First of all thank you for all your birthday greetings in November. I couldn’t reply individually but I had a lovely time, thank you.         This has been a tumultuous year on many fronts, backs and sides – but here we are, the survivors, like pawns dangling at the end of it with no choice but to get dragged inexorably towards the festivities, and on with mathematical certainty, and probably a hangover, to the new year, fighting and clawing all the way trying to grab a little piece of the old one before it forever and incontrovertibly becomes history – fodder for future TV documentaries, to be analyzed, dissected, and mythologized.        

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It was only a few weeks ago that Leon and I had a few drinks in the bar of some hotel or other. It was the first time we had talked properly since the opening night of the tour when all of Lynyrd Skynyrd stood outside our dressing room door and shook our hands as we arrived – a genuine, warm welcome.

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As you rush around like headless chickens from one store to the next with lists of soon forgotten people for whom you have to find some trinket or bauble that can somehow be passed off as a thoughtful gift in this season of giving, take a moment and spare a thought for what is really happening. I’ll tell you what is happening.

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Sat, 16 Oct 1999

    It has been a few weeks now, and time enough to put some perspective on things. The two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall were, in a word, bloody great. (yes, I know, that’s two words, so there’s no need to start threading about it, I’m a bass player, and Welsh, so I don’t know any better!) None of us could really have anticipated the feeling that we experienced together on those nights.

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(with apologies to John Lennon)

So this is Christmas And what have you done Didn’t it seem like It had only just begun

And so this is Christmas And the end of a tour It was such a good one Don’t worry there’s more

A very merry Christmas To all of you fans You know that without you There wouldn’t be bands

And so this is Christmas And a rockin’ new year Let’s hope it’s a good one With plenty of beer

A very merry Christmas To the black and the blue The deep and the shallow The old and the new

And so happy Christmas To amd-p Good luck and good fortune To you, love from me

Thanks for all your support this year.

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