ticket:

[ticket submitted by our friends over at www.eelsthediscography.co.uk]

Butch's diary:

Aug. 27, 2001: We left Holland on a high (from the show, that is) and headed to London. We get to the hotel and I prepare myself for a soothing bath at 11:30pm. The hotel fire alarm goes off and we are thrown onto the streets. We are told that a number of hotels have received bomb threats tonight and ours is one of them. We feel better knowing that the bomb-threater is probably not an angry concertgoer from the Reading festival trying to get even with us. I notice some guy pacing back and forth frantically on the sidewalk behind us. An hour later we are ushered back into the hotel after the bomb sniffing dogs have cleared the way. I pass on the bath and go directly to bed. Throughout the night I hear an annoying buzzing sound coming from inside one of my walls and all I can envision is the mad pacing guy pushing his button and being pissed off that the bomb won't go off in my room. I have a sleepless night. Next year we better skip the festivals.

Aug. 28, 2001: We finally get to do our own show. We play the Forum in London tonight for a little preview show, to let people know what's coming. We get to the venue early today to go over some tunes we haven't played in a while. Soundcheck goes well and we relax a little before the show.

The opening mime goes on at 8:00pm sharp and does a killer set. We go on at 9:00pm. The local lighting guy starts blasting the strobe lights during That's Not Really Funny. I lose the perspective of where my drum sticks are in my hands and the proximity of the things I'm hitting. We somehow end the song together but are discombobulated at this juncture. Afterwards I get to talk to some of the fans and they tell me how much they like the new songs, which is nice since we have been having an unprecedented number of technical problems that have kept us from having very many great shows. I won't bore you with the details, but when we come back, hopefully our equipment will be working right and you will get the other 50% of the ROCK that you should have felt the first time.

Aug. 29, 2001: Press all day for E. The rest of us go out and play in the unusually nice weather that London is experiencing. Koool-G and I go to the Millennium Wheel and stand and watch it go around all day. Mesmerizing.

[diary originally published on Eelstheband.com - copyright © 2001. Used here uncut and as originally published by BUTCH]