Dublin. Show 3.

The band came in to soundcheck this afternoon which gave me a reason to head into Croke Park a little early. It was a bit of a miserable old day and felt very much like a Monday. For a while we toyed with the idea of attempting White as Snow tonight and they played Drowning Man again at sound check, but in the end we felt like it would probably be better to go with a set which would keep the mood up, so put in New Year's Day instead. I blow a bit hot and cold with that song, it having been around for such a very long time. This afternoon it sounded great though, recapturing the uplifting power it has had on tours-of-yore.

It had been a grey, chilly afternoon and started to rain right before show time which didn't do much for the party spirit. The show went well and clearly the audience had a great time but to be honest it felt like a bit of a Monday night from where I was standing. New Year's Day made its tour debut and I hope it's not too long before we hear it again. Everything else was in it's place and all was fine but, well, a bit of a wet Monday night.

The highlight of my day was taking possession of a DVD of helicopter footage from Barcelona. It's all the rushes from the shoot that was done for the 'Crazy' video and has fantastic views of Barcelona, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia then sweeping round to fly over Camp Nou and our stage. It's a wonderful memento of the month we spent there.