GPS DAY 2

Following the band's arrival in Tokyo we all prepare to move down south to osaka for their first show in Japan. Guthrie leaves early on Friday morning to do a guitar seminar at the MI in Osaka and the rest of the band (minus Ryo, who makes his own way to his home town of Osaka) leave on a later bullet train. On our arrival in Osaka, we are absolutely amazed to find a group of fans waiting at the station - how do these people know when we are going to arrive? Extraordinary....

We check into our hotel and meet with Guthrie - whose seminar went very well - and then John, Guthrie and Jay rehearse for a few hours as a three piece (Ryo has a show with his lovely soon-to-be wife Kiko this evening and is unable to join us) which is a fascinating thing to behold. Imagine 'New Jerusalem' played by a power trio and you may grasp what I'm talking about here. Instrumentally, this band is monstrous and there are lots of funny moments with the band members dropping in moments from other tracks and generally playing silly buggers. The band's spirits are really high and they are very much looking forward to these two shows.

After the rehearsal, we return to the hotel to drop the guitars off and then head out for supper. After eating, we take a walk around Osaka and eventaully find ourselves back at the hotel. Big day tomorrow, so we turn in pretty early.

This morning (Saturday), we occupy ourselves with forraging breakfast - everybody seems to be taking care of this themselves -and ready ourselves for a midday lobby call to head over to Clapper, Osaka to soundcheck. To be continued.....