Bursa, continued...

Bursa was just one of those gigs. It took hours and hours to set up as we were beset with so many problems (courtesy of the shittiness of the venue's equipment) that Matt almost resorted to a strike ballot within his one-man union, so miffed was he. The in-house sound guy was so lackadaisical in everything he set his mind to (or didn't) we may as well have asked the luxuriously moustached tea/popcorn dude to sort out the stage for us. The chaps who turned up with the front-of-house mixing desk suggested new tone-meister Mark Ellis position himself behind a solid pillar, lest the precious board get damaged, meaning he would neither see nor hear the band. Then to cap it all the on-stage monitoring system conked out almost before a note had been played, which merely made Matt more miffed. I also ended up doing the light show (actually two lights - must ask for a lampy bonus), this being one more thing the useless venue staff couldn't have cared less about.

"Welcome to Turkey," as our helpful local roadie Mustafa so aptly put it.

Looks like a hung parliament back home. I expect much impassioned political discourse on the bus today.