Salt in Australia

It's Friday afternoon, with the Maltese climate making sure I'll remember it as tomorrow Salt, our band, leave to the land of kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, platypuses and last but not least, Australians.

As you can see, this is the first post in what is to become an online diary of our band's trip Down Under for the World Youth Day activities. To be absolutely we have very little idea of what to expect. We know it's a different climate, a different season, a different hemisphere, a different way of speaking English and a stage where we'll be playing in front of thousands of youths attending. They told us it'll be a crowd amounting to something to the tune of 50,000, which is something we're looking forward to, even though we have no idea what playing in front of what is more than double Birkirkara's population feels like.

World Youth Day should be a wonderful experience. It is a celebration of youth and humanity, and embraces various facets of life, including music, culture and last but not least, spirituality. From what we've heard from previous pilgrims (as people attending WYD are generally referred to), it's something worth repeating, so apart from the musical side of things we're looking forward to see what the fuss is all about.

As I write, my suitcase is still waiting to be filled with nice and cosy winter clothes, my guitar is still at the technician's waiting to picked up and we're still off to play a gig at Golden Bay tonight. Better be off then.

David Schembri is guitarist with Salt, which will be playing at a concert at Tumbalong Park on Wednesday.