NO ..9

Well I've gone and done it again.... it's been a long time since the last post, Sorry about that but have had a lot on my plate on a personal matter and its not over yet, but lets get back to the blogg. I remember leaving you all in Berlin. Ok did the ice out then headed south for Milan in Italy, so it was down through Germany but "she" had a problem so off we went into the garage, the problem turned out to be a lot of shit in the fuel filters, but when you just get a code on the dash you don't know what it will be till they plug there computer in. Well back on the road again within two hours and heading south towards Munchen; the driving time was running out so found a truck stop for the night, dinner, beer and bed. The next day my plan was to head for Munchen then into Austria Innbruck then the Brenner into Italy and down to Trento and then stop at a place called Perschiera Nr Verona for the night, but the boss called and said "get to Milan tonight as the other trls were arriving tonight" so had got to Milan for the night and it was Friday so that gave me till Monday, sat there waiting to do the ice in. Luckily they did not have a gig on that weekend so they let me park inside.


I said I would do a post about ice "in'' and ''out'' so here goes. The photos are of Berlin ice.


This me parked in the arena where the floor is going, so have to move the first trl out of the way. There is enough room to turn around inside when the arena is empty but the next one had to be backed in.
After turning around. This is looking back out. (the way in) To my left as i stand taking the photo is

the way in and out, it looks a bit tight and it was bloody tight. Where the guy is stood, there is a left turn to the outside door and its only 4.2meters in height.

This is before the local staff got in so waiting for them to open up.

Ok, Their here at last. Time for them to unload, and did i say, most of it all by hand.

Ok, We jump a bit here but this is the tank trl. The yellow lines I have made are the tanks, and on top are the floor bits.

OK then lets get started but where have JOSH, BAM BAM and TC got to. Having a coffee, I bet.

OK off we go. Coffee drunk and work time at last. They have to unload the middle of the tlr tools and bits and bobs first, (bit obvious that bit), then they can start to unload the long pipes.

Pipes out now it's time for the floor to come out as you can see they slide out a frame which is fixed inside the top of the trl. (Clever really)

Looking into the trl as you can see its a hands on job, and the floor bits are long and very heavy. All of them have to come out of this trl, (the one we call the floor tlr as thats all it has in it.) As at this arena we can put down a full floor.

Ok here comes the hard part, as the floor boards are heavy.

The floor going down.

Ok the floor down and all pumping, waiting for the coolant to start pumping around from the pump tlr outside. Take note of the pipe in the bottom left of the photo.

And now look at the pipe, you can tell the coolant is doing its job as the pipe has gone white and there is water on the floor, so its freezing it up and this will go on for sometime until they have the right depth of ice. They use fire hoses to put the water down.

So thats all there is to it. Well there's a lot of hard work to get it there, it takes them about 7hrs to get it to the point of the water going in and its a 3 man job.

Ok; Shows done and dusted. In the next photo its taking the floor out. What they do is really deep freeze it on the Sunday night (After the last show) as we are doing load out so in the morning they can come in and basically drop heavy bars on it so it cracks like a mirror breaking up, and then its shovelled up into awaiting trucks (some arena's do it different) but basically its the same, the ice has to come off.

This next photo is of ice out, but in Milan as it show's it better. The ice on the floor is partly cleared away.

Here they do it with wheel barrows and a fork lift truck with a big bin on it. Thats the ice they are standing on and me on the floor after the ice has been removed. Thats all there is to it really, a piece of cake!!! and did I say in all this time I do nothing but move the truck about and drink coffee or make it for JOSH, BAMBAM AND TC.

This is what it all looks like when the show is waiting for the curtain to go up. All shows have a different front to them.

The next two photos are of the pumping trl.

Ok thats the ice "in" and "out" and then on to the next arena and it starts all over again, but if the next arena have there own ice floor like some of them do, they do it totally different.

Ok I have to get my finger out and do a full blogg to catch up to date. The season is almost over or it might be by the time the good looking one does her bit so all you lot can read it .

So till then keep it sunny side up. BE HAPPY in life and dont let the shit get to you.