MiniSky: Thoughts About Everything

Today we went to the gym to shake off the travel from across the ocean, and after that we had another walkabout. I had contacted my friend Maurizio Gliemo, whom we’ve known for many years and who lives near Milan in Pavia. We had been emailing back and forth about getting together, and he invited us out to dinner. Maurizio is an excellent guitar player, and I met him in 1988 when I was on tour with the Fabulous Thunderbirds in Europe. A fellow named Claudio Trotta had contacted me about playing on a recording session with his artist Fabio Treves while we were in Milan at that time. I had accepted the invitation, and we had a great session, recording 6 or so songs for Fabio. Fabio is a blues harmonica player and singer, and is also involved in music promotions, radio shows and other projects. Maurizio played guitar on those sessions and we all became great friends. Years later, Maurizio visited us at Charlane Plantation. I think it was in ‘93. We had a very unusual weather event while he was there…a big ice storm. It caused all the power to go out, and lots of tree limbs were breaking, blocking the roads and creating a mess….although it was a beautiful sight to see. Anyway, we’ve stayed in touch all these years and we looked forward to having diner with him. During the day I worked a little on song suggestions for this leg of the tour. I had a look at some of the shows we did on the Forty Licks tour and some of the sets we’ve been doing on this tour and came up with some ideas to go over with Mick and the band.
When evening came, Maurizio came and picked us up at the hotel at about 8 for dinner. He took us to the oldest restaurant in Milan, called Trattoria Monlue. We had a fine time together, and the food and drink were typically great Italian fare. It was great to catch up with him…he told us of his new girlfriend Jasmine, and we were to meet her a few days later. After dinner he suggested we go by a park not far away from the restaurant to see the tail end of a little blues festival that our mutual friend Fabio was involved in. We got there for the last couple of songs by a band called the Mandolin Brothers. Fabio greeted us warmly, and his wife Susi was there as well. He had never met Rose Lane, so warm introductions were made between some of us. After a few minutes, Fabio had to go to the stage to act as MC and finish out the night’s festival. He graciously introduced me to the crowd of about 200 or so people, and as the heads of the audience turned our way I was greeted with a round of applause and cheers. Very nice of Fabio to do that, and of the folks to show me such a warm reception!
Afterwards, a few of the folks came up for autographs or just to say hello, and I also met some of the performers. We hung around for about 15 or 20 minutes, then said goodnight to them and Maurizio took us back to the hotel.