Day 5 (God, is that all?)
La Riviera, Madrid
Nothing much is open on Saturday in Madrid, at least within walking distance. The venue is by the river, appropriately enough, and looks like a garden centre (except for the backstage area which looks like a rebel base under attack from the Imperials). There's something peculiar about venues that have windows in them. Music should be made in dark, airless places where the walls sweat and the smell of beer in the carpet can never be expunged, even by ten thousand years of permafrost.
For once everything works and we can have a proper soundcheck. Distractingly beautiful Spanish ladies keep passing through the room. It's awful, this job. The gig was a lot less comedy than yesterday's, which I notice I didn't really go into in yesterday's entry. There were no English people shouting "Never mind the Buzzcocks" or fawning ladies singing every word or mysterious lighting cues which left the stage in darkness at crucial climaxes. (I don't know if you've ever been to www.crucialclimax.com. It's a blast.) But it was fine, you know. Half an hours' work well done.
