The next day, we wake up... the tiredness has turned into aching bones... almost every muscle that supports a limb is sore and painful.
A couple of quick showers freshen us up enough to get us checked out of the hotel.
The idea of airing the clothes to freshen them hasn't worked... with each step a puff of wiffy BO oozes out of the bags.
Although we've been in Milan for almost 24 hours, we still have no idea what the city looks like, what the tourist attractions are, or where they are. We head to the underground, as we seem to be in the middle of nowhere.
After an espresso and a panini, we decide that metro station Duomo sounds most like a historical centre......
....turns out we're not wrong. We get out of the underground and seem to have hit tourist pay dirt:
It's a really bustling historic tourist centre. With a very busy square:
We have a wander around a little bit - go to the toilet in MacDonalds etc... and then take to the cathedral. Normally at this point, I would stick on Nine Inch Nails for a bit of atmosphere, but since Mowgli's here we just do a traditional church visit:
It's pretty massive. It seats 40,000 worshippers... which technically means that Pearl Jam could have played here.... but they would probably have to scratch Do the Evolution from the setlist.
We head outside and wander around the outside of the cathedral. Apparently you can get up to the roof for a view over Milan...
While I'm trying to work out where the lift is... I hear Mowgli say "You have got to be shitting me!!!" He's found someone he knows. I look over and see two women and a guy... the women look uncomfortable as if Mowgli is intruding... I realise Mowgli has found Stone Gossard, rhythm guitarist for Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Green River and Brad:
One of the backbones of the Seatle Music scene...he who composed Alive, Evenflow, Black , Cadillac and countless others.
I go for the whole non-chalant -appreciative of the music thing. He is so subdued it's unbelievable... he says very little. He seems to recognise us as the guys in the kilts, and comments on how much fun the previous evening was. I feel pretty uncomfortable, as if we're intruding, so I'm glad to end the experience. I'm glad I can say I met him, but compared to our experience in Barcelona, it's far less fun.
Instead it's better to walk on with Mowgli through this wonderfully picturesque historical centre rattling off the achievements of the great man who's hand we have just shook. It's pretty strange. Initially, you think. "wow... Stone Gossard. The man who's been in posters on my wall since I was about 12."... then slowly it sinks in what he's done... what he's brought your life, all those personal moments you have with his music, visions of MTV Unplugged, DVD's... posters... photos...guitar licks.... wow!!!
3 down..... 2 to go..... although... If I wanted to get away from Stone as soon as I met him... I can't imagine what I would do if faced with Ed.
Stone is different from Mike and Jeff. With Mike and Jeff, their stage personas have convinced you(Probably wrongly) that you know a little bit of their personality. Stone however, does so little on stage, that you have nothing to go on. It is either a wonderful achievement in keeping his private life private, or he has no personality.
Our euphoria... finds us drifting into a shopping precinct. We meet a Pearl jam friend from the concerts. She is super excited. She's just met Jeff. We're jumping up and down telling her we've met Stone. This is getting so sad....
The band seem to be spending the day wandering around Milan. They clearly don;t have that much of a problem with being recognised, accosted and photographed, although I'm proud to say I still haven't taken the cringe-worthy "Me and Mike" photo, but it's been sorely tempting.
We wander down Via Torino... there is an exhibition of arial photos of Italy, which are pretty spectacular. We're now just aimlessly wandering. Our plane is quite late, and we're wired with adrenalin, euphoria and espresso, with no real party to take it out on. Milan still seems to be closed, so we can't even wander round the expensive shops.
We head back to Duomo square. I'm keen to get up to the roof of the Duomo. Mowgli is less keen("I'm not paying money to stand on a roof. There's nothing up there."). I manage to convince him that while we are too poor to pay the 6 euros to go up in the lift. We can afford the 4 euros to climb the 165 stairs. As we're going through the turnstyle, someone recognises us and talks about our kilts. He tells us that Mike is at the top of the roof, and if we hurry, we might meet him.
We've already met Mike. I don't like to intrude on them. There's 165 steps.....
30 seconds later, we are on the roof, close to vomiting. we rush up to the next level, and then wander onto Mike's part of the roof, relaxed and Non-Chalant. we get a "Hi guys.." There's a group of Norwegians talking to him. So I take the time to get some photos from the roof:
We then it for about 15 minutes talking to Mike. It's good that we've met him before. We're getting to the stage where we feel a little more relaxed about talking to him. It's not like an out of body experience any more. The good thing is that we just talk crap... asking a few things about the show the previous night...asking about his Scottish heritage(He knows nothing).
The previous evening Matt gave a girl in the audience an autographed cymbal. we aked about this. Apparently she held up a sign saying "Matt. Can I have a cymbal". "you never know it's worth a try says Mike"... We inquire if "Mike can I get your 1959 Fender Stratocaster" would get any response... we're told we might get a string:
I could sit up here all day talking crap with Mike. eventually, he tells s its his wife's birthday, he has to buy her a present and he's shit at buying presents. He's human!!!!!
We spend another 20 minutes talking about great Pearl Jam memories with the Norwegians while we wander round the rest of the roof. If you read this guys.... get in touch...
Once back down on the ground.. we meet some more Pearl Jam fans... including the girl from before. She's met Stone and Boom now... I would like to have met Boom.... I imagine he's extremely chilled and lovable... still a good relaxed conversation with Mike in a beautiful setting is hard to beat.
The Duomo square is going crazy for another reason. Another band is in town: My Chemical Romance. I don't know much about them, but they seem to produce music for baby goths, as there are lots of 12 year olds sitting around with eyeliner... died black hair and black clothes, holding posters which profess their ability to carry on thanks to the music with interesting use of English grammar. They're all holding up signs to the camera's coming out of their hotel room. The band are making a DVD apparently.
I'm interested in how this was organised. Did the band actually post on their website. "We will be at X hotel filming a DVD on X date... please turn up with messages for us...." Hmmmmm. Spontaneous. If you ever see the DVD, you'll notice a taller person in the crowd of people holding up messages, whose message appears to be a Pearl Jam live in Italy limited edition poster. The goth kiddies just thought my message was really subtle......
After some lunch, it's finally time to head to the airport. We can stop hanging around Milan waiting for something as interesting as a Pearl Jam concert to happen.
I've been to Orio al Seria airport in Bergamo before... It's tiny. It gets even smaller when our plane is delayed by 2 hours. There is nothing in the airport. The Italian's don;t tend to use their airports to seel things to their captive audience, so you just have to sit around entertaining ourselves... and trying to get a payphone to work to find out how bad Paprika's laryngitis is.
Two very tired Pearl jam fans stagger into the flat in the early hours of Tuesday to get some sleep before another week of work without a relaxing weekend.....
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