Hi Everyone,

If Los Angeles is the Devil�s playground.. then surely Las Vegas must be his home.
I came to this realisation when I ran into him there the other day. He was staying at our hotel with a few of his mates (I think they were all there on a Stag weekend.. but I can�t be too sure) and they stopped Angi, Susie, Nina and I in the corridor to invite us for a night out to a club called RUM JUNGLE. I was a little tired and didn�t feel much like going to a club, but you know, it�s not wise to argue with a guy who has the guts to hang out in public wearing nothing but horns, a long red tail and a pitchfork. The club was kinda scary, and in fact, after spending countless minutes trying acclimatize myself to the throbbing techno, the near naked dancers, the young girls in their tight leather outfits, fake body parts, and their much MUCH older tanned male companions... I came to the conclusion that this was a modern day version of Hell... and I found myself backing out of there as fast as one possibly can in that sort of situation.

O.K.... Don�t try and stop me now, because I�m just going to go on and on about my perception of Las Vegas (yeah yeah.. I�ll get to some Savage Garden news in just one moment.. but please INDULGE ME HERE, GUYS!!!). Everything.. and I�m talking EVERYTHING is bigger, better, crazier and friendlier (in a, �hey we are all here to party so let�s chat� kind of a way) than anywhere else in the world. You need a packed lunch and hiking boots to get across the road, golf carts are the standard mode of travel used to traverse casino foyers, it is not unusual for a hotel to have a pool area that covers over 11 acres of land (trust me, it�s true,.. this was the case with our hotel!), the airport is so massive it requires it�s own train station, and most excitingly.. Las Vegas is the only place in the UNIVERSE where you get rewarded if you lose!! Anyway, enough of that. Darren has gently reminded me that the USA tour is drawing to a close and I have only updated the site twice. Yes.. I know. The intention to do it every day was there, believe me, but as every day drew to a close, I found myself staring at an empty computer screen wondering what had happened to my daily update. Plus, the guilt that I felt every single time I met a new fan who told me they enjoyed the updates was getting too much for me, I actually think it gave me writers block. Perhaps at the end of all this I should do be �Best Of Leonie�s Excuses For Being Such A Crappy Website Updater�.
Anyway, to quickly recap the USA tour, I�m just going to give you a few little headings of some of our highlights to see you all through. Hope you enjoy the photos!

NIAGARA FALLS

Yes, we did become the ultimate tourists and we did make the trek to Niagara Falls. Darren was FORCED into submission and onto the bus, but as our photos indicate..he was not the most impressed tourist of the day. In fact, he went quite crazy when our bus driver started talking into his little microphone about the metal that went into building the bridge ..,. etc. etc.. you know the sort of useless information that they insist on giving us about places that we will never every need, or repeat again in our lifetimes.

You�ll be happy to know that yes, we did all don our very attractive blue rain capes to make the trip on the Maid Of The Mist boat. I cannot believe how close we got to the falls.... we all stood up the top of the boat at the very front and pretended for the duration of the trip that we were cast members in THE PERFECT STORM. It really was incredible. In fact, Canada as a whole was incredible..... What a gorgeous country! Plus, the people there are so lovely and they really enjoyed the shows.. it was great.

SNEAKY�S BIRTHDAY

It is generally difficult to celebrate a birthday on the road, as there is no time to organise a party etc. But, we did try to make our tour managers birthday something that he would never forget..... Using the guise of a venue security meeting, Susie managed to lure him into the catering room, where the entire crew stood with cream pies. Darren, always the first to throw cake, or anything that is going to destroy clothing and ones carefully arranged hairstyle, decided to be the first in.. Well, you�ll see what the results are from the photos. It was very funny... we do love to torture Sneaky and as far as I�m concerned.. there really isn�t enough of it going on.

LOS ANGELES

The Los Angeles show was such a highlight for everyone. It was held at the Universal Ampitheatre and the real treat for the audience was that Darren sang TWO BEDS AND A COFFEE MACHINE in full, for the FIRST time ever at one of the live shows. The reason for this is that they invited Grammy Award winning producer, Walter Afanasieff onto the stage to play the song. Walter produced AFFIRMATION along with D & D, and he played Two Beds on the album. He is such a brilliant pianist, and Darren said that singing with him was live diving into the ocean and taking a long swim. (I�m pretty sure that means that he enjoyed himself). The treat for me was that I managed to have some friends come down from SF for a visit (ie. the gorgeous Robert)... okay okay.. I KNOW I shouldn�t have done that.. but hey, sue me, I can�t help myself!! Our friends Tyler and Greg also came down from San Fran and I�ve included some pics of Tyler and Darren in the car on our way back to the airport in SF for our flight to LA.

A TRIBUTE TO ALL THE VERY SMALL TOWNS OF AMERICA

Well, you may ask yourselves, why I am choosing to honour the small towns of America in this way. The reason for this is that we visited so, SOOOO many of them... they are countless and all held their very own special little piece of charm for us. I have included pictures of my favourite small towns, including Springfield, Illinois where the police took pity on us and drove us to the local disco, when we could not find a cab for love nor money. I�m not too sure how thrilled they were, though, when we whipped out the digital camera and proceeded to take shots of each other posing both in and out of the car. ... I think our lovely police officer got a little nervous that we were going to turn him into a cyber superstar. He can rest assured that although I would have LOVED to splash his face all over the Savage Garden website, Darren has insisted that I do not do so!

Another favourite was a very very small town in North Dakota that shall remain nameless (due to the fact that I don�t think we ever caught it�s name) which had a great diner, some banana cream pie (banana cream pie has always held a fascination for us Aussies as we do not have it and the closest we have ever come to it was Gilligans Island), and a laundromat that provided an endless source of delight to the girls on our bus. You probably don�t realise how handy a great laundromat is to those of us that live out of suitcases... believe me it, you can NEVER underestimate how necessary it is!

So, we all survived our two months in the tour bus (just!).. we are all just now recovering from the chronic exhaustion we suffered at the hands of America�s bumpy roads.. but aside from a slight addiction to sleeping tablets that we received, we even managed to survive that! Hope you enjoy the photos from the road! See you in Europe in November / December!

Bye Leonie