Hola Barcelona

Vitoria is a lovely place, historic town, wonderful atmosphere. I love just walking around the old town. Always a good gig here too, although tonight some idiot let off a pepper spray or something similar during No Quarter, I mean, who does something like that? Anyway, if the idea was to disrupt the show it didn’t work, we simply took a quick 20 minute break so the venue could open the doors and clear the air. The band went and stood outside with the crowd for photos and the like, until everybody came back into the venue again. We came back with a point to prove and performed one of the best sets of the tour so far, and a bit of a party after the show too!  Jack Paul Jones has now acquired the nickname here in Spain as El Nino Pollon.

So, onto Pamplona, another historic town, famous for the running of the bulls of course. But again, a lovely old town to walk around and sample a few local beers and tapas. After the show, we found a bar playing retro 50’s music and a few people dressing the part and jitterbugging all over the place. Got talking to a local geezer as he is the spitting image of Noddy Holder from Slade. An uncanny resemblance, he didn’t know who Noddy Holder is, but after a few rousing choruses of Merry Xmas Everybody from myself and Pete the Beat and it dawned on him of whom we refer.  However, we had to cut our interesting conversation short due to the fact that he kept farting and stinking the place out.

‘Did you just fart?’ Pete enquires of him. ‘Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’ he confirms with a broad Buzz Lightyear type of smile and has both thumbs up to signify his pride and delight in a job well done.

And now onto Barcelona and a few days rest to recover fully from our gas attack, I mean the pepper spray in Vitoria not Noddy Holder flatulence in Pamplona of course.

Being a big show we have many family and friends coming into Barca today for the gig on Wednesday. Including a star appearance for Le Chameau himself, our long-suffering guitar tech of whom regular followers of this blog will remember well, mainly for ordering a nice bowl of Nada. Nick is also the hero of my book ‘What goes on tour don’t stay on tour’ due out on March 1^st.

As tradition now has it. It seems we always play in Barcelona in or around the birthday of our promoter Robert ‘Nobby’ Mills. So tonight we will dine in the famous Los Caracoles restaurant close to Las Ramblas, the area of Barcelona famous for it’s shopping, bars and restaurants. A Mecca for tourists.

Nobby is famous for prowling Las Ramblas claiming to be a ‘big player’ in from The States, Texas Long-Horn they call him, and he is carrying a heavy load. Sadly for Nobby, he has been doing this for years and everyone is wise to him now, but this does nothing to deter Nobby from indulging in his favourite pastime, namely just harassing the girls of The Ramblas who are just going about their day trying to earn a dollar.

Well, it had to happen, the rain is come!