Spain is ruling. That’s it. Well, actually, I don’t know about the ENTIRE country, though it seems okay. I mean, at least they let people have their boobies out at the beaches. That seems pretty righteous to me. Well, most of the boobies were righteous.
No, I mean the scene. This has been some of our best shows so far. Then again, maybe we were sucking before?
We got to Barcelona, and everyone seemed very excited to hit the beach to see, and I quote, “Some bitchs’ tits.” At least, that’s what one said. Raul and I took off to the beach a bit later, just to see something other than the inside of a bar, and it was indeed beautiful. You could see through the water. Lovely blue water. I love clear blue water. When we walked back to town, we laughed about how we’d see some of the chumps eating at the McDonald’s we were passing. Sure enough, they were there. I was determined to find something a little more authentically Spanish.
We headed back to a tiny little sports bar with Eric from Deeds of Flesh. Apparently, they were serving wolf, which put everyone a little off, though I told Eric he should eat it. Fucking wolf! He’d eat you if he could! Turns out later it was just hamhocks, or something. Anyway, this tiny little bar served an awesome meal of Rocquefort mac & cheese, a meat dish (for the meat eaters), dessert, and then coffee, all in courses. They like courses in Spain.
So the show… we were scheduled to go on in 20 minutes, and the doors had not opened. In addition to courses, apparently promoters like to take it easy in Spain. I had to go encourage them to open the door while our tour manager was busy checking Myspace upstairs. It turned out okay, everyone got in, but when you’re opening, you have to stay on top of that. No lines WHILE we’re playing, thanks.
The show was smashing. Tons of headbangers. We are learning also that if you put old material on early, even if people haven’t ever heard it, even if you just say it’s an old song and it’s not, they love it. So my advice to any band is just to introduce every song as “Here’s another old one.”
Apparently, my fire breathing raised some neck hairs of the promoter and club. They seem to have strict rules in Spain, and they went and yelled at all the other bands about it. But not me. Heh heh.
At the end of the show, we met some really cool folks, including a girl who’d played guitar with Sodom on stage once. Hells yes! Then the drunk guy… everyone was having fun with him. He wouldn’t stop yelling and moshing. It was pretty damn funny. Well, apparently some folks in the bus didn’t think he was that funny. They taunted him, and one truly inspired individual gave him a beer, so he could knock it out of his hands, start a fight, and ended up pushing him into a moving vehicle. It was really fucked up, picking on the drunkest guy there who had just enjoyed your band. Reno broke it up and the majority I would say walked away with a little less respect. To the drunks credit, he chased the bus and was ready to throw down even after being slammed into a moving car. I think I know who would’ve eventually won.
Onto Madrid, and I was super excited because I would finally meet my longtime penpals in Haemorrhage. The weird thing is, the promoter didn’t want them on our guest list. That pissed me off. Raul took care of it, but apparently this guy held a grudge against Haemorrhage. Sorry, pal, I don’t know you, and they are our friends. Also, the club had this weird rule about not putting banners up over the club banner on stage. What the hell? This was getting to weird, so I asked for clearance on the fire and was denied. Fuck it… I don’t want to screw over the whole tour package and be an ass, so I put it away. But if Haemorrhage didn’t get in, I was gonna raise holy hell.
When Luisma showed up, he didn’t recognize why this ugly jerk soundchecking was pointing right at him. I gave him a big ol’ hug. We played our set later, and it was loads of fun, but I was more excited about taking off with Haemorrhage. I’d been waiting for 10 years to hang out with these guys. Raul, Sean and I accompanied, Luisma, guitarist Ana, and vocalist Lugubrious to a local dive after telling Luisma that indeed, we did not need McDonald’s. NO!!! Local food, por favor!
We all warmed right up, they were too kind and bought us all beer and food, swapped tour stories, talked about mutual friends and mutual house guests, talked shit, joked… it fucking ruled. Lugubrious is god damn hilarious and slightly nuts. Probably why he’s so good live, apparently. Luisma was rad and brought me their new CD, and I felt kinda bad for not having it already. Then again, it’s just out. Oh, and it FUCKING RULES!!!!
I had a dilly of a time asking Lugubrious what his name meant. We were both drunk, and eventually I understood his name meant “sad.” I started screaming “No triste!!!” and bear hugging the Spaniard. We ran into Jason and his friends, and heard a great story about how two of them had a falling out, but had come together to see Impaled and were friends again. Awwwwww!!!
I was sad to leave Madrid and say goodbye to Luisma. Just means someday we gotta fucking play with Haemorrhage someday. My goal, dammit.
Side note: playing “throw the full can of beer down a street” is not a good idea, as we all ran when Eric threw one sideways and nearly beaned a guy coming down some stairs. Lesson learned.
Sevilla was the next day. Sean and I were entertained by Reno from Vile and Mike from Deeds jovially going for each other’s jugular. These two drummers need to start a sitcom. The driver got lost, and in fact, is not very well liked by most people on the tour. It’s kind of sad, he’s just doing a job and dealing with 21 smelly guys and bus that doesn’t work quite right, gets way too dry and hot, and the shitter stinks up real quick. Then again, he’s made some questionable moves, like hitting a car in Madrid. Well, we’re managing, but I think the quote from under his breath was “I vant to go home.”
Sevilla was a long fucking day, but the show was awesome. Some of the kids were barbecuing and drinking in the parking lot for five hours before the show. It’s Holy Week here, so while some weird nutters are walking around in what looks like KKK outfits for God, these kids are fucking off. Awesome for us. At one point, some people on the tour and these kids smashed the windows out of a seemingly abandoned car with no tires and were laughing about it. Sean and I were lucky enough to see the owner of the car come up and retrieve what was left of his vehicle. See kids? No one benefits from vandalism. Unless it’s Impaled tagging “EB ZOMBIES” on a wall.
There was some grief when one guitar player decided he couldn’t stand the bass being on his side of the stage. Of course, he didn’t offer to help move the enormous and heavy cabinet. He also didn’t recognize how ridiculous he would look alone on the much larger side of the stage. For everyone else, the placement works, save me, but I recognize I’m not the only person on the stage, and that we have to work together. I also realize that a guitar player who can’t play his parts because there’s a bass cab behind him isn’t worth a whole lot as a guitar player. Jason had some choice words, which I’m pretty sure he caught, about being a capable musician.
The minor disaster of today is that Mike from Monstrosity knocked over Sam’s guitar when they descended from the stage and now his tuning peg is completely busted. Apparently, the guitarists of Impaled were the only one to bring spare guitars. What the hell else are these other guys going to do when they break a string on stage? It’s gonna come down to us lending them a guitar, which Sean has already graciously offered, or getting Sam’s fixed. It’ll be interesting to see who actually takes care of this.