|
Post by delorentos on Nov 17, 2010 18:33:12 GMT
Spanish Tour, Day one. Madrid.
At 4.45 my second alarm woke me and I groggily shuffled out to meet Níal in the taxi. Then, at half ten, I had a hot chocolate in Madrid Airport. The bits in-between are a bit hazy. Ro looks like a corpse, he was at Local Natives in the Village on Monday night and got an hour sleep. We’re heading to Spain to promote our album “You Can Make Sound” and play a few gigs for a week and, despite the crazy early start, we’re delighted to get a little break from our practice space and go somewhere cool.
Far removed from the rabid levels of Irish media talk of bonds and bailouts, the Spain trip is ideal to play new songs to new people and generally escape the rain and get some winter sunshine. Our agent, Sebastian, an enthusiastic Madrid native (but Real Sociedad supporter!) collected us, handed us our Itinerary and told us exciting stuff about our trip and stories about how things are going. We’re playing Madrid on Saturday, and TVE Radio is running a gig battle, Arcade Fire v Delorentos, on their show. Currently we are not winning, surprisingly. It's all over the place. "Arcade Fire o Delorentos?" The posters around Madrid mention it too. You couldn’t make it up! There’s a facebook campaign and all. (Our main weapon is that tickets for our gig are still available, and... theirs sold out ages ago. Pffft!) Anyway, it’s cool to hear about all the radio play and stuff, nice little boost for the ego I guess.
After a little tour and little history of Madrid, we got to our little hotel to lie down for 5 minutes, literally. We then headed to the huge modern TV studio to set up for the show. We found out that the crew had bets between them as to whether we were from Manchester or Liverpool, I don’t know who wins now. After lunch and a chat with Sebastian (and a half crate of Coca-cola) we recorded the short gig for TVE which goes out next week. A small crowd arrived to watch, including some folks that travelled really long distances. The gig was good, a bit weird, everything was under the spotlight a little more than normal so we were a little reserved and aware of our playing, but we were happy enough.
Afterwards we headed straight back to the hotel. I have to mention that the hotel is tiny, basic and the room feels and looks like a closet. It’s ok though, we don’t need much and I’d still take it over freezing my hands off in Portrane. I've a pain in my jaw so I took painkillers; I got a cheap razor and had a shave, cut up my face and didn’t feel it. Bad idea. Later we popped out to the still buzzing streets of the centre for some tasty Tapas and beer and a laugh. I feel I was asleep all day and only woke up around the table. Earlier when Sebastian met us the first thing he said was “Welcome to Spain.. You’re going to enjoy it!” We intend to do just that.
Kier
Gouj's one word blog for day 1: "Long".
[Arcade Fire 1 Delorentos 0]
|
|
|
Post by Cinders on Nov 17, 2010 19:34:46 GMT
How about a link to the Facebook campaign?
|
|
|
Post by ilwd on Nov 18, 2010 1:42:33 GMT
Genuinely laughed out loud at the Arcade Fire thing. You know you've made it when...
|
|
|
Post by Hazey on Nov 18, 2010 2:02:27 GMT
haha Manchester or Liverpool..... You guys should have said.. were form Ireland and so theres no fights, we'll take the money!
|
|
|
Post by delorentos on Nov 18, 2010 12:30:36 GMT
Spanish Tour Diary, Day two. Madrid.After a couple of hours sleep we headed out into the Madrid drizzle (the Madrizzle) to RTVE Radio 3. On the way up to the third floor our lift got stuck and we had to wait until the building fireman winched us out. We were joking around, trying to prise the doors open while Spanish voices shouted down to us, unaware that in the corner, Ross was twitching quietly; internally trapped in his childhood fear. Anyway, after a little soundcheck we went live at around 10 on a popular national mid-morning show, Kind of like the Spanish Ray D’arcy Show. He asked us about the Arcade Fire battle and how confident we are. We said pretty confident. He then played clips in Spanish of listeners who were testifying about our mad skillz, and why they prefer us to Arcade Fire. People will do anything for a free ticket. It was disorientating and funny. We played some acoustic versions of the singles and it was good craic. He then played some Crystal Swing and Níal muttered something under his breath we hope didn't go out on air. We were also asked what we thought of the Irish government, but some things are better lost in translation. The interview was good though, and the presenter was complimentary, and Sebastian did some good translating for us, even if we didn’t know what the hell was going on half the time. After the morning promo we got some breakfast tapas round the corner and definitely did not stare at ladies. No no, no sir. I had another hot chocolate (I don’t like coffee and the Spanish don’t understand tea) and decided I didn’t need to be drinking mugs of chocolate three times a day, so no more. Plus, the novelty of smoking indoors begins to wear out after the first lungful. After a couple more acoustic sessions and translated interviews (and Gouj filming us practicing the songs on a museum staircase - arty) we walked back through the city to our digs, past the parliament, past Kilometre Zero (the centre of Spain apparently) and through the narrow Callé of the “Words” District where we’re staying. At around 8 we were done for the evening so we all did our own thing. Ross and Ro went to for a lie down, Níal went for a walk and I lay on my bed and watched videos on the computer. We all need our own space, that’s the key to not acting out the constant fantasies about murdering your bandmates. Later, after food we went to a lively Irish bar to watch the Ireland v Norway match, like the good Irish stereotypes that we are. Crap match though, it ended 2-1 to Norway. (Spain got beaten by Portugal too though, so it’s ok.) Tomorrow we’re playing in Barcelona at Sala BeCool, a deadly venue apparently. Sebastian says it’s an old-fashioned venue with loads of lights. We’ve to be up at seven so I went to bed around midnight listening to “The Suburbs”, the recent Arcade Fire Album. It’s pretty great.. shame we can’t see them on Saturday. They’re probably in bed thinking the same thing right now about us... Gouj’s one word blog for Day 2: “Interesting" Kier [Arcade Fire 2 Delorentos 1 (great new album, gig sold out v good radio sessions) ]Photos: blogs.rtve.es/hoyempiezatodo/2010/11/17/los-acusticos-het-delorentos
|
|
|
Post by klaartje on Nov 18, 2010 12:49:19 GMT
How is it, Kier, that you are always sick or in pain when you are on tour?? Love the Arcade Fire thing, I actually do prefer you over them, thank you very much.
|
|
|
Post by delorentos on Nov 19, 2010 18:22:58 GMT
Spanish Tour Diary, Day three. Barcelona.
I wake at 6am, enough time to squeeze under our funky shower, before we meet Sebastian to catch the Barcelona train. It’s a bullet train and although it feels disappointingly slow, I see the speedometer hit 300kph before falling into a deep coma.
I’m abruptly woken and as I wipe the drool from my person, I’m delighted to see I’ve slept the whole 3 hour journey. Sebastian gets our rental and I mind the bags while the lads steal away and get McDonalds without me. This makes me sad. It’s my first time in Barcelona and I instantly fall in love. The variety of architecture, sights and sounds is intoxicating and it’s the most relaxed major city I’ve ever experienced. Our hotel’s located in the heart of the labyrinth which is the old part of the city. Bigger rooms, slightly sexier shower!
We’ve time before our show in Sala BeCool, so we take a stroll. Sebastian suggests a Basque tapas place; It’s like a sushi thing where you get lots of little dishes with cocktail sticks. Each dish is 2euro and they charge you at the end based on the number of sticks you have left on your plate. Realising that we’re tourists and probably over-eaters, the staff keep tempting us with more, however what they don’t realise is how tight an Irishman can be. We discuss how this stick thing would never work at home, before checking the underside of the table for others’ hidden sticks. Not having enough chewing gum to go round, we pay our bill in full.
After all that grub there’s nothing for it but a stroll to the beach. No swimming today, but there are lots of nice Thai ladies offering various massage packages, all legal outdoor daytime ones, but still we say no thank you. It’s relaxing to see the sea, and whatever the drawback s of Eire at the moment, we often talk about how great it is to be an island nation when we’re away.
Later we do an interview and some photos for a Spanish mag. After all the translating of yesterday, we’re delighted to find our interviewer speaks fluent English and it makes the interview much easier. She’s also spent some time in Ireland and Scotland, so she has a fair idea what we’re about already. Delorentos will have to take a crash course in Spanish. It’d be nice to be able to repay the courtesy that we’ve been shown so far. We can just about order a ColaCao and croissant for breakfast, but there are so many more hours in a day!
We take to the stage at half ten. The audience is modest in size, but gigantic on enthusiasm and we have a really great show. Everyone’s dancing and some even seem to know the words! We meet a few people who’ve come after seeing us in Benicassim during the summer and one girl who has a signed cd from our only other previous Spanish gig in Barcelona two years ago. It’s brilliant to chat to them and their enthusiasm to have us here is really exciting for the rest of the tour.
There are an awful lot of Irish bars in Spain and we’ve a few drinks in another one before going on an adventure to find “Walk to Wok” (Níal loves noodles). On the way back to the hotel we’re offered everything from Beer, to weed, to x-rated versions of the massage available earlier.
Establishing ourselves as Ireland’s hardest living rock band yet again; we decline all these kind offers and slink off to bed.
Ro
Gouj's one word blog for day 3: "Inebriated".
[Arcade Fire 2 Delorentos 2 (Great gig...)]
|
|
|
Post by delorentos on Nov 20, 2010 15:48:39 GMT
Spanish Tour, Day four. Catalonia.
This morning we woke up in Barcelona, with a couple of hours on our hands before we move to another part of Catalonia, the city of Terrassa.
In order to shake off last night’s fuzziness we walk around the winding, stone streets of Barcelona. We saw a huge amount of Arcade Fire posters. Gouj insisted that we visit the Sagrada Familia, I’m still grateful to him. If you haven’t visited or seen this Church, then I suggest you google it, there is nothing I could say to do it justice. An awe-inspiring building that is more than a hundred years under construction, I will make a point of visiting as much as I can in my lifetime, to see how it changes.
Having spent too long in the Sagrada Familia, we caught the underground to our hotel, and loaded up Sebastian’s van once more before we hit the road.
The venue in Terrassa was amazing. We arrived in the middle of what seemed to be a junkyard or industrial estate to see corrugated steel doors pulled open to reveal naked mannequins, graffiti covered walls and a raised wooden stage. This place reminded me of the Zapata club in Berlin, far removed from the Health and Safety obsessed venues we see at home. After splashing some water in my face in the toilet, (covered wall-to-wall with vinyl records) we sound checked, which involved lots of jamming and Gouj going crazy with the lights. Whether it was the beer Sebastian got us or the lack of sleep catching up with us, I’m not sure. We jammed for longer than usual, with a lot of messing around, ending up with Ross and myself doing a weird version of heard it through the grapevine. hopefully those videos never get seen.
The gig was late, but worth the wait. We played for an hour and a half, climbing up walls, falling into the crowd shouting Catalan phrases we picked up and causing all sorts of mayhem. When we finished, we climbed up the stairs to the backstage toilet/dressing room. We had just found some beer when Sebastian opened the door to reveal shouts of “del-o-rentos *clap, clap, clap*”. He got us down the stairs and onto the stage, it took me a while to realise that my bass was lodged in the middle of Ross’s drum kit from the end of the set. Gouj spotted us from the crowd and had to run back to the sound desk when he realised we were doing an encore. 3 songs more and everyone from the bar outside was in the venue, dancing and climbing up on shoulders.
You may not know this but the factory that made our first album messed up, leaving us with 5000 dodgy copies of the CD. Every time we play abroad where people don’t know us or cant get our music in the shops we give out these CD’s for free, it has led to some funny situations (we have learned that you can really hurt someone if you throw a CD out into the crowd). This time we didn’t hurt anyone but we left Catalonia with lighter bags, hopefully the Catalans enjoy In Love With Detail, I’ll be glad to get home and see that pile of CD’s getting a little smaller.
Ross and myself shared a room in the slickest hotel we have visited in Spain so far. No time to enjoy it -just a dioralyte to take the fuzz off the beer and make tomorrow a little easier. Madrid is next, we might even bump into Arcade Fire.
Nial
Gouj’s one word blog for the day: “better” [Arcade Fire 3-2 Delorentos. (Their Posters are everywhere, they've 3 great albums, but Arcade fire don’t have Gouj).]
|
|
|
Post by absteve on Nov 20, 2010 22:39:04 GMT
Was at the gig in Terrassa last night - top stuff!! & thanks for the cd!
|
|
|
Post by Hazey on Nov 20, 2010 22:59:31 GMT
I do love these tour Blogs.... I find them ever so interesting.. and i now want to go to that last venue....
|
|
|
Post by delorentos on Nov 21, 2010 19:48:47 GMT
Spanish Tour Diary, Day five. Madrid.I woke up in our super fancy hotel in Terressa, stuffed the complementary shower gel, body milk, toothbrush, sponge, sewing kit, golf ball shaped soap, shampoo, face cloth, nail file and hair net into my bag and headed down to breakfast. There are two schools of thinking on the early calls on tour, you can either get out of bed and into your pants and shuffle down five minutes before the appointed time or get up monk early and shower and eat and be reading the Business section when the van arrives. Unusually, today was mostly the latter. On the hour long drive to Barcelona we listened again to the random sounds of the Spanish radio, equal parts hilariously clichéd Mediterranean delivery and terrible euro pop and then some genius rarities and oddities from anywhere in music. I’m glad we’re part of it! The train journey was uneventful. Last night’s gig was fantastic, great fun and we really felt like people left after having a good night. Playing so many gigs a year can sometimes mean some songs can get stale or lose personal meaning, but last night felt like we were playing to fresh ears. We talked briefly about the nature of the benefit to ourselves to feel like we’re reaching new people, to reinvigorate ourselves and the set. Then I dozed off and spilled Fanta orange on myself. We got back to the hostel and had an hour or two in the dingy hostel to ourselves. Níal sat in the toilet and played guitar, so to not disturb ross, who slept. I lay down and listened to Sigur Ros. Later we had a business chat in a tapas bar. I played with my mini lasagne while chats about t-shirt designs went on around me. Tapas is great an all, but I’d murder a toasted cheese sandwich and cup of tea. Around 5 we headed to the venue. Sala Caracol is the biggest venue we’ve played in Spain, big stage, big room, big desk. After a short soundcheck we went for a beer around the corner and met a few friends and chatted about the gig. We also wondered if anyone would turn up. The taxi driver earlier told us that Madrid was full of people going to Arcade Fire and the place was buzzing. Let’s hope there are enough music fans to go around… Anyway, we were a little nervous before we went on, so after a beer or two we set up behind the huge red curtain and gave the nod to the engineer, who drew them back. There was huge crowd, the atmosphere was fantastic, and although I thought we were a little apprehensive early on, the show went great. I guess we didn’t know what to expect, but with the show well-advertised and the songs on the radio there were people there, and we gave them everything we had. Two encores! My voice was gone in the end and I think I sprained my ankle jumping of the stage in a rush of blood, but I didn’t care. Afterwards we sat in the back room delighted, but shattered. Sebastian came in and was very happy and we were glad to have repaid some of the faith he’s shown in us. Over the week we’ve had some great gigs and it’s given us a much needed push for our upcoming tour and new songs. If Spain likes us as much as they seem to then we’ll be back pretty soon. We headed off into the Madrid night with our mission accomplished, feeling like the only band in town. Kier Gouj's one word blog for day 5: "Accomplished". [Arcade Fire 3 Delorentos 4 (Great gig, great tour... !) ]Delorentos crowned Champions with late winner! www.salacaracol.com/web/images/imagenes/cartel%20delorentos2.jpg
|
|
|
Post by Eri on Nov 21, 2010 21:12:42 GMT
Great gig at Sala Caracol, come back soon and I'm sure the audience will be bigger thanks for the two encores hehe
|
|
|
Post by lovers on Nov 22, 2010 9:53:40 GMT
you guys should not forget the great effort your support bands do.
SAN LEON
3 MELLIZAS
take care
|
|
|
Post by delorentos on Nov 22, 2010 13:47:58 GMT
Yes, It was great to play with San Leon (Barcelona) and 3 Mellizas (madrid)!
|
|
|
Post by msgranger on Nov 22, 2010 13:51:45 GMT
Nothing cheers me up more than one of your blogs. They are the FUNNIEST things ever. Keep'em coming.
|
|