Thursday, July 6th, 2000

In a message on his website, Pete says that John is "visibly cheering up as the prospect recedes of going to jail for tax evasion."

"This is a quick update from my day off. I am very tired physically and enjoying the rest and the generally generous reviews I'm reading. I'm tempted to post a few of them here just in case anyone visiting this site, and getting into this diary area, is undecided about coming to see us play. There are more shows in the NY area in October.

We played in Washington last night, and it was again an enjoyable experience. There is still quite a lot of creative space to found with this band and material. Rabbit and Zak can be especially inspiring and surprising. But the front line is surprising too sometimes. Roger has been singing powerfully, but also with a lot of new deep feeling. John is visibly cheering up as the prospect recedes of going to jail for tax evasion. He played a blinding couple of bass solos last night - literally beyond belief.

And me? Well I still can't believe myself to be honest. About 8 years ago I had a bad wrist accident that I thought would end my decent playing forever. I thought I was consigned to a computer to write and play music. But I practiced hard, and did 18 months of physio to retrieve still-restricted movement, but that practice opened up a lot of skills to me that I'd never tapped before. I'm enjoying taking off in solos and actually having to land carefully in case I crash-land.....

It's going well. We have Camden NJ tomorrow, always a good venue, and Jones Beach on Sunday - just about my favourite place to play anywhere. Then a Summer break with my kids until the West Coast in mid-August.

I have quite a lot of new footage to edit together for diaries, but a lot of it is concentrated on the Detroit show, so I'm trying to put together something concise, yet dense for that day.

I'll certainly manage at least one more video diary before I leave, that will make four in all.

Pete"