Day Two Cruise to the Edge, At Sea

Q&A with Big Big Train, with Rickard from Beardfish second from right.

 Neal Morse, Nick D'Virgilio and Ross Jennings of DMJ.

David Singleton interviewing Robert Fripp.

Beardfish with Rickard Sjoblom on keys...

and on lead guitar with David Zackrisson on bass.

The Stardust Theater and Steve Hackett's band...

With Rob Townsend on sax, Greg Blondell on drums and Jonas Reingold on bass.

Steve Hackett

Nad Sylvan singing Peter Gabriel's parts.

Jonas Reingold

IQ on the pool deck.

IQ vocalist Peter Nicholls.

And their guitarist Mike Holmes.

Saturday, April 5th.

We got up about 7:30 and went for breakfast. Then we relaxed in the room for a little bit. I went to the Q&A for Big Big Train to learn a little about them. Nick and Rickard are still in the band but Dave Gergory, from XTC, left them a while back because of his difficulty traveling with his diabetes. After that I met Rickard and had someone take a photo of me and him. We watched a bit of D'Viriglio, Morse and Jennings at the pool deck, who did some accoustic stuff, they sounded like CSN. (Mark said 'I went to a prog festival and wound up at Woodstock'). Then we went to our reserved seats at the Stardust to see Robert Fripp and another guy. Fripp was just there as an icon and only did a talk and some Q&A. He has a tough reputation and I can see why. He is very well spoken but very opinated and would probably be very tough to work with or for. The funniest thing he said was ‘can I see the hands of all the ladies’ (maybe about 20%) and he said ‘how many of you said to your husband “would you like to accompany me to the Cruise to the Edge?” He played a few clips including 21st Century Man done with the three drummers from their last tour. Then we had lunch before lining up for Beardfish. It was a sunny but very windy day and we were outside in line for a half hour. When we got in the good seats were mainly taken but I noticed people sitting on the floor at the front, so I did that. Mark retreated to a standing room spot. Beardfish were great fun, exciting and they were obviously very happy to be back together. Rickard said they broke up in 2016 because they were stupid. Then we went to see Steve Hackett. He played a couple of his songs and then over an hour of selections from the Genesis albums Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Selling England By the Pound before ending with Los Endos from the Trick of the Tail. He had Jonas Renihold on bass, Greg Blondell on drums and Rob Townsend on sax. They were excellent and the crowd loved them. Genesis is a big part of our musical DNA. Then we went for dinner and had some Indian stuff. Next up was IQ on the pool deck. It was still very windy, but we stood and watched them perform an excellent set of material across their career. When that ended we sat and talked for a bit and then decided to up to the outside bar and have a beer. There we met Greg Blondell and Rob Townsend. I talked to them for a few moments and had Mark take a photo. We hung out there for a bit and then went back to the room and sat on the balcony listening to the sea in the dark and talking about everything, music, past friends, and life. Thankfully Mark is enjoying himself too.