First thing we had to do today was get the van to the tire place/ mechanic before 12 midday, before the workers in this Basque Country have their customary 2.5 hr lunch break. I’m not talking siesta time (which I can imagine will be even crazier) this is just the time everyone has off, including the bakery! Yep even the fucking bakery is shut at lunch. One of our Aussie mates who works for Quicksilver here was like ”hey want to make a killing here? Open a bakery that stays open at lunch!” Anyway, after running on 3hrs sleep from the night before and another late night after a cracking show, with killer hospitality, we needed a sleep. By the time we left Mick’s it was 11:55am.. shit!

Note: we had to be in Lierganes Spain (250 kms away) by 6pm to play tonight.

Mick our Aussie legend mate drove us around to a few joints after we were denied by the first 2 garages, then he remembered he had to go to work, it was 2:00pm So we had lunch at La Salon and our awesome new mate Douduo (owner of La Salon) helped us find a Renault dealer who was open. His mate worked there and he was able to book the car in.

The steering wheel was shuddering, we thought better to get it fixed while we have Aussie understanding / French speaking people willing to help around us. We chilled in the Maccas across the road from the dealer. I don’t eat at McDonalds, I just use the free internet and the loos. A part from it not being what I deem as food, I’m one of those people who are aware of the impact “restaurants” like McDonald’s has on the world (farmers, food industry manufacturing standards, to name a few etc) so it sort of feels good to take from them and leave shit behind.

I digress, so they fixed our shuddering steering wheel and it was time to go to Spain! I’ve been pretty amped for this.

The drive to Lierganes was pretty specy. We got there only n hour late so all good. The venue was rad and so was the crew. Dinner was as expected, epic Spanish cusine with names of things I’ve never seen, enjoyed and now have forgotten what they are called (took snaps though).

There was no one around in this very old, incredibly awesome but quiet stone cottage lined village before dinner. We got back and the joint was filling up nicely. By the time we did a bit of stuff backstage (I mean organizing) the place was chokas and crew were starting to yell out for us to start. One random dude came into where I was warming up my voice and said “the people want you to start”.. he got the stare.

We played for about 1 hr 40. We pulled out ‘Paradise’ and ‘Just Wanna Rock Roll’ in addition to the usual set. It worked well.

The crowd was cool, needed a bit of firing up but they got there.

All in all a pretty wicked first day and show in Spain! Bring on the next 13!

Cheers

-Higgsy