Paolo Nutini’s trumpet/saxophone player Gavin Fitzjohn posted a diary of the Scottish singer/songwriter’s latest tour at Paolo’s MySpace blog on Tuesday (September 30). Gavin writes:
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, 7 musicians, 2 backline technicians, 2 sound engineers, 1 tour manager and a lovely lady from Puma sat in an airport, waiting for a flight to China, that was to begin a pretty incredible tour.
A 10 hour journey later we had touched down in Beijing – the host of the 2008 Olympics. The Games were due to start a week later so everywhere you looked Olympic fever was in full effect! We took a ride past the Bird’s Nest Stadium (designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron don’t you know!) which was an amazing sight.
After a night of food, drink and entertainment (Mick treated us with a delightful rendition of ‘Live and Let Die’ by Paul McCartney in the hotel bar), the next day we were off to see The Forbidden City – home to the emperor of China for 5 Centuries. The buildings within the City walls were overwhelming. Donny, Dave and I, wilting in the heat, wandered around the beautiful gold and red constructions for hours and took many a picture. Needless to say, walking in the relentless hot required some alcoholic refreshments soon after…”Anyone for a mojito?”
An event we were all really looking forward to and I’m sure you’ve heard about was the meeting with Jamaican runner Usain Bolt at the Puma Olympic party. The 3 time gold medalist entered our dressing room before we took the stage – a definite photo opportunity! He towered over us all at 6ft 5″… Even Big Dave our guitarist! We had great fun playing our set that night and was topped off by Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt himself joining us on stage for sing along of ‘One Love’ by Bob Marley. If you haven’t yet seen Usain smash the 100m record, check it out, it’s insane.
Check out the full post here.
