Day nine

Friday November 7

We’re straight on it first thing in the morning. We have quite a Mexico City experience ahead of us today and for that we’re leaving at 9am. So I’m up at 7 to get onto social media. Seriously, if this isn’t kept up with as we go, it just gets on top of us and behind very quickly so there can be no procrastination. It just has to be done in the time it has to be done. So that’s me up at 7 to have everything in by 9 because after that, it all just starts again.

So, today’s thing in this breathless adventure. First, we’re all off to Richard’s bar El Zapata for a substantial breakfast outside in the sun. Which means chicken enchiladas for me and eggs and hotcakes for Maja. This is a bit of a gathering place for the gang, which is us, Richard, Eduardo, and Richard’s brother Luis, who plays bass in Los Ekis. This is the first time we’ve seen Luis since London, so yet another Mexico reunion. Now we’re all into the cars and off to a wonderful little place called Xochimilco. No, I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce that. Here, we meet a whole load of tour guides from all over the world who Richard has brought together to show Mexico City and for them to then show their clients. The first part of it all is his incredible excursion of a boat trip on the ancient canal route around here. It’s an incredible moment when we see the boats. They are beautifully colourful, long flat bottomed affairs with a table running the length of each one. Here, it takes two boats to fit the whole party and we all take our places either side of the tables. Despite the early hour, there are plenty of drinks on board as well as snacks. We are well supplied. At the back of each boat is a pole pusher, much as you would see on the back of a gondolier. And this is how we’re now going to travel through this ancient canal system. The boats are called trajineras, and this canal system dates back thousands of years. It’s the original route used by the Aztecs who made artificial islands around here, then used this very same waterway we are cruising on today to travel between them. I’m just guessing they had different snacks.

It’s known as the Venice of Mexico and the waterways total over 170 kilometres of canals. We’re not covering the whole lot, or at least not today, but we are going to have a good go at a few miles of it. This is leisurely sailing at its very most leisurely. The guys on the poles have languid long and steady motions and seem totally at ease with the job, but I can’t help thinking it’s a whole lot harder than they make it look and the likes of me, and quite possibly you, would be a sweaty crumpled mess before the boat took its first turn to disappear into the ancient swampy vegetation filled system. Because yes, once we leave the dock behind and make that first turn, we are transported back in time with all evidence of civilisation far far away. Unless you count the Los Ekis tequila bottles or the buckets filled with ice and bottled beer. Apart from that. But really, we are now surrounded by a land and waterscape which is practically identical to the one the Aztecs would have seen and travelled. It really feels like we have disappeared deep into a watery jungle. And among all this, it’s party time at 11 in the morning. Although I should say that with me and Maja having a gig later, we don’t get too much into that part of things. Although once we’re really deep in, a beer or two does get cracked and shots do get joined in with. But apart from that…

This all goes on for an incredible two and a half hours until we emerge from the thick overgrowth and oh, we’re heading right back to where we started. I had no idea we’d been on something of a circular route, but here we are and heading back to dry land again. It’s almost with some feeling of sadness that the pier moves closer and closer to us. This really is a trip you could stay on for so much longer. 

Back on dry land and it’s back in the cars and all back to El Zapata. Here, the drinks keep flowing and the food is all on the house – a selection of tacos. And we’re the entertainment. Once everyone is seated around this large garden, we make our way up to the fantastic covered stage over in the corner. This is going to be a short, sharp set, and here we bring out two songs for the first time – 101 Ways To Fly and Where Do We Go – followed by I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). It’s a fantastic way to round off what has been a quite incredible morning, and once we’re done we hop back down and join everyone around the garden.

Right. Now. This next thing.

We’ve all heard about it, mostly in the context of football, but it’s easy to forget and I forgot to mention this little thing in the street gig we did a few days ago. Even when it was in the moment of happening I put it down more to tiredness than anything else. During that gig, we hit a moment where I’m doing backing vocals and we have to hold a long note. We have a few moments like that, but this one really hit. I guess the adrenaline must have got me to the end of it because the second I finished and took that next instinctive breath I felt my head go all light and, for a split second, felt in danger of actually falling over on the stage. I may have even stumbled just a little bit and turned it into one of those, look at me, I’m running, not stumbling things. Yeah, the stage was just big enough to do a little kind of performative run.

So that thing we’ve all heard about – Mexico city is at altitude and the air is thinner. We discover just how much that can affect things tonight when we play an amazing venue called Faro Miacatlan at a place forbodingly called Milpa Alta. Alta means tall. Or, for this context, high. And if a city is already known for being at altitude, and a region within it has high in its actual name, well…

We get some kind of clue when we’re on our way as the car seats are pulling us back with their gravitational pull as we ascend with the angle of a plane on take-off. That and of course we can actually see the road rising ahead of us almost constantly.

Today we’re being driven and looked after by Eduardo and not Richard, Eduardo being the aforementioned trumpet player in Los Ekis. This is the arrangement. When Richard isn’t available, Eduardo gets the gig. Which gives me an extra incentive, or rather obligation, to practice my/ speak Spanish. Richard speaks great English, and Maja speaks little to no Spanish. Eduardo speaks no English. The language with Richard is English, even when we’re alone mostly because, well, because I’m being lazy about it alright, and it’s easier to just keep the flow. And with Maja around I can pretend it’s because she’s there. It’s a convenient excuse not to have to put the work in at times. But with Eduardo, I have to, even with Maja around. But once you’ve started and you’ve got in a flow, it’s like, hey, this is fun. Why don’t I do this all the time? The classic procrastination concept.

Well, we get to the venue and, as we’ve already experienced with the faros, it’s a kind of small provincial type thing. Which means it’s actually pretty big for a grassroots gig with a stage raised about a metre high, and huge. And then stalled seating in front which rises and rises. A capacity I would guess of somewhere between two and three hundred.

We’re introduced to the manager Eric, and he leads us across the stage, behind a large curtain covering the whole back of the stage, then up a flight of stairs, and right up there is our large dressing room. He leaves us for a few minutes, then comes back with a whole bunch of beers. Wow. OK. But that can be for later, but really, thankyou very much. Now we get something we really have never experienced before. Our own stage hand. There aren’t so many introductions and to be fair, she’s so focussed that she isn’t massively available for chat, although of course friendly and polite at all times. For soundcheck, she’s at the side of the stage, hidden from whatever audience would be there, and if we want to communicate anything to the sound guys, right at the back, high and off to our left, we tell her and she relays it to them through the medium of walkie-talkie. Soundcheck, back to the dressing room, and then when the time comes, she’s there again and gestures us to go down the stairs. All the time she’s talking into her communication thing. What’s she saying? The Diaries are on their way? The Diaries are 20 seconds from the stage? The Diaries have arrived? No idea. Oh, I should also say now that we never meet or even see the sound guys. Or guy. Or girl. Or girls, or girl and guy. Oh, you know.

And now here we are on the stage and about to start. In front of us is a huge black curtain which will open up to each side in a minute. But for now it’s just me and Maja on a huge space, totally on our own. Then the curtain does indeed part and we still can’t see anything. We’re brightly lit, but we’re staring into a completely unknown and virgin darkness. Blackness really. The place could be full and we wouldn’t know it. The place could be completely empty and we wouldn’t know it. Is it completely empty? It might just be you know.

I can’t pretend we’re any great draw here. No-one has any idea who we are. But when I step a little further forward and am able to see just a little below the lights, I discover that the locals really have come out to see us in some kind of numbers. The first three rows are completely full, and there are sporadic seats taken about the place. So somewhere between 80 and 100. To be fair, in here that does look a bit underwhelming, but put that in a pub or small club venue and you’re really talking. But even so, with those first three rows full, we might just have something to work with here. It also helps that there’s a significant gap between the stage and the front row. 

But I’ve completely failed to consider the effects of altitude.

We would normally eat into a space like that. Get off the stage, get into it and really right in and among the public who’ve come to see us. And there does seem some genuine excitement when I stroll down the steps at the side of the stage and start doing my thing on the floor, even going up the stalls to play right among some of the people up there. But there’s something wrong. Maja hasn’t come with me. She’s continuing to do her thing on the stage, but she seems somehow just disconnected. She’s singing great and performing great, but standing just a little way back as she is, I know she’s still peering into blackness and can’t see any audience and probably can’t see me out there doing my thing either. We’ve suddenly become totally disconnected. I’m playing and she’s singing and it’s all together and we’re getting a good response, complete with claps and cheers, but this isn’t the usual all action Diaries performance. I think that if we were right into that space out front and ignoring the stage and just playing directly for the relatively few but enthusiastic people who’ve made the effort to come out to see us, we could really get something going in here and make it a night to remember for everyone. But Maja won’t move from the stage. But that isn’t it. Really, she can’t. I don’t know this just yet, but will soon find out that she’s struggling to catch enough breath to sing many of our fast, frenetic lines, which can also require some quite long passages sometimes without the opportunity to take a breath. This is all so fine in pretty much standard all the time sea-level UK, which is terrible at mountains. And that also goes for most of Europe, at least the north western part where we’ve done most of our gigging so far. But here? Especially tonight, it is really hitting hard. And with the activity we put into our shows as well, with Maja hitting that part of it too. But it’s leaving her little to no room for the amount of oxygen she needs to also do the singing performing part. The thing with really performing to an audience, really putting yourself out there, is that the technical thing you’re doing has to be so second nature as to be something you barely have to think about. So you can put it all into the performance. But when you suddenly remove a large part of the oxygen from the equation, everything becomes much more of an effort and this, unknown to me at the start, is what Maja’s experiencing right now. For myself, I have a weird energy reduction experience. But as with the street show a few days before, I’m putting it down to tiredness. Because so far, and it’s showing no signs of lessening, this Mexico experience has been relentless. With plenty of extra bits of partying in between I haven’t massively written about. But it’s been there. But that isn’t the thing. No. For the first time, we’re experiencing gigging at altitude. Real altitude. Milpa Alta has an average height of around 2,500 metres above sea level with its highest point at over 3,500 metres. The legendary Azteca Stadium sits 2000 metres above sea level and all you hear about from commentators when teams go there is altitude, altitude, altitude and how much that can destroy players’ abilities to really perform there. Well, we’re above that and it’s taking everything Maja has just to stay in this particular game. Why am I not so affected? Because I’m not having to sing the whole time as well. But I am affected. For now though, I’m just perplexed that Maja hasn’t joined me out here so I return to the stage and perform up there for the rest of the show. But even once I return we still don’t have our usual kinetic connection. But we’ve played all these songs many times before, and done this whole thing many times before and we’re able to get through all it just fine. I simply have the feeling that it all could have been, well, more. The audience down there? I do feel a bit disconnected and far away now we’re doing everything from this distant stage, but I think we’re doing alright and are into these new songs in a different language as much as they could reasonably expect to be.

When we finish and return to the dressing room, Maja looks like she’s on empty. But having been released from the obligation to sing, she does start to get her breath back and the three of us all start to relax and the feeling come in that yeah, that really went OK. And we have post show beers waiting for us courtesy of the management. Brilliant. That will do. Let’s just chill here for a while and quite literally get our breath back. With that we just settle into the rhythm of it, do the whole recovery thing and on the whole are just having quite a nice time with no sense of urgency that we have to be anywhere else. It’s all, job done. And as far as tonight’s performance goes, it really was quite a hard job.

As we’re starting to get round to the thought that tonight really did go OK, the manager suddenly appears. Guys, he says, you really need to get downstairs. Everyone’s waiting to see you. We’ve been up here half an hour by now, maybe more. And there’s been people waiting for us all this time?

We pack up and head down the stairs, across the stage, through the auditorium and into the large lobby. As soon as we emerge into the openness there’s a spontaneous applause from a waiting group of about 20 girls, all sitting there totally expectantly. Apparently there was even more, but a lot of people decided we weren’t coming out anytime soon and left. Wow. We really did do OK. Even more than that. A massive impression apparently.

So there’s nothing for it but to let people take their selfies, and also all line up for a group photo for what seems to be the venue’s official photographer. As we stand there waiting for the picture to be taken, the manager calls out, ‘Everyone, The Diaries.’ With that, all the girls call out, ‘The Diaries,’ and the picture gets taken.

Altitude. Tonight really has been a story of highs. And highs. Of a few different kinds. We’re there for quite another while as the, would you call them fans? I don’t know, people, happily say their goodbyes and slowly meld into the mountainous night.

As for us, we head back to El Zapata for the third time today. This time we don’t think twice about getting stuck right in. Yep. It’s another late one. With the tourist trip having been a great success, it’s all an amazing celebratory atmosphere in the garden. And with us having returned triumphant from off the mountain, we have our own reason to celebrate.