Procol Harum • Verona , Italy

5 July 2007

5 July Piazza del Municipio Garda Info: 348 2282289 www.tuttomusica.vr.it info@tuttomusica.vr.it

For those who wonder why Procol Harum took the stage rather late on at Verona on 5 July, Procol management sends ...

'Details of the Naples fiasco'

• Finished our concert in Naples (July 4th) at The Afragola Rock Festival just after midnight, got back to hotel at 2am
   

• Left hotel at 6:30 am for a flight to Verona
   

• Check in at 7am, for a 9am flight. With another concert that night (5th) I had gone to a lot of effort to arrange an early check in at the hotel so the whole party can rest for a few hours
   

• Flight was then delayed in 30-minute increments until 11:30, with no other information or representative available
   

• Then it got delayed to 13:30:  the Alpi Eagle representative was very rude and uncommunicative, and our (Lady) tour manager from the local promoter had a stand-up row with her, and she continually tried to hide her identity
   

• I tried to take a photo of her security pass while she was on the phone, so that I could identify her. She went and got the Police and asked them to arrest me, but they fail to comply when I argued that the policeman's identity card was clearly saying who he was (and he was proud of it), and she would not be identified
   

• At 2pm with the flight still showing 13:30 departure, I decided to switch to another flight which meant leaving Departures to buy the tickets
   

• However there were not enough seats available on the Meridian flight to Verona scheduled for 15:15, so we switched to the Alitalia flight to Milan at 15:30
   

• Then back through security into Departures again to collect up the whole group and take them all back out to check-in
   

• Alitalia were brilliant: with 40 minutes to go they got us all checked in (luggage-less); then the check-in girl got clearance to take four of us through to the baggage area so that we could personally retrieve the baggage from the Alpi Eagle flight; then opened another desk so that we could check it all back in
   

• Then all 10 of us had to jump the whole security queue (with some argument) to make the flight – which perversely was at the same gate (A2) where we had spent the last 6 hours
   

• We arranged a coach to pick us up at Milan airport, just in time for the local rush hour, caught the inevitable traffic jam for the accident on the way
   

• Arrived in the picturesque town of Garda at 21:15, managed a quick equipment set-up and check.
   

• Started the show at 22:30
   

• Promoter kept open a local restaurant so that we had a meal at 12:30, and finally found the hotel at 02:00
   

• Didn't find out that the airline went into liquidation until the next morning, when we read the paper
   

• Good day all round – nearly fifteen hours to get to work, and still did a good job
  
  Thanks, Chris

Procol dates in 2007