Day 10

Saturday November 8

It’s Pata Negra tonight. The venue that made Maria Letona stop and take notice while reading out our gig list live on her radio show. We’ve been learning that Pata Negra is the most prestigious venue to play for rock and metal acts in Mexico City and therefore by extension across Mexico itself. We’ve also been told that bands have been around for up to 10 years and not been able to get on the bill here, and most certainly bands do not just walk into Mexico City straight off and headline here. 

But that’s what we’re doing tonight. And on a six band bill. Me on an acoustic guitar with zero effects, and Maja. And all the other acts will be full-on adrenaline fuelled screaming guitars and pounding drums rock and metal bands. Richard has been so great in his advice on how we should approach shows with a few thoughts on our setlist. One of his big things is that Mexican people really appreciate good melody so we shouldn’t worry too much about hitting them over the head right at the beginning with our power to get their attention. But tonight he’s going completely the other way. Just hit it all as hard as you can from the very beginning and don’t let go. Got it. 

There have been some huge tests and hurdles to get over in this whole experience and today kinda feels like the final really big one. But it’s also throwing us into a situation we’ve long said we belong in. Now it’s time to stand up, walk into it, and discover if this is really true. Believing you can do something and then being given the opportunity to do it, and by definition now actually having to do it, are two very different things. Suddenly you can be like, oh, I didn’t mean it. Or, I didn’t mean we could do it yet. Kinda like the manager loving your confidence and saying, OK, you’re in the first team tomorrow. Now talk is over and you simply have to deliver. Things can suddenly feel very different and the chair becomes a lot heavier when you realise you’re now the one who has to sit in it.

As I said earlier, first we were questioning whether our sound and songs would translate over here, especially with the whole language barrier thing. But a word on that first. Very few people pay attention to lyrics on first few listens of a song. However, I have a theory on that. If the lyrics are really bad, they most definitely get picked up on and can really ruin the reaction to a song. But if the lyrics are good and just hang together and work and aren’t rhythmically clunky, or even better, really fit into the rhythm, they barely get noticed on first listen. But whatever opinions may be on that, we’ve come out of each show so far feeling like, yeah. That connected. Maybe not with everyone – see the fear inducing walkouts we experienced right at the start of show one when we were acting like everything was great on stage while wondering if this thing was in danger of being over before it had barely even begun. But reactions have been good enough through enough of our audiences for us to be thinking, yes, this works here. And in a foreign country, although here again, we do have our two European tours to fall back on there to show that we and our songs are road tested, and they do work outside English speaking audiences. And then there was the wonderfulness of last night when we had a whole lobby of new fans waiting for us to emerge after the show. 

But tonight is different and a whole different kind of test.

However, as I said above, it’s a situation we’ve been saying for a long time that we  belonged in – playing in and among rock and heavy metal bands. Although I don’t ever remember even us saying we thought we could walk into headlining Mexico City’s most prestigious grassroots rock and metal venue, but here we are. Manager’s tapped us on the shoulder and said, guys, you’ve got the big job in the big match tomorrow.

You see, here’s one of our fundamental issues with who we can get to play alongside and the kinds of bills we can or can’t get onto. Rock and metal bands and promoters look at us with our single acoustic guitar approach and are understandably like, no, you don’t belong with us, go get on a singer/songwriter bill. And the singer/ songwriters are like, damn, you are way too big and heavy for us. So we’ve found ourselves in this weird in between space populated by only us. Maja’s convinced that it’s this uniqueness which is going to see us go, as she puts it, all the way, but at this stage in our development it is a bit tricky. For all of that, now here we are.

One really big song we have which we could open with and which could make a big statement to help carry us through this kind of show is Give Me The World. But for it to be ready, we need to tighten up a few parts of this we’ve kind of fudged through the last few times we’ve played it in London so we haven’t played it here in Mexico so far. We simply have to have it ready for tonight and we have to have it totally nailed. We start to try to rehearse it in the apartment but we soon realise it’s too big a song to be practiced in this small space and where we have to be considerate enough that we don’t really blast it out. No. This is not a song that we can just practice. Even at this stage, to know you have it, it needs to be performed. Up standing, full on guitar smashing top of voice performed. With that we take ourselves out of the apartment and into the Mexico sun. Even at that, we have to wander around a bit before we find a suitable spot to do this thing. There are too many people enjoying quiet time in the park for a start. We can’t possibly smash into that. And this is also rehearsal, not run through, which is going to mean lots of repetition. Even if we find a receptive public who are like, oh cool, some people are playing music around us, going over the same four bars again and again will get old very quickly. But even at that, yeah, this is a bit too big and aggressive to be thrown in among chilled out park dwellers. Suitably, we come across an industrial feeling patch of concrete wasteland littered with mechanical debris. Perfect. We could almost shoot the video here. With that we get right down to it, and our theory was totally correct. Rehearsal this may be and repetitions all over the place there are. But all the time we act as though we are actually performing it. With this song, there really is no other way. You can’t just gently pat your way through it. For the effect to work and for the vocals to do what they have to do, the guitar has to be hard. To do that you really do have to stand a certain way to attack the strings a certain way. And once that’s happening, there’s nothing for the vocals to do but to attack as well. So this is what we do. For about an hour, maybe more. And as we go on and on, we do actually attract an audience of sorts. Probably because there’s two people really going at it as though they’re performing to thousands and they’re just on their own in that little bit of concrete scrubland over there. Quite a few times we’re aware of people filming us from afar. And of other people just stopping and staring, again from quite a distance. Yeah, no-one comes anywhere near but there does seem to be a strange kind of interest all the same. This is fun.

All that done and other preparations later, we arrive at the venue and what we find is a really cool and sophisticated wine and cocktail bar with a single flight of stairs leading up from it. At the top of these stairs is the actual music venue. A wide and rectangular shaped room with a bar running about a third of the way down the right hand wall. And at the end of it all a slightly raised stage. We are also joined tonight by Sami, the guy who helped us out with preparing for the radio interviews. And also in here is Paco Costarela, the main man of Pata Negra who, we’ve been told, is fully supportive of us. We’re delighted to see he’s here as we arrive and we make sure to go right up and say hello to him, thank him for his support, and most of all for having the faith in us to give us this slot he has tonight. As he talks, we really do feel a warmth from him and an enthusiasm for what we do. With that, he introduces us to his friend Jessica who works with him putting shows on in here and beyond. We’re told later that she is also a promoter in her own right with her own company called We’re The point, or WATP Music. Also in among this is the soundman Osvaldo who does an amazing job in here and is fantastic with us all night. We chat with them for a few minutes and then leave them to it as we head back to what is now our table with Richard, a few tables back from the stage.

As we’re hanging out waiting for soundcheck, we’re also joined by the members of the band Raven White who recognise us from the pre-gig publicity. Mostly the poster for tonight’s show which has a big picture of us right in the middle of it, announcing, The Diaries from Camden, London. As soon as they come in, they come up to us and they’re all like, hey, you’re The Diaries. Brilliant. We also recognise them as we’ve been doing our own little bits of research and digging out videos of that bands on here tonight. That really pays off because we’re instantly in a great hang in this bar, feeling the acceptance from this heavy metal band. It grows even more when the band Black Stain appears and the whole spirit of camaraderie extends. 

All so far so good. I can’t speak for Maja here, but it’s about this point that my own anxiety kicks in. We’ve been saying for so long that we can do this, but now we’re here for real, can we really? These guys are all setting up and soundchecking and there’s at least five people in every band. And here we are having turned up with a single acoustic guitar. And the posters are out. Everyone knows we’re headlining. The fact that we’re here from London may offer some symbolic reflection of reputational armour, but that’s it really. We still have to get up there and deliver. To do this we’ve been scouring our set and seeing if we do indeed have enough big songs to pull this off. We have a few coming along and written, but they’re nowhere near set ready as far as performance level goes. So we have Give Me The World – great. A big, pretty much as heavy metal as you can get on a clean acoustic guitar. 

What we don’t have yet, and yes, I think the time has come to flag these few up are: Horizon, Made To Be Broken, Freezeframe, Stand Up, Creating Gravity or Guitar Will Never Die. Damn. That’s the first time I’ve typed that lot up and that’s a lot of potentially big songs to be leaving on the table. We simply don’t have them anywhere near ready yet.

So, onto what we do have, starting with yes, Give Me The World. Make Me Shine is a big punky/metal type thing, as is My Game, My Rules. Then we have Nobody Said and The Cat. That makes five kinda big numbers. Into this we’re going to throw I Like You (Better When You’re Naked), How You Rock’n’Roll, Rock’n’Roll Tree and Talk About The Weather, all of which are fully bouncy rocky enough songs. Then there’s the two almost gambles. Sand Bang, a gentle song although metal enough in its own atmospheric way. And the really big one for tonight. This is the first time we’re performing Where Do We Go. Not only that, but Maja’s decided it’s big enough to close with. As for The Cat, we’re holding that back just in case we get an encore. We can’t have blown every big song by then if that happens. 

So we have a ten song set with an encore tagged on. We hope it’s got enough bombastic stuff going on to carry us through and show that we deserved the spot we got.

As the other bands go through their sets and we approach showtime, I’m aware that my breathing has actually become heavy. Internally, subconsciously almost, I am really getting psyched up for this one. Black Stain and Raven White are every bit as heavy and fun as we’ve seen from their videos and we join right in with the moshing and general fun at the front of the stage as they thrash through their sets. A note on the singer of Raven White who to me is a cross between Metallica main man James Hetfield and original AC/DC singer Bon Scott. It’s really cool when we see that Jessica and Osvaldo have come in here as well to join us, so we really get our own front of stage vibe going. And a band called Juliette also does their thing in among this and they’re full of bouncy punk energy with just wonderfully fast downstroke guitar picking. 

Then, the last act to play before we go on is almost stadium ready. They have a whole load of video monitors going on around them, their choruses are huge, they’ve brought a whole entourage of fans with them, and they just smash the place. This is the act we have to follow. There’s a tiny backstage area directly behind the stage and when I go in there to get our guitar, I encounter this last band’s singer, Samuel. He shakes my hand and wishes us luck in a totally friendly and respectful way. He also says welcome to Mexico and asks us how it’s all been going so far. It’s a lovely pre gig back stage chat.

But I can’t help thinking that, along with everyone else, they’re wondering what the hell we’re doing there and what we’re going to do with our tiny set-up, especially now they’ve just gone and laid waste to the whole place. A little mention should go here to Maja feeling just a little bit left out in these chats because a lot of these guys don’t speak English. So I’m there chatting freely with them and having a lovely time and Maja is a little bit on the fringes at times. But not now. Now she’s about to be right in the centre of things.

It’s time. 

Now for for really special moment as Paco, who’s been hosting wonderfully all night, comes up with us. Bright and proud, he calls out, please everyone, from London, welcome The Diaries. And with that a huge cheer goes up as though we’re the home band come back to play again. Wow. Somehow it seems like people in here really do know us, or at the very least, are here to see us and are already on our side.

But none of that changes the fact that we still have to earn it.

We both really do think that the way you take to the stage sets it up for the audience and can bring them onside before you’ve played a note. Just going up there and acting like you belong and even just going about the business of setting up as though no-one’s there can begin to engender some level of confidence. Then, the stance we take up before the first note and all eyes are on us. Maybe even out of some level of curiosity. The place is about half full I would say, but it’s a venue that very much centres around the stage which is definitely not background music. So yes. We have an expectant audience. And we have all the members of the various bands, who have so far treated us with that respectful camaraderie. Now to see if we can take that to the next level. Maja’s head is down and then she slowly, theatrically raises herself to look the audience in the eye as I stand, foot on the monitor, and pound out the intro to Give Me The World. Oh, they’re sitting up now. And then we’re in and the people in here finally get to see what it is we’re doing on their turf and what gave us the right to be here. Give Me The World just storms the place and after that we’ve got them. And Maja’s right out there on the very edge of the stage as well. Because there’s no chance for warm up in a show like this. Nope. We just smash them right back with Make Me Shine, followed by My Game My Rules. This is metal on an acoustic and with Maja fronting it, it just becomes all out rock’n’roll and yes they are loving it. And to our right I see the members of Black Stain and their friends and family just totally mesmerised. Maja herself is so right into the whole thing that there’s a moment when she throws one of her hands high up in the air and just punches right through the ceiling, causing a huge chunk of it to smash down onto the stage. Like I said, rock’n’roll. Crowd loves it and we’re now performing with bits of cable dangling over and around us. Maja’s thoughts? Oh no. I just destroyed the ceiling. With that she says later she feels a little bit cool and a little bit embarrassed. Somewhere in the middle of the two. Just after it happens, someone runs up to the stage, seemingly from out of nowhere, cleans up the floor and Maja keeps on performing as though nothing has happened. Thankyou very much for that mystery person.

Those three huge numbers in and ceiling out, and it’s time to see how well Sand Bang can fare in here. By now we feel everyone’s on our side and we’ve earned the right to play slow. We also feel it’s time to really give them a little more of The Diaries’ show as we both leave the stage and head out onto the main floor to perform in and among everyone. And they go with it. We really are just into the flow of it now with all earlier thoughts of how this was going to go completely out of our minds. It is going like this. Oh yes. It is going like this.

The thing about Sand Bang is that it really is lyric heavy, threading a surreal dreamlike nightmarish vision through the thick atmosphere it creates. But that thing I said earlier about lyrics in songs. If they work and give the singer enough to really authentically connect with, then I think they bring the listener in, even if they can’t understand what’s being said. And in the way Maja throws herself into this song and really performs it and gets right into people, yeah, it just works and is another little victory for us as our show rolls and thunders along.

I’ll stop the whole song by song thing here and go straight to I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). We were just starting to understand the significance of our appearance with Maria on Reactor, but we get another little insight into what that really means now; when I announce before playing it that this was the song we played live with Maria Letona, a full on gasp goes up among the audience. And with that, along with what we’ve done and shown so far, I think we are fully legitimised and recognised as viable headliners in such a venue as this. 

So yeah, on we go, powering through the rest of the set, right the way through to being called out for an encore as soon as we smash into the final chords and vocals of Talk About The Weather. That’s it The Cat comes out and flies with us right to the end.

Now there we are backstage getting our things sorted out and breathless, sweaty and totally triumphant. Through this comes Samuel again. Just before the show he was polite and respectful. Now he is just jubilant and any tiniest hint of standoffishness has gone and he hugs us both hugely. Out front and we get similar levels of reactions from the other bands who are now looking at us through whole new eyes. There’s a massive hug from Richard too as, yes, I think we’ve repaid the faith he had in us to recommend us for this gig in the first place. I don’t ask, but I wonder if at some point in the night he felt the same relief we did as we were up there just the two of us taking on this metal crowd in the centre of Mexico City.

Yes, this is a huge feeling of relief, triumph and total celebration all in one although it takes us both a while to recover from that 11 song set mostly at full speed. And I think there’s some recovery from any kind of anxious tension that’s been there through at least today. I would normally say through the previous days, but I think we’ve had too much to think about to have tonight also playing on our minds, but I really am sure it’s been there. And with that, we have passed our last really big Mexico City test.

Now we can just get on with enjoying the rest of the night and hanging out with Richard, Sami, Paco and Jessica a little. And here and there we also have some mingling with other band members, including a chill out or two downstairs in the wonderfully cosy cocktail bar. And as if to give us even more of a fun time tonight, the venue isn’t done. Although we’ve been the headline act and have played to the peak audience of the night, there’s still one more band left to play; for one reason or another, most people have left the place. Last public transport options and the like. And one thing I’ve not encountered before which we learn about now. The car park nearest the venue closes for the night around now, so people have to leave for that reason as well. But yeah, it’s not at all unusual for the headline band in this position, with another band on as everyone’s leaving for the last trains. We’re told that in here, this last slot often kind of serves as a live audition for the bands involved. As such they’re playing to a mostly empty venue although being watched over by the promoters. And us. We’re in party mood, but also generally fully supportive of bands out there doing their thing. So out we go again, tired and sweaty, yet still giving them everything we’ve got. Afterwards, we get to chat to them and they are massively appreciative that we hung around and got into their set, and we tell them that if they ever get to London they should look us up. Hopefully one day they will.

They were thanking us, but we were also thanking them a lot too. They gave us a great opportunity to hang around and carry on the party after our show; with so much nervous energy before it, we were really too focused to be totally into the social aspect of it all although as you’ve seen, we did do our best. But here we are now, having played and having been seen to really take this place on. With that, everyone is so much more relaxed with us and so many more people come and chat and hang out with us as well. And Paco, Jessica, and Osvaldo too. Here they are and again, as lovely and polite and fun as they were before, but now we’re on the other side of it all, our connection with them really feels that much stronger.

It is an epic end to a truly epic night and experience. With the whole post gig hangout thing, it’s 3am by the time we get home.