Ryche 'n' Roll in the UK: Norwich

Rainer and I flew into Stansted Friday morning and from there it was a three hour bus ride to Norwich. The venue was the Student Union building at Norwich University (UEA) and we had reservations for a room in the guest house on campus, which was locacted right next to the venue. Once we jumped out of the bus, the first person we ran into was Mike Stone who had taken a break sitting outside on a bench, enjoying the view over an idyllic scenery with a meadow full of little bunnies hopping around – no kidding!
We quickly checked in, freshened up and went to the Student Union Bar next to grab some drinks. We met Mike (Iota) and Lara, two of the auction winners I had already met at the Barcelona show two weeks ago - it was so cool to see them again! About an hour later, The Greek Empire aka Costas, BigKostas and Dimitris arrived, then auction winners Cindy, Sherry and Shinobu showed up, Fozzy came out to say Hello...what a blast we had just standing outside chatting and pre-partying for the three shows that lay ahead of us.


With our fanclub VIP tickets, we were allowed to go in first ahead of the big line (remember, in England they politely queue ;-), so we ended up being in first row for the show - how cool is that! Needless to say, the show was awesome, and since they had never played Norwich before, the Rychean guys even gave them four encores.

Rainer had passes to the M&G, so I got to go as well, together with the Greek Empire and about 10 other fans.

After the show we were in dire need of some drinks, and since the campus bar had already closed, Mike organized some beer and sodas and we were having an aftershow party in our tiny hotel room - besides Mike, Lara, Cindy, Sherry and Shinobu, Fozzy alias Dr X as well as Sean (doing the Merchandise) and Gerrit who plays the Judge and mixes the video on stage showed up. Had some drinks while we listened to the Warning from the laptop I had brought with me. Since it takes about two hours to disassemble the stage, it was around 2 when they all had to leave to catch their buses to Cambridge.

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