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MEXICALI ROSE (and fell!)
Or, for my German speaking fans, Die Reise und Fool of a pop band
at a prog fest!!
(Rise and Fall....get it?)
Well, I finally got to play in Mexico! For the first and probably
the last time, but it was a great night and I was very proud of my
band, especially considering it was only the third time we had
played together!
The trip there was horrible! We flew from Alicante to Madrid very
early in the morning and from Madrid to Mexico City. This leg
alone was just over 11 hours. Then we had a 3 hour wait in Mexico
City until finally we boarded the flight to Mexicali.... or so we
thought! The flight was scheduled for 3 1/2 hours so as we got
closer we were relieved that this marathon was almost over. We had
set it up so we would have a day off before the show to recover a
bit so arriving there at 10:30 pm didn´t seem so bad... except
that we didn´t!
When the pilot announced that we could see Mexicali off to the
right of the plane we began to sense that something wasn´t right
and apparently the landing lights in Mexicali weren´t working
which meant that we had to go on to Tijuana (another border town)
to get fuel and wait until someone in Mexicali either paid the
electricity bill or found a replacement fuse!
Tijuana airport is not the most thrilling place to be stuck
especially when we had flown for 16 hours already, not counting
the time we spent in airports waiting! All the concessions were
closed or closing and no-one seemd to have a clue as to whether or
not we would be going back to Mexicali, waiting for a bus, or
flying there when it was daylight and the fuse problem wasn´t an
issue.
This was no-one´s fault of course and we just had to be patient
and amuse ourselves until finally we stumbled back on to the plane
and headed for Mexicali, arriving at 05:00 local time.... 30 hours
after leaving home.
I do want to say though that the guys handled all of this very
well and I feel good about that as I am sure we will face many
similar challenges down the road. A big thank you to Tommy,
Ovidio, Victor, Alvaro and Richard.... it could so easily have
gone ¨the other way¨ !!
Roberto and Jorge picked us up and there were pick-up trucks
everywhere. Mexicali is a desert town wih a population of around 1
million and a lot of Chinese restaurants but we weren´t really in
a tourist mood, we just wanted to get to the hotel and sleep in
something that wasn´t moving! But we did have breakfast first and
that was nice. The hotel was a converted Holiday Inn and it was
actually quite nice, except for the fact that it was the general
hotel for the event so EVERYBODY was staying there!! I politely
asked that the front desk didn´t give out our room numbers (which
of course they did), then crawled to my room and into bed at
around 7:30am. It didn´t take long to get to sleep but it didn´t
last long either!
The main venue was the Teatro del Estado and it was about 10
minutes away but there was a second venue in the hotel grounds and
apparently 11am was time for drum sound check. What a great way to
wake up!!
So, a shower and downstairs to check on the Bahrain Grand Prix and
to meet some friends who had come down from California. One by one
the guys dragged themselves down for lunch, tired but in good
spirits, relaxed, knowing that there was nothing too challenging
to do today. A bit of exploring, some shopping and then we had
dinner at one of the Chinese restaurants.... and it was really
good... in a kind of Mexican/Chinese way.
Anticipating another early drum sound check I went to bed at 10
after setting my clock for 7am. I should have been so lucky! Now
the let-lag was kicking in and I was wide awake at 4:30!! Oh well,
the schedule for everything was early anyway so it would be okay.
I had recovered enough from a bad cold the week before and we left
for sound check after battling our way through a lot of festival
goers who had set up camp in the hotel lobby and who had
apparently brought happy hour forward by a few hours!! To each his
own I say.
Sound check was a mess. We were scheduled to play second between
Asturias from Japan and Arti e Mestieri from Italy so we sound
checked in reverse order... or at least they did. Once the stage
was set up it went pretty smoothly and Richard set about repairing
the antique mixing console so we had enough working channels.
Just to digress a little... Rodrigo had alerted me to the fact
that Asturias had an excellent violin player named Miki Fujimoto
and we had invited her to play with us on Lady in Black... the
parts that John Smithson used to play... and so she joined us for
a quick rehearsal and that went fine. We were pretty much ready
and it was back to the hotel for a shower and to warm up a bit.
Back to the theatre, which was packed, and we all felt good about
finally getting around to doing what we had flown half-way around
the world to do and I must say the show went really well,
including Miki´s contribution on violin at the end of the show.
The following morning people were saying great (and rash) things
like we had ¨stolen the festival¨ though the best comment came
from a gentleman from Classic Rock mag in the UK (and I am sorry I
didn´t get his name) who said the this was the first time a band
had got a ¨prog¨ crowd to sing!! Ha!!
We just played our normal show, abbreviated to last 80 minutes
and, based on what we had seen and heard we were nothing like a
¨prog¨ band at all and I am happy about that. Being a ¨song¨ kind
of guy I find a lot of this music rather aimless and boring though
I will admit that some of the individual musicians were excellent.
Of course some of the prog fans might easily say the same thing
about us but they didn´t on the night and anyway this is my
platform, not theirs! (oh dear, I can hear the ¨Ken thinks he is
God¨ crowd getting warmed up!)
The euphoria of a really good show soon died down though as, for
whatever reason, the Mexican travel agent showed up backstage to
inform us of some changes to our return flights . I say to
¨inform¨ us rather than ask and this was just the beginning of my
irritation!!
First, Victor was flying back all by himself on completely
different flights, then our first flight was no longer at 12:30 to
Mexico City but at 11:00 to Mexico City via Guadalajara and from
Madrid to Alicante three people were on one flight and I was on
another. We were already looking at another 20 or so hours of
flying through 9 time zones (their clocks went forward on Sunday)
and this was less than welcome news that definitely spoiled our
fun. I wasn´t happy about this and I let them know about it. It´s
a shame really. I have played hundreds of these ¨fan-oriented¨
events and whilst they are obviously not as ¨professional¨ as
normal concerts, the spirit of things normally makes up for that.
But this was just plain incompetence delivered in total ignorance
and with a complete lack of consideration but all we could really
do was grin and bear it, head for the restaurant and eat our way
out.
All in all (and looking back from the relative comfort of my
office after two nights in my own bed) I would have to say that
this was a good experience. As always, the show was the highlight
of it all and I am really glad I got to play in Mexico and to meet
a lot of the fans there.
My cold returned soon after I landed in Alicante although I did
get my lost guitar back eventually. I think I´ll take a couple of
days off though!!
God bless,
Ken
<><
Photos provided
by Miki Fujimoto and Víctor Jordá
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