everything will flow

8/7/96@Sydney

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The day before yesterday we had a show in Melbourne. The place reminds me of a city in a Nordic country, really big and super clean. The concert hall was great. Even the backstage area was nice. There was no smoking allowed anywhere at the venue.

I could not sleep at all due to jet lag. Moreover, the bed in my hotel is really soft and I have massive pain in my lower back. I am not in good form at all. But the show here went really well.

Kenny Wen has joined our tour now. He plays two songs alone then comes back to play with the trio ensemble for two songs of the encore; "The Last Emperor" and "A flower Is Not A Flower". To my surprise we had al ocal warm up band I had never even heard of before our show. I find out this is required by the law.

I meet some people backstage before the show. There is an eight year old girl here too. She is cute. I give her a kiss on the cheek.

Yesterday I went back to Sydney to rest in the hotel. At four-thirty pm I go to the concert hall. During our tour in the Pacific we have a different piano and equipment everytime we have a show. We have to spend a lot of time to get the right sound every time there is a change. Mr. Shimura our PA engineer has to work super hard because of this.

Today we have another local warm up band on before us. Kenny Wen goes on a little after eight o'clock. He is getting a great round of applause. At eight-thirty, showtime.

Dueto jet lag, Jaques, our cellist has not been able to sleep since three am. I am almost faint with fatigue too. All of us were in the worst condition but somehow performed extremely well. I don't get it. How does this happen. Even in Paris and London we made a few errors throughout the shows, but tonight all of us have sailed through even the most difficult parts very smoothly. All the parts of the show gelled together perfectly for some reason, the acoustics, theaudience, the way we began the show etc.

We have three encores. The song "Eastern Wind" was very fast like last night. I joke to everyone that everything is this way because of the Olympics. Al Green was great. He represented the local culture of Atlanta and they should have left it at that. The opening ceremony was a mass-ive mess. I wonder if Pepo was watching it from his bed in Barcelona.

Today we leave for Singapore.