walk up a steep street to a bar where alcohol and gelato is served. I try the berry gelato and some chocolate. rich and creamy.
The hotel is a family-owned affair. Everyone in the family seems to work there - day and night
Connie is the lady of the restaurante she and the dark haired gentleman take excellent care of us. In the morning continental breakfast consisting of cappacino, croissants & pastries, fresh yogurt with toppings, fresh orange juice. Have I mentioned Everything is FRESH and natural. Behin the hotel is a small garden with a grape arbor, lemon and lime trees, tomatoes, leeks, lettuce, rosemary, basil, herbs and other vegetables.

Rusty said lunch was a buffet of roasted and fried vegetables - onions dusted with bread crumbs and baked until sweet and soft, carrots, tomatoes brushed with olive oil and herbs and cooked - flavor was intense. Artichokes, beans etc.

Once again we have struck gold with our tour manager. Ado is magnifico - extremely competent, and on top of things. He's a very nice guy to boot. We like him a lot and are grateful for our good fortune. He watches over us carefully and is quick to make sure we have what we need for our performance. At this level, a tour manager often wears many hats. Part babysitter/guardian angel, part translator, part goodwill ambassador and part cheerleader, he works hard to keep us comfortable so we can do our best at the shows. He gets to drive the bus and to sell CDs for us, to boot. Tour managers must be very detail-oriented and knowlegable about a wide range of subjects. Ado's days are very long - he doesn't get any "down" time but he seems to enjoy hanging out with us and is probably relieved we're not a demanding bunch.

We are supposed to be down at the stage at 5:30 for an interview, to be followed by our sound check. Our interviewers are some of my new Facebook friends. The interview takes about 5 minutes then we settle back on the benches to wait for sound check. Evidently it was too hot earlier in the day to finish setting up the stage so things are running a bit behind. Two hours later we get sound check. The crew is very competent and wants very much to get the sound right for us as a film crew is on hand to tape our performance. For Dave, there is a nice Roland keyboard and a pristine 1961 Hammond B3 and Leslie speaker has been provided. For a moment I think he's going to cry with joy. There is a wide selection of amps for Andy, Rusty and I to choose from. A young man named Marco tells us some of the tube amps are hand built by a gentleman standing close by smiling. "they are very good," he tells us. At his suggestion I tell him I will use a small Dumble combo amp. Low, mid, high EQ, volume, input, and standby are hand lettered on the front panel - in Italian of course. Its a basic amp so it doesn't take long to decifer the wording. Its warm and squashy as only a tube amp can sound and my Tele sounds good through it.

Suddenly Dave yelps, grabs his arm and jumps back. Evidently there is a ground problem on one of the keyboard because he has gotten a jolt of 220 up his arm that hurts like hell. The crew swarms to fix the problem and Marco gets a jolt of it as well as they figure out where the problem spots are. Finally they connect a ground wire under a screw on the B3 which solves the problem for Dave but the rest of us are sternly warned not to touch either of his keyboards while holding guitars. We finally finish with sound check about 8 pm. Showtime is 10:30 and we have yet to eat dinner. Most of us skipped lunch because of the large dinner we had the previous night, so we are ravenously hungry. Back to the restaurant we go.

Dinner, day 2 July 15
I can't imagine that our fare will be this spectacular throughout our tour and Ado confirms this. "This is a special place," he says. Indeed it is. A magical, fairytale sort of place. Throughout our stay Rusty and I look at each other in amazement and wonder (wistfully) what it would be like to live in such a place. Less than 400 people inhabit this medieval village. We learn from a visiting Belgian lady that the castle is for sale - only 11 million euros. Hmmmm, need to play the lotto a little more often. An American from Baltimore tells me he has been bringing his family here for a month long visit for the past five years. He says they have tried everything imaginable, including offering the castle caretake a bribe to see the inside of the castle. It didn't work. Evidently the castle was locked up after the last owner lost his fortune funding a sports team. The property sits in limbo because the man fled to Santo Domingo after filing for bankruptcy. Since no one can find him, nothing can move forward.

Carafes of water and red wine appear on the table.
appetizer buffet - salad, more roasted/grilled vegetables, artichokes, beans, a platter of wafer thin beef strips topped with greens and shreds of parmagiano, bowls of polenta - sundried tomato flavor and the other is full of ingredients I can't identify but enjoy greatly. The restaurante is packed so I don't want to bother the staff asking questions. In the corner Michael Burks, his band and tour manager Manolo are having dinner. He has just arrived and looks as jet lagged as we must have the day before.

Three platters of pasta make up the main course. One is a rustic noodle dish with a gorgonzola cheese sauce which is delicious but filling. The second, egg noodles with a mushroom sauce. I love mushrooms. Connie rushes over when she sees me put a dab of mushroom sauce on my plate with a couple of egg noodles clinging to it. I think she feels bad I have only one pasta to try so a few minutes later a third platter of pillowy chunks of pasta in a tomato meat sauce (perhaps wild boar again) is delivered to the table. Tonight we are urged to try dessert, so we each order something. I ask for a recommendation on an egg-free dessert and am served a lovely creamy custard-y dessert topped with rich chocolate. (I think it probably has eggs in it but it is so delicious I don't care. I can live with a night of fibromyalgia for something this good. Ado orders expresso and Limoncella for all of us. Pete chooses to forgo the alcoholic beverages since he has never tasted alcohol and says it seems a shame to break that record now. It should be interesting doing a concert after such a filling meal.

Connie is very warm and likable, and always seems relaxed and unflappable. It appears she is confident in her team and she knows they are great at what they do. She tells us she cannot make it to our show as she will be working still at 10:30 and asks that we sing her a song. No problemo. We will also make sure a set of autographed CDs finds their way into her hands before we leave..

Much to our relief the stage is rigged with state of the art LED lighting - which means no additional heat on stage. By 10:30 the weather is as perfect as you could ever wish for. Too dry for mosquitoes, a balmy 75 degrees with a light breeze.

Torre Alfina Blues Band kicks off the show, playing rock classics and blues tunes. Very tight band. We could hear them from the hotel as we got ready for the show. Dave banged on the in the door - "Did you hear them kick off with Bad Company's Rock Steady?" When Rusty & I arrived they were playing Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion and they finished their set with Sweet Home Alabama.

By comparison, our set was a huge contrast - almost all original music. The show went great and the crowd was very enthusiastic. A film crew videotaped the show - multi-camera shoot & the audio crew was very attentive. They did a wonderful job. Michael Burks sat on the church steps listening to the first 5-6 songs before slipping away. Afterward we talked with people, went back to change clothes and then headed for the jam in a little square up in the village. It was 1 am and the whole town appeared to be there. Torre Alfina Blues Band playing again - more rock covers. People singing along... Rusty, Dave, Pete and I sat off to the side listening and smiling at our new friends, many of whom I'd connected with on Facebook before the start of the trip. Next thing we knew, Dave was asked to sit in on keyboards. He'd had a bit to drink. As they got ready to start the next song he turned to us in dismay and hollered "Oh crap! It's in the key of F#m and its an ORIGINAL tune!" Rusty and I busted out laughing. Rusty waved and shouted back "God be with you," still laughing. Dave did an impressive job of following along. Lots of improv, and even threw his leg up on the keys and did a credible Jerry Lee Lewis impression when El Presidente Carlo strapped on a gold top Gibson Les Paul and took off on Johnny B Good. Dave was still flailing on the keys when Rusty and I headed back to the room about 2:30. Ado promised to make sure he got back safely.

7-16-10
Needless to say, we were tired when we hit the road at 9:30 a.m., a six hour drive ahead of us. We are heading North of Milan to the Traveling Music Fest in San Lorenzo di Rovetta, located in the central Northern region of the country.

With the temp in excess of 100 degrees, the van is hot, hot, hot. The air conditioning doesn't work very well and doesn't reach past the front seat in any case so we opened every window that would open let the hot air blow in. Even the mountain region is experiencing a heat wave. In Italy, you have to have a license for air conditioning and many hotels are equipped with neither air conditioning or heat. Our lodgings for the night is a beautiful, secluded little resort that was once a gristmill. It is very beautiful in a rustic way, and from the window of our room we can hear the rush of water next to the building and see people fishing with cane poles at the well stocked trout pond.

A quick shower, then we head to the venue for sound check. Tonight's show is at a local festival. The stage is large and again, the audio crew is competent and dials in the sound quickly. Our back line for the night is to be provided by our opening act, Dr. Faust & the Traveling Boys, another tight cover band. The guys tease me that the amp I am to play through has more knobs than the space shuttle. Wish I'd taken a photo of it. It sounded good though. tonight Dave has a Nord keyboard rather than a B3. He has never played one and is curious to try it.

Back at the resort we meet downstairs for dinner in the outside dining area. Most of us order thin crust traditional pizzas baked in a wood fired pizza oven. Andy orders steak and Ado a seafood risotto dish.We have time for another shower (to cool off) and we head back to the festival where thousands of people are grooving to the cover band. There are food and drink vendors everywhere and vendors selling arts, crafts, clothing and jewelry - very similar to the community festivals in the US. People seem to enjoy the cover tunes and I can't help but wonder how our original music will go over. I need not have worried. We kicked ass. Major ass, and left the crowd screaming their approval.

The young guys in particular like Rusty's guitar playing. After we leave the stage a young guitar player - early 20s at most - bounds up and kisses me on both cheeks, shouts that he loves me and that he has never seen a woman guitarist who played "with an attitude." How funny. Bless Ado's heart. Our Italian savior politely intercedes when a tall, anorexic, Cleopatra-type woman decides she wouldn't mind sleeping with anyone/everyone in the band. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Ciao. Gotta go now. In fact, it is while trying to explain to "Cleo" that Rusty and I are married that I realized my wedding band wasn't on my finger. With some very unladylike words I jumped up from my seat, panicking. There is no way I was going to find it if it had slipped off my finger at the festival. Then I recalled hearing a strange 'ping' on the cobblestones as we were leaving our hotel. I glanced around but since I hadn't dropped any of the items I was carrying in my hands I forgot about it.

Ado agreed to take Rusty and I back to the hotel to look for my ring. On the ride back, Massimo, our tour promoter/agent checks in with Ado to see how the show went. We don't ask Ado exactly what he has reported to Massimo but have no reason to believe anything negative was said. We'd had a really good show and everyone. After dropping us off, Ado headed back to enjoy the festival with Dave, Andy and Pete and to drive them back to the hotel when they are ready. We search for a few minutes but it was too dark to really look for my ring so we decided to get up really early to search some more. I'm happy to report we found it in the morning.