Burning Rain Messages in 2004

Hey you guys, Well made it back to LA.... Our trip home was really really long. We left Glasgow to go to Birmingham at about 8am...Our flight was delayed because of fog in London???? Then we were going to Paris from Birmingham but we missed our flight in B-Ham...We caught the next one to Paris though....

By this point we were already pretty burnt...We had already traveled like 6 or 7 hours and two flights.... Next was the long one Paris to LA...

I was walkin to the gate in Paris and ran into Eric Singer the drummer from Gary Moore and Kiss. We talk for a while and then got on the flight to LA. Everything was cool with the flight until we landed.

The plane stopped at the end of the runway and then police cars started rolling up with the lights on...
Well, they told us that we and all our baggege including carryon stuff needed to be screened...

They loaded us off the plane and into buses. We put our carry bags on the ground and left. It was obvious they were looking for something and all we could think was that we wouldn't be home for a while!

Finally, they drove us back out to the plane and we got our carry on bags back..... By the way, The only, and I mean the ONLY bag that was allowed to be taken with us was my guitar.... I told the police that I couldn't leave it so he inspected it and gave it back to me before we got on the bus....

After all this we still had to clear customs which went good...Then while waiting for our checked bags we found out what happened.....
Apparently the French airport police had been doing some security testing with a bag of exposives in a case that had been lost... They were real explosives but did not have a detonation device to set them off....
I guess the test was a failure cause they never found them and then they thought they were on our flight!!!

I don't know if they were ever recovered, but finally, I rolled up to my door after a long day...

Now I am watching some football on TV and just starting now to comprehend that the Europe tour is now history!!! Although my team is kicking ass and I got a few beers in me, I still miss the tour....

I made so many new friends on this tour and met some really amazing people..... I really feel blessed and so lucky for this.

Thanks to everyone that spent time with us and saw the shows on this Europe tour... It has been one of the most fun tours that any of us have ever done.

I don't know what else to say but thanks for making this tour so cool....And thanks for supporting David and all of us.. We did have some really really killer shows.... I have only been home for a day and i'm ready to come back!!!!!!

Take care you all....I'll be talking to you soon..... Doug

Manchester was a really good one! David mentioned several tmes about how much fun it was.....
Well, I look forward to coming back as soon as possible...

We are at a nice place in Hythe Uk and ready to play tonight (Folkestone)...Everything is good here.We are off in Nottingham (Derby) tommorrow.

We will be back again sometime for sure.....It was beautiful there in Finland but it was soooo cold! I wanna come back in the summer.

Russia was amazing for me and I hope to go back as soon as we can. Our scheduale was a bit tight in Saint Petersburg, but we could see what a great city it was...

After the show there, we had dinner on the boat that over looks the river and�@Armetage....Too bad we had to leave at 9am.

just got back from the show and it was really a cool night.....but first i gotta tell you about my day off here yesterday.....We flew in from Belarus in the early (early for me) morning. It was band and crew on the same flight so that is always interesting. I got a bunch of cool photos of the guys but how do I post them on here????

Anyway, I missed breakfast and by the time we got to the Moscow hotel, I was seriously hungry!....In this situation,,,,,i always say to the guys,
" I could really go for two chicken enchiladas, rice and beans from Casa Vega" Everybody always says yea cool.....But after checking in....My guitar tech Rudy said, hey i'm gonna go eat...I say, yea me too, but what are you gonna have?....He says, well I know this Mexican resteraunt just behind Red Square......I couldn't believe it!!!!!! He said, it aint like home but it comes close......So guess what I had for dinner??!!
it was SOOOOOO killer to eat that after like 10 weeks on the road! And I had about 4 or 5 Margueritas as well!!!! Amazing!

So then we went to a hotel that rudy said all the Spies used to hand at and we had a beer....Then we went back through the Square to our hotel....I passed out at 9pm and woke up at 12am....Then watched a movie and fell back to sleep at 5.....This was a GREAT day off!.....

Today, I woke up...Had my coffee...and then Tommy and I went back to Red Square for more photos..but it was ice cold out and Tommy lost his scarf, so he was bummin......we came back and then just hung around until we had to go for the show....

This was a couple days when everything just worked out perfectly...you know what I mean? And the show was great...Great crowd and everyone had a good time.... After, we had Japanese food at the hotel for dinner and IT was KILLER!!! My two favorite foods on two consecutive days.....

So thats my story....It is 2:25am and we are flying in the morning early so I gotta go...But When I think of Moscow,,, I will be remembering all the stuff these past two days, and missing it for more than just being a really amazing city.

We are in Estonia today.
It is really nice and interesting here.

Estonia is a beautiful country! I really hope we can come back sometime soon.
On Friday we will be going back to the US and they will send my guitars home around Christmas.....That is a fun day when the truck comes to my house and I get all my guitars back!!!!

Quakes
Hope everyone in Japan is OK. I heard about the big guakes there a few days ago.....I think it was centered outside Tokyo....Now they are having big aftershocks.....I know how scary a big quake is so I am thinking about those guys...Hang in there..

We...(some of the band and crew) went to the hard rock in dublin last night..
A couple of our crew guys have to leave on a new tour in a few days.. So we had a little going away party last night. They are great guys and are deffinatly gonna be missed...But they will join us again next tour...They had previuos commitments and when this tour got extended they couldn't do the dates.

I loved Dublin and Ireland! Can't wait to go back sometime.......But next time I want sunshine.

We got to Belfast this morning on EAST-JET.....but they gave us a hard time...It wasn't easy....They were not happy about the extra baggage and stuff, but we got everything on...Then the lady comes and says i need to put my guitar in the belly of the plane....GREAT! ....So first I said .."Thanks so much but NO" Then she said I had too. She put a tag on it and said I could take it to the plane but they would decide at the plane....So I walked away and when she wasn't looking, I removed that tag sharpish!!!
So we are walking on the runway towards the plane, and i am just about to go up the stairs when this guy comes up and said no no no..You have to check that guitar....So I said "No I can't, it is worth more than the plane itself...atleast to me" He still said no....Now I have NEVER checked my guitar without a hard case, and I always can find a place for it...But the guy was not gonna move...So I said OK thanks but I'm not gonna fly on this plane then.....Thats when Kevin, Our tour manager came over to my rescue....He is really intimadating and he right away got the guy to say yes!! David was there and he helped too....Those guys know how I feel about my guitars...This was my Sunburst one with "JP" on the back so there was no way it was gonna go in the belly.

just wanted to say how much I loved the Quireboys...they are so great and really cool guys...They are my most favorite band that we have toured with...That includes my time with Dio too....Mainly because I love their music....the guitarists Guy and paul are fuckin bad ass and Keith adds amazing keys. They let me play drums with them at their Newport sound check!!!! I hope somebody got a photo of that! Pip played bass and Nigel sang...Spike was missing for that.....I guess my drumming leaves alot to be desired cause I didn't get an offer from them.....
Anyway, I wish them the best and look forward to seeing them again.

Thanks to everyone for coming to London last week...It was great to see the Family and so many friends there....Glad everyone got home safe. We took the Tube to a couple spots and ended up in a pub.

Hi, I tried to post here yesterday but I guess it didn't get on.....Anyway, thanks Ai for your concern, I acually had more of a cold than flu fortunatly, but still was struggling at Manchester.....after a cold is over it goes into my lungs and they get locked up. kinda like asythma. So this started to happen while I was playing at Manchester and I couldn't get enough oxygen. About half way through the show it started to happen I pointed to my chest and told Marco about it cause he gets asthma sometimes and he got his tech Chris to grab an inhaler. It feels like suffocating. I'm feeling mucho better now

I'm missing the weather in Spain!!! We are in like instant Winter almost. The UK is cold...but the people are real warm.
Barcelona was great.

Madrid was killer!! What a great crowd.....We played in an old Bull fighting arena. David ended the show on his own doing Soldier of Fortune and it must have been really special for him cause he only does that once in a while...Anyway, we need to catch an early flight to San Sebastien.

It was cold out in Holland, Sweden and Germany and the rest. But you won't ever meet warmer people than the ones i met.
We are in Lisbon now and it is hot. Just one more day before the show here. I tried to get some sun at the pool yesterday and then we had a dinner down by the water.
Now its practice time,(one day off is enough) and emails.

after the gig in helsinki, marco and i went for a jam session at a place called the english pub. nice people there and they let us play for a couple songs....then came back at 3am so i could see the eagles game via a friend only to find out that finland is one hour earlier so i had to stay up till 4am. then, i had my friend hook up a camera online and point it at the tv in la la for the game that was on monday night in philly.....wacky......i watched the first half then passed out. it was funny to watch it that way...i knew there was a way to watch it online but i didn't want to mess with signin up and all that. i don't know if this makes any sense, but i got to watch a bit.

but all in all i was satisfied. they looked good and so did the cheerleaders!

SWEDEN was great! Gothenberg was cool. Mickey Dee from Motorhead came down and I saw a few friends from Cali that now live there. We had a day off there and a few of us went for sushi that night. It was really really good too. The chef just made a bunch of stuff for us.

Stockholm was amazing....great show and a beautiful city...I never went there before. Then we flew early to Helsinki Finland today. We flew cause the ferry and bus ride would have been like 15 hours. We get the bus back on Tuesday when we get back to Norway.

Reb and i went for dinner tonight and when we got back, the crew bus had just arrived. So it was a good day off...just sleeping and eating and a few beers. Now i just want to find out how to watch some American football online.....
Tomorrow we have a show at the Icehall here. It is soldout at nearly 8000. gonna be killer! I don't think DC and Whitesnake has been in Finland for a while. We will come back here sometime in Oct for one more show too.

I just wanted to say hi and thanks to everyone I have seen so far on the tour. I met a bunch of people and all I can think is how lucky I am to have people like you all in my life..

Well we get our bus tomorrow which will be cool. We had rental cars for the last two weeks and it was cool. Reb and i got our car up to 225 kph (140 mph)....which was pretty fun...That was the max it could go. The roads in Germany are like glass. just made for speed...... I got flashed twice by the police cameras so I am expecting some big speeding tickets.....From what i'm told they take a pic of the front of the car..which will be interesting to see me and Reb toolin down the autoban. Anyway, we turn the cars in tomorrow. Our car is still in perfect shape...can't say the same for Tommy and Marco's car. Tommy beat that car up good. Timothy and our Tour Manager Kevin had the other one and they blew up the GPS on theirs. David has a pro driver drivin him so he is gonna be OK...But the bus will be a good change.

I hope maybe we will be invited to some festivals in Germany next fall....But i don't know....Just go on Davids WS site and tell him you want some shows in Germany!!! My new favorite city there is Bremen....That place is great.

Hi you guys, just wanted to wish everyone a great Valentines Day. Hope you all are with someone special whether it is family or friends.

Take care everyone, love Doug

Hey you guys, just checking in... I just got back from seeing David and the family. Well, we had a great week. They took good care of me as well. Actually, it was like a vacation although we did work. I have stayed some amazing hotels, but I would definitely choose to be DC's house guest anytime.

We had great writing sessions and jammed on things that we were both into. Very inspiring. I'll tell ya, DC was wailing. He would start singing and it was like "chicken-skin"! He is one of, if not the best blues rock singers of all time. I wish you could hear the licks I heard last week. Plus he was playing some bad ass guitar also!

Anyway, i'll keep you posted. For now, I have a bunch of work at the home studio.

Ok, take it easy. D

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to seeing everyone soon. Whitesnake is planning out the year as far as the Touring schedule. We are definitely working on Europe, South America and maybe even Australia. We will let everyone know as soon as anything is planned and definite. And of course I am hoping some US dates come in for the end of summer.
I have been working on a new Burning Rain record that will be recorded this year.
Thanks to everyone who has been waiting. We basically wrote a whole bunch of new songs and just wrapping up the loose ends.
And lastly, everyone should pick up the Dio DVD "Evil or Divine" from the 2002 tour. Recorded on Friday the 13th.
We will be finally implementing the online ordering of merchandise (DougAldrich.com), we are working on that now. More news very soon!