Category: The Mexico City Diary

Day one

And there we are with the huge fully double decker 380 Airbus at Heathrow Airport waiting to take us to Miami, from where we will fly to Mexico City.

Thursday October 30

Today we’re off to Mexico City for 17 days. We are going to stay with our friend Richard who we met quite by chance in London back in May. More on that to come, although the full story can be read in The London Diary, day 673. But I will say now that Richard is the singer and main man and driving force of Los Ekis, a really fun Mexican rock band with some level of fame and profile in Mexico. We also got to know the other members of the band while they were in London and so are expecting to have a few friends already on the ground when we arrive.

During the subsequent months after May, as talk grew of us coming to Mexico and then we actually bought tickets, it was quite unbelievable to see how things developed as Richard sent us messages of gigs he was booking us in for. As of now we have eight gigs booked for a two week period starting November 1 and we’ve been assured more will come in once we’re on the ground and literally rocking and rolling. And yes, this date is significant. November 1 is Day of the Dead, a spectacle we were assured we absolutely had to see and take part in. So the trip was arranged for this date so that we would be there on October 31 for the Halloween night, a kind of Day of the Dead rehearsal for want of a better word, then we would be all settled in for November 1 and the actual day proper. It looks like we will really be diving straight into this. Oh yeah. As well as the gigs already lined up, we also have an appearance on Mexican national radio booked. We don’t know any further on that right now, but that just feels huge. And that November 1 date, we have two gigs booked for that. So yes we really will be hitting the ground running. With this considered, we are packing as many of our books as we can. None of these will be for sale. Instead, we are taking them to give to promoters and any other industry people we come across, and also anyone Richard may suggest we give one too. We’re able to fit 16 into our luggage. That will have to do.

I should also say now that yes, I do speak Spanish. I lived in Madrid for six years from around 2008 to 2014 when I moved to London. Is it good enough for radio interviews? Afterall, that move to London was over 10 years ago and I really haven’t kept up with it. But over the past few months I really have got back into it again, so I do kind of feel back on it and pretty much up to speed. Ish.

Silly O’Clock time of 4:30am to get up today to be out on the road. One of the things I’m really thinking about today, apart from, this is it, we’re on our way to Mexico, is getting to show Maja a 380 Airbus. I know they fly from Heathrow Airport. This is that all the way across double decker thing. Until you’ve seen one of these up close on the ground – normally from the paltry single decker you’re flying on – you really have no idea how big they are. We arrive at the airport and make our way to our gate with brilliant morning Autumn sunshine blazing through the large windows. All the way I’m scanning for a 380. Then, as we near the gate I see one. I get Maja’s attention as I’m finally able to show her one of these things, and she notices it before I do. First, of course, she is struck with the obligatory wonder at how ridiculously, impossibly huge the thing is. But then she has the realisation. ‘That thing’s in our gate. We’re actually flying in it.’ Oh my, we are. However, not quite as soon as we thought we were as the tannoy announces an hour and a half delay. OK. We’re taking this thing to Miami where we have the layover before going on to Mexico City, but an hour and a half? That should be OK, right? We were looking at three hours before this. Yeah, we could be doing without this hour and a half delay thing.

Still, with the sun coming through like it is, and the spectacular view of the plane in front of us, not to mention the prospect of Mexico at the end of all this, it’s not a bad wait, and then the time comes to enter. We’ve both been on wide planes before, and I’ve flown on the lower deck of a 747with its 3 4 3 seat configuration. Then, I sat in the middle. It’s the same today as we find our seats and settle in for the 12 hour flight. First, you have to take in the width of all this. For length, it’s about the same as the 747 which still makes it longer than just about any other commercial plane. Then there’s the mind bending thought that, as much as this all looks enormous down here, there’s a whole other deck of exactly the same size above us. And this thing is going to fly?

Now, here’s the first part of that experience. Well, the real first part is that as you taxi down the runway you just don’t feel it. All those bumps and grinds, you just don’t get them because we’re just too heavy. It might also help that this plane has 22 wheels so all the bumps get well distributed. But the thing really is that we just don’t realise when we’ve taken off. No idea it’s actually already happened. It’s the smoothest take off experience I’ve ever had. Fast forward a little and I can say that it’s the same with landing. I saw us coming in, sat back because, well, we were in the middle and couldn’t see much anyway. Then waited for the landing jolt to come. It just didn’t.

So yeah, this really is a flying experience like no other. I’m only very mildly disappointed that we’re not on the top deck because I think it would have been special to be sitting that high above ground while actually still on the ground. But hey, you can’t have everything and still stoked to be flying on this thing and another hey, there are next times. 

Heading up into the air and I perform my first Mexico operation by changing my phone to Mexico time. I’m going to get mine in here first because Maja will have a lot of fun with it later. I’ve only ever gone transatlantic, or long haul once and that was to New York from Madrid with a London layover. The whole trip was a weekend. Yep. I was in work Friday afternoon, there again Monday morning, and in between had been to New York and London. And I really did go to London; the layover there and back was in two different airports and in between, me and my travelling companions spent some time in an apartment in Kings Cross. That apartment was our meeting point out, and on the way back, the layover was so long, and we were all going to different countries, that we decided to head there again and hang for a while before heading off in our own directions. All this is to say that in that trip I had no experience of jet lag. Which has led me to wonder if indeed I don’t massively suffer jet lag. Maja finds this thought hilarious and instead says the simple explanation is that I never really left Madrid time. By the time I went to bed in my New York hotel room after our night out in New York – we were only there for a weekend so of course we went out on our first night there – I had been awake for a full 48 hours. I then got up relatively early the next day, did all the weekend stuff and had the trip back to Madrid and then landed in Madrid on Madrid time with my body still totally in tandem with it. Tired, I’m sure. I don’t massively remember but I can’t believe I wouldn’t have been absolutely exhausted. But jet lagged? Nope. By the time I was in work on Monday, I was right back into the swing of things. So, forwarding again a little, yes, Maja does very much enjoy any feelings of jetlag and time difference I have/suffer in our first few days in Mexico. 

Back to the present and we arrive in Miami and see that we have an hour and a half to make it to the next plane. This wouldn’t normally be such a huge issue, but we discover that here, although we’re only on a layover, we still have to pass immigration. Then, once we’ve done that, we have to pass security again as well. And the queues are big. Huge. Enormous. It looks like it will take an hour and a half just to get through our first line. Then by some kind of miracle, security decides to open up a whole section of it right by us and we’re suddenly sailing through to the front. I say some kind of miracle, but there is some clamour towards them from our group that we had an hour and a half delay and seems quite a lot of people on our plane are flying on to Mexico and that’s leaving relatively soon. So we’ve been cut some slack. But still, we’re thinking our plane has to have its own delay if we’re to have any chance of making it. There’s still a long way to go and we have no idea what that really means at this stage. First, passing immigration. We’ve got near the front, but oh, they’re questioning some people for ages. Up to 15 or 20 minutes at times. And what’s it going to be like for us? Even when we get to the front of the queue we have to wait for what seems like forever before the immigration official calls us forwards. He asks where we’re going. Mexico City. Who are we staying with? A musician friend. How do you know him? We met him in London and he said he would arrange some shows for us, which he has, and now we’re going to Mexico. Oh, you’re musicians – we nod. So that explains the connection, he says. But now the guard gets suspicious. He looks at us through narrowed eyes and recounts what we’ve just told him. ‘So, you met some guy in a bar in London who lives in Mexico. He told you he would be happy to arrange some shows for you and put you up at his place, and now you’re just going?’ Yes, we nod happily. That’s exactly it. His face does so many things all at once. Bemusement, admiration, amusement, and just a whole load of get these crazy people out of my life right now. I really do think he turns his head at one point just so that we don’t see the crack of a smile through his tough robocop exterior because I’m sure I see it just before the turn. And I also really think that it’s with some feeling of begrudging respect that he says, OK, go through. Also, the fact that we’re flying on to Mexico and so aren’t going to be his problem surely must help. But we still have a problem. All this has eaten seriously into our time and we still have to get through security.

Three levels of security by the time we’re done. And each time our bags are X-rayed and at least opened, and once or maybe twice, pulled apart. And what can you do? You’re at security. At an airport. In America. 

By the time we get to our last phase of security we’re in some heightened state of anxiety. If he’s giving it any thought at all, that immigration officer shouldn’t be so hasty in his smugness that we’re about to leave the country. We do indeed clear this last hurdle, but then we’re hit with one more that we really could be doing without.

Where are you going? Asks our security officer with some level of friendliness. More in a kind of offhand, chit chatty way. Mexico City. ‘What gate is that?’ he asks. We innocently, oh, so so innocently, check. D1. ‘D1?!’ he asks, or really, explodes, looking at us like we’re crazy and did this on purpose to ourselves. ‘That’s over a mile away.’ No. Seriously? That doesn’t seem possible. As a distance from security to gate, or to even think about making it in the time we somehow have left. We have no time to think about whether or not we have time. We just have to go. Now. And fast. Damn. OK. He hurriedly gives us instructions and we hurtle off. Really hurtle off. There’s no sense of pacing. Luckily our wheeled luggages do their jobs very well, and the airport flooring is absolutely perfect for them. But still. We are properly running. And we have a mile of this to get through.

All the time we’re hoping that the plane is delayed, and that it may have even delayed itself to wait for straggling passengers. I know they do that sometimes, especially when they know there’s a particular connecting flight or flights that have had problems. But there’s no way for us to know any of this. We just have to keep running. Or I will once I’ve stopped and taken off this coat I’m wearing. We are properly sweating now. Yes it’s the end of October, but we’re in Miami now and we’re already feeling the heat of our considerable timezone change.

We push ourselves on and on. We started going to the gym about 18 months ago and have also been doing some solid cardio there lately. Where we would be without that right now I seriously do not want to think. But we have the fitness to keep going, and the recent experience of training pain and fatigue to keep pushing. It’s a hard training run. Just a hard training run.

We’re running past all the gates now. D27. OK. Keep going. Keep going a little while longer. Come on. You can make it. Just a little further now. There you go. D26.

Oh no. This isn’t possible. But we keep it up.

And there. Past D3 and then D2, just where it should be, we see it. D1. And our Miami Mexico Mile-long Miracle. It’s still open. We’ve made it. We’re going to make it.

We stumble into the plane and immediately, rather than welcome us on, the staff hurry to get some water for us. They must have known about the delay and can see we’re at the end of some kind of ordeal. So can the other passengers. The plane is full, and as we walk/hobble through it, red faced, hyper ventilating, and melting in sweat, people look up with faces of some kind of respectful amusement. Some even nudge their traveling partners to alert them to turn and look at what’s just been tossed onto the plane. But we don’t care about any of that. We’ve made it. Impossibly, improbably, unfathomably made it. Now we can crash – yes, unfortunate adjective but I’m starting to run out here – into our seats and relax for the first time since we were a couple of hours away from Miami and wondering if we had any chance of catching the next plane.

Well, here we are. Next stop Mexico City. In three and a half hours. In Europe, I’ve generally considered that quite a long flight time; London to Madrid is only two and a half hours. And you can even be in Moscow from London in less than four hours. In the context of today, and considering what we’ve just been through, even that feels like a puddle hop. Not to mention that it takes us just about half that time to cool off and calm down.

And breathe.

I am in no way prepared for my first sight of Mexico City. We’re coming in at night, but the whole panorama below us is revealed in a kind of all across the city light so we are able to actually see all the individual buildings. Apparently millions and millions of them. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. An ocean of city. Of houses and roofs. And with absolutely no apparent order whatsoever. It’s like some giant has scooped up a whole load of sand, although each grain of sand here is a house, and has just thrown it over a whole landscape. And has just kept going until the whole thing was filled up. All we can see as far as we look as we come in is more and more roofs and houses. And when there are skyscrapers, they seem to stand alone and survey, while regarding each other knowingly at the same time. All I can think is, where would you even begin with a place like this? Luckily we don’t have to think about that. We really have already begun. Our friend Richard is down there waiting for us and he has a pretty decent itinerary of gigs ready for us to play. We are here until November 17. Almost three weeks. And he’s assured us that more could be added to the list along the way.

And there he is as soon as we head out into arrivals, and it’s an emotional reunion and we can’t thank him enough for being here and for getting this whole ball rolling.

Just a quick recap. Like we told the security guard back in Miami, we did indeed meet Richard in a random bar in London. After we’d had a gig blow out on us in Camden and so just wandered the streets for a while to go get a drink somewhere. We just happened to venture into the same place he and his band, Los Ekis, were decamping to after their own gig that night – their first of three dates in London on their European tour. We got talking to all of them, then when we discovered they were staying nearby, invited them to our place for breakfast the next day. This led to a bit of a weekend hangout which saw us show them round some London sights before catching their Camden gig. Then the next night, they came to a gig we had. During a hangout after this – in The Hawley Arms – Richard said that if we could get ourselves to Mexico he would love to help us with getting some gigs. That was in May. And now, here we are.

A little bit more on this. The Hawley Arms is a legendary Camden bar and even stands out in this London town which is full of legendary bars. It was one of Amy Winehouse’s favourite places, and is also where all the stuff happened which inspired the hit TV show Baby Reindeer. Yep. Writer and star of that show Richard Gad did indeed work here and upstairs in the venue there is a signed picture of him on the wall.

Now, we know how we happened across this bar that particular night. What we didn’t know until this Mexico trip is how Los Ekis ended up there at the same time. We learn about this quite later on, but I think we can visit it now. After playing a few European shows, the boys had played their first London show that night in Battersea, actually in The Magic Garden, a wonderful bar and music venue in south London I’ve played at and been to a few times myself. They just happened to be staying in Camden, or rather, possibly just just outside Camden down Kentish Town Road, at about the place Camden morphs into Kentish Town. Anyway, they were staying there in a rented apartment. They’d finished their gig, got the tube back to Camden and then were automatically walking back to their apartment, all still dressed in their red Mexican stage outfits. Just as they were about to arrive at their apartment, Richard suddenly realised something and said a variation of, ‘Guys, what are we doing? We’re in London, we’ve just played a gig, and now we’re just going back to our place. We have to at least have a drink here somewhere.’ Everyone immediately agreed he had a very good point and they turned around and started walking back towards Camden. The first pub as you make that walk back from that uncertain area of Camden/Kentish Town is Quinns. Which is where we were at that very moment. As we had supposed to be playing a gig that night, we just happened to have our guitar on us, and when a whole bunch of Mexican musicians walked in, all dressed in red Mexican gear, and head for the bar, of course they’re going to talk to the girl sitting there who happens to also have a guitar. I myself had wandered off to the downstairs toilets at that time so Maja was sitting on her own. And this is how Richard, at the head of the group, turned to her and said something like, how do we order here, and what is good to drink? Maja, as you would expect, dove straight into helping them out. Which meant that when I returned into what had been a quiet bar a few minutes earlier, I discovered Maja in the centre of a huge group of Mexican guys. With that, this whole adventure began.

And here we are now in Richard’s car about to leave Mexico City airport and head into a packed gigging itinerary. It’s a quick first Mexico selfie together and we’re off. As we’re meandering our way through the airport my phone pings. It’s from a guy called Dario who’s with a Mexico City radio station called Real Musika. Damn. We haven’t even left the airport and I’m doing my first PR job task as I reply to him from the car and let him know that we have just landed and yes, we are in Mexico. Now we can chill for a while, chat around with Richard, a lot of which involves filling him in on the Miami adventure, and take in the dark surroundings of Mexico City.

It’s something like near midnight Mexico time when we arrive in Richard’s lovely looking neighbourhood and he leads us to his wonderful apartment where we are shown what will be our room for the trip. It’s perfect, time for bed, and it is exactly 23 hours since we left our own place back in Camden.

Day two

Friday October 31

Yesterday we told the story of how this whole Mexico City ball got rolling. Today, before putting this entry up, it occurred to us that you might be coming to this completely new, having seen little or maybe none of our previous Diaries. We’re writing and posting this quite retrospectively, so this is Diary number 18 out of 20, which means there are 19 more of them. The whole thing comes in at just over half a million words. The first three Diaries, plus the bits before them, make up our debut book, Music, Love and Impossibilities. You can order from us if you go check our website on how to do that. It’s also just possible that if you go down to your local bookshop or library, they might be able to get a copy in for you. But really, it would be quicker for you and better for us if you did it direct. And of course you can read it in this website. However, the book does contain around 14000 words that aren’t on here for one reason or another.

I’ll try and nutshell this. This is Mark writing this, so me and Maja became an item early in 2021 when she came to London from Sweden for what was supposed to be a short visit. She had read my own Diaries – Marks Diaries (just over a million words and covering July 2014 to February 2021) in a few months. This is my own story of trying to become a professional bass player. It began with me trying my bass playing luck on the Spanish Costa Blanca holiday scene with me living in Madrid at the time. As a direct result of having that experience and writing about it, I got the opportunity to move to London where I worked as a barman/waiter while also having a go at the professional bass scene. I did alright and had decent prospects but never quite managed to get it over the line into full time. But I had a damn good go, played a lot of gigs, some of them at least moderately well paying, and really built a solid reputation in London as a bass player. If you’re so minded, you can read that at: https://marksdiaries.wordpress.com/

So yeah, she read that whole thing, got in touch and offered to build my bass website – markthebassist.com. That’s currently offline. I might just try to get that back up. In return, I gave her remote bass lessons. Oh, I need to add here that before even reading my own diaries, she had started her own, so that was on the go too. Then, when she needed to get away from Sweden for a while due to some personal issues, I told her there was a spare room at my shared house in Kentish Town, London. That’s just down the road from Camden Town; their high streets kind of melt into each other. She came over about a week later. We became an item the day she arrived, and 16 days after that moved into what was supposed to be our own place – that whole part of the story is absolutely mad. Then, two months after that, we then moved to Ireland. We did this because not long after moving into that first apartment we’d decided to become a musical duo and tour internationally with our own songs. Which we hadn’t written yet. So we needed a space where we could make noise 24/7 to develop our sound and write songs. And where do you find that in London at any kind of reasonable price? Apart from that, Maja couldn’t get a visa to stay in London long term and, being English, I wasn’t able to move to Europe and work. We researched places all over the world, but this was also still Covid time so everywhere we looked was prohibitively restrictive; there was a Monday during this when we decided to move to Thailand and we were going to go that coming weekend. Until we started properly looking into it and all the usual legal roadblocks emerged. Then, in a flash of inspiration, we suddenly realised we could both live in the Republic of Ireland. So that’s what we did. Somehow, we managed to get the most incredible house in its own ruined mill grounds in Clara, County Offaly. There, we set up our studio and got to writing, rehearsing and recording. Then, six months after arriving we played our first gig in what had become our local pub The Trap, playing only our own original songs. We got encore calls and someone tried to buy one of our songs off of us. Our next gig was in Berlin as we almost immediately set off on our first European tour.

Another European tour and a whole load of gigs around Ireland later, we moved back to London where Maja was by now able to do the visa thing and live and work here. That was late 2022. Since then we’ve been playing around as much as we can and self published that debut book I mentioned at the top of this.

As a direct result of that playing around, as we saw yesterday, we met Richard and Los Ekis in a London pub and that led directly to Mexico City. Where we now continue the story.

We wake into our first day in Mexico City. But before we actually go out and really get into it, we’re straight into business.

The first thing we see in the morning is a poster in our social media featuring us for a gig on November 15. Oh wow. That’s already a new show for us. We were told things could develop once we were here but we weren’t expecting it to happen this quickly. We’re just taking this in when Richard says there may be another gig for us that day as well. He is immediately on the phone to see how that particular ball is rolling.

Off the phone and he announces that the second gig for that day is confirmed. Wow. So out of nowhere we now have two shows for that Saturday.

And while we’re here, I should say that all of the gigs that are being prepared are for sets of between 35 and 45 minutes. So all pretty full on for a grassroots original act.

This is the start of quite a period of activity in his big main front room as we all start to work on our own little things, but all Diary related. This place has instantly become some kind of little Diary office. One of the things Maja is working on is to make a QR code and get it printable so that we can give it to people at gigs. This will take people to the page on our website that will have our lyrics in Spanish. Oh yeah. That’s my job in all this now. Getting our lyrics into Spanish. In the first iteration I run them through an online automatic translator. But then I have to go through them and make sure they actually say what they’re supposed to say and then correct as appropriate. As for Richard, apart from continuing with hustling and setting things up, he’s now working on backdrops. We have no idea what this means but he asked if we had any video for backdrops. We do not. What even is that. Not something we’ve ever thought of. Making video to play behind us while we play? We’re in little bars and stuff right? Why do we need media for backdrops? OK. We have no idea what this means. But Richard clearly does and he gets on with seeing what he can do to fill this little gap in our repertoire.

A little of this and we head out for our first trip to Mexico City city centre because now we have to buy the guitar we’re going to use for this trip. Once outside, we get to see the area we’re in. A very quiet suburban scene outside the low rise apartment we’re in, and the area has its own security gate for cars coming in. Like the kind of barrier you would see at a small level crossing. Out of that and we’re almost immediately onto the main motorway type thing which is an absolute festivity of cars and motorbikes, with many people not wearing helmets. Not a thing here apparently. And we see trucks with people just sitting freely in the open backs of them. An instant movie scene. We mention our surprise to this to Richard and he shrugs and laughs and says, What are the police going to do?

As for the guitar, Richard has a lovely one which he has generously said we can use, and it does feel great, but we also want to see what else we can find. Apart from anything else, we are very heavy on guitars and also have our own kind of tuning and prefer very heavy strings, so it would probably be best to have our own thing to beat upon rather than mercilessly bashing someone else’s, but Richard knows what we’re about and is cool with that, so yeah. Another option there.

We’re really proud of our little Denmark Street in central London. During the 60s this was home to so many music offices from where some of the biggest stars emerged, including Elton John, and a few of the Sex Pistols even lived here for a while. It is now our premier street of music instrument shops. Although some favourites have sadly disappeared over the years, including one really major mainstay very recently, it is still stubbornly hanging on as a London musical hub and the thrill of walking along it still persists for me.

What the city centre here has makes Denmark Street look like a toy. It’s a whole district of music shops within a wider city centre area. And I should also add that we’ve arrived into what feels like a beautiful summer’s day as opposed to the chilly November we have left behind in London. Lucky us, we have an expert guide with Richard having lived around here all his life. He makes a beeline for a few shops he recommends we have a look at. In the third shop we find what will be our guitar and that’s it. Job done. Time for our first Mexican dining out experience as Richard introduces us to an enchilada restaurant in what feels like a large, high ceilinged old post office area. And another first, the Mexican red and green salsas on the table which are an absolute revelation. An instant favourite and I’m thrilled when Richard says that we will find things like this almost everywhere.

Guitar bought and we continue walking through the thronged old city centre to the main square of Mexico City. Here we get our first look at the famous city pyramids on which it is built. Flanking the square is a street of houses that are slightly wonky. Richard is quick to explain this and it’s culturally heartbreaking. Apparently the Spanish conquistadors of the 1500s simply built over the pyramids, burying them under their new city construction. But overtime the physicality of the pyramids’ shape caused the ground to subside in, I guess, an almost literal glacially slow revenge.

Back at the apartment and we have some chill time before we’re out again, this time to the local town centre area and for Richard to really introduce us to this place as Halloween and the Day of the Dead emerge into the calendar.

We learn that Mexico City is made up of many many towns, all with their own town centre. We’re in the town of Coyoaca, just a little to the south – about 20 minutes’ drive – of the actual city centre. And from Richard’s place, it’s a very pleasant ten to fifteen minute walk to this town centre. So this is what we do now as we head out into the busy and celebratory streets, for Day of the Dead is indeed a celebratory occasion with all the  departed friends and family remembered in a quite spectacular way. All along  the streets we pass people in wonderful fancy dress costumes and very much in party mood. Then we emerge out into the main square. But we really don’t get to see it at all. It is absolutely packed and we walk through it as though we are leaving a concert or football match. Off to the side of the square Richard shows us the Day of the Dead exhibition that all towns have, made up of models of people and various scenes, with this one dedicated to football. Again, we don’t get massively close to it but it’s great to see. Then we’re off again and all around us are candy floss sellers. Maja just has to get one and this is our own little nod to the celebrations. But then we see the extra twist. The air is filled with strings of cotton candy with the sellers allowing their spinning open candy ovens to throw some of their contents up into the night sky. As they hover and float above our heads, people are able to put up their hands and capture some of the threads and then spin them into their own personal and free mini cotton candy, wrapped around their own hands and fingers rather than the traditional stick. Maja tries to join in but every candy thread that passes over us is just that little too high, so she has to stick with the enormous ball of it she already has. 

A walk around this for a while and Richard takes us for what will now be our dinner plans in a Mariachi restaurant bar where, as soon as we enter, it’s clear he is very well known and respected. We are led to a table in the very atmospheric and busy live room where a band is playing, but the volume is still low enough for us all to be able to talk at our table, where we are joined by Richard’s friend, Sami who also speaks excellent English.

Me and Maja love spicy food and here we are in our first evening restaurant experience in one of the homes of hot and spicy. With this, talk turns the subject and Sami blows every spice experience out of the water with his story of a friend who tried to wow everyone by munching on a Carolina Reaper pepper and ended the evening in an ambulance. Oh damn, I am just destroyed in laughter at that. Oh, just in case you don’t know, the Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper in the world. Don’t eat it. 

Not long after finishing dinner jet lag really starts to hit us so we don’t attempt the repeat walk back, instead calling a taxi.

But the night very much still isn’t over. Once back at the apartment Maja goes to bed and Sami leads the way in asking how my Spanish is. That radio interview I mentioned yesterday, that’s on Tuesday. Sami quickly shows that he really does know what he talks about and I’m not entirely sure if Richard planned this, but it certainly is very convenient and Sami is quite amazing in his enthusiasm and knowledge of how we should proceed. Yes I am jetlagged and yes we have been in party mode and yes the tequila is out. But it now all suddenly gets serious as my Spanish is put to the test. Am I ready to be trusted and thrown out in Mexican live radio? You know what? I’m really not sure, and yes, I do feel just a little bit edgy about it. And now I’m about to be put to the test. It can often be tricky when called upon to prove your language skills and your mind just goes blank.

Which happens now when Sami goes into radio presenter mode and asks his first question. Which I don’t understand at all because he uses a key word which is specific to Mexican Spanish. Oh dear. Bad start. We go again. And I stumble again, this time because I just don’t know what to say succinctly, and I explain I would have had the same issue in English. One thing this has told me immediately is that I need to have thought about at least some basic questions and how I might tackle them. Such as how did The Diaries begin, and the like.

It’s here that Sami shows his experience again and says that there will only be so many basic questions. He and Richard are envisaging a ten minute interview covering the well trodden basics because there really isn’t time for anything else in that format. How did you begin, what are your influences, where are your shows, and that’s pretty much it, with one or two other stock questions maybe added. So let’s be prepared for at least them. But now we’ve warmed up and I’ve had my first few stumbles, we try again. By now, even I’m on the side of the fence that says, Mark’s Spanish isn’t good enough for this and he told us he would work on it and that it would be. To add to the pressure, Maja has heard the fun, woken up and joined us and can see that after saying I was OK with Spanish and working with it, this is happening. But bang, right at this very moment when I really need it, my Spanish comes back and is right there at this third time of asking. Suddenly I manage to pass off a perfectly good impression of someone who speaks the language and might just be able to survive a live radio interview. Wow. Job done and Richard and Sami, not to mention me, happy. 

Maja:

Well I needed to sleep. Tomorrow is a big day and I have two 45 minute shows to sing. It’s not gonna be fun if my throat closes on me due to exhaustion. And honestly you all need to rest too. All this excitement and lack of sleep is gonna impact us badly soon.

Day three

Saturday November 1

Time for the rubber to hit the road. We have ten shows booked in over two weeks starting from today, and that is just incredible. And these aren’t little three or four songs, go in, hit them out and leave affairs. No. These are mostly 40-45 minute shows, so full-on physical affairs that will really test us and our repertoire with the needs to adapt to different circumstances and different audiences. And just to fast forward a little, because many more shows will be added to what we have now, there are a few times where we do three of these in a day.

Up to now I haven’t mentioned this next thought to Maja or anyone, what if we play the first show and it just doesn’t work? If Richard says, guys, I love you, you’re a great hang but this thing you have just doesn’t work here. Just have a nice holiday and we’ll all have a great time together but this isn’t going to work. It really could happen. That’s my apprehension and very real, anxiety really. It’s not nerves so much. We’re confident in our songs and in our performance. And our songs are set. And for performance, we know we can bring it and give it. And as long as we do that, that’s all we can do. But that’s it. That’s all we can do. We have nothing else. And if people here don’t go for it, well, they just don’t go for it. Will they? That’s the big question. And we’re also singing in a different language so for the most part the songs just have to stand for themselves. Which I think songs have to do anyway. I’m not a massive fan of that thing when you’re with someone and listening to one of their songs and they’re all insistent like, listen to the lyrics. For me, on first listen and first experience, a song has to stand up on its melody, rhythm and maybe structure. Lyrics can help pull all that together, but for actual meaning in them, I think that’s for later listens once someone is familiar with a song and wants to look deeper. But the weird thing here, and maybe it’s just me, but if lyrics are bad, they stand out and can and often do ruin a song. But if they’re good, they just sit there like that’s where they’re supposed to be and they don’t even get noticed. Again, exceptions, but yeah, that’s about it. So we’re here. We have the songs we’re going tomaira play and that isn’t going to change. Oh. Setlist choices. What to put in and the reading the room and maybe knowing what to change in there. And what will open well. Go big and overwhelm, or go small to mid and draw them in. That is something. But apart from that, what we have is what we have and it will either work or it won’t. And yeah. I do have just that little anxiety that it just might not. 

Still, when we’re on the way to that first show in the car and Richard asks if I’m nervous, I don’t hesitate and give a very casual, ‘no.’ I think and hope that calms any nerves he has because he’s putting himself and his reputation on the line here as well. The venue is Museo Yancuic, a cultural centre for children based around art, science and technology. I’ve seen some pictures online and envisage us playing in one of the activity rooms, maybe a bit like playing a gig in a library.

Into the covered carpark and we are met by Horacio and Frida. It’s really cool they’ve come out to meet us, and especially nice to meet Horacio as he’s been following our stuff online before we’ve come out here. So it feels like we have an ally in here already.

Now off to see the venue and it’s far far bigger than anything we were expecting. A big auditorium kind of place with seating for 300. Stage on the floor then the seats just rise above you. Kind of like a lecture hall. This will not be like playing a gig in a library and is far from my thoughts of playing something that would look maybe more like a classroom. From here we go past the side of the rising seats and into a dressing room underneath them. A really tidy, modern and quite wide open space, complete with our own toilet. So this is our first taste of what this is going to be like.

We’ve arrived in really good time and first thing is to set up for soundcheck. During which we’re going to try out both guitars – Richard’s, and the one we bought yesterday. We go for the one we bought. It just has a better feel for us. Actually, I love it.

I said this was a soundcheck. But there’s something else here we’ve never done before. A light check. Oh, we were introduced to two people when we got here. Right at the top of the auditorium is the technical room. In there, one guy will be running the sound desk, another will be running lights. Fine. But then we see what it really means and what Richard was asking about yesterday as things whirr up and the space around us transforms. Suddenly the huge wall behind us has been turned into a Diaries landscape. There’s our logo twenty feet high, then all kinds of swirling floral scenes begin to appear. This is the backdrop Richard was asking about and then went about setting up for us. We have never seen anything like it. Not for our performances anyway. Well, here we are. Now we understand.

Soundcheck – and lightcheck – done and we’re free for a few hours. With that, Frida takes us out into the neighbourhood streets and here we are. Out in a local barrio area of Mexico City. And it’s hot and dry and dusty. With street dogs everywhere. Even right next to the street taco place Frida brings us to. But they don’t bother us and just happily lie in the sun as our tacos come out and we have our first Mexican street food experience. Wonderful minced pork tacos made right there and then in front of us as we sit in the sun. 

Back at the venue and there’s still time for us to enjoy the place, so that’s what Maja does as we go upstairs and a couple of guys are holding a fully interactive beatboxing seminar. Every now and then they invite someone to go up with them and enjoy a short private lesson in front of everyone. And of course Maja does, also taking the opportunity to tell them, through Horacio, that we will be playing downstairs later. At 3pm.

As we go down to showtime, we enter the auditorium and it’s dark and a show is going on. A gentle puppet show. If I said it once I said it a thousand times. Put The Diaries first and puppet show last. But why are we going to an airforce base?…Oh. Sorry. Back to today.

So we mentioned this is a children’s place and for a puppet show there’s a really healthy audience. Not full, but the place looks decent. We’re thinking they are here for the duration and will stay for us and maybe be joined by a few more. Puppet show ends, lights go up, and the whole place empties. Oh. OK. We start from scratch. It’s a museum event, so we guess our audience will depend on how many people are around when we start, and then how many of them decide to come in here and check things out.

About 30 to 40 people is the answer as time is declared and we leave our dressing room and head for the stage for what is planned as a 35 to 40 minute performance. This is it. Our high energy original acoustic songs in English in front of a Mexican audience. Two songs in and a few people walk out. Another song in and another few walk outs. Which repeats during the next song. Oh no. This can’t continue. I still haven’t said anything to anyone about my thoughts on how this could go, but I’m now genuinely thinking what would happen if by the time we get to the end there’s no-one left in here. Playing original songs in front of audiences who haven’t heard you at all is, I think, one of the biggest challenges in entertainment so we know it can be tough, and we’re having to use all our experience and resilience right now to just carry on as though everything is great. Because hey, you’ve still got to bring it or you’ll lose the rest of the audience. Which is what happen. No. Not the losing the rest of the audience, but we just keep bringing it. And now the walkouts have happened, the people that are left are really into it and are totally with us. I think as we approach the last 10 minutes we finally really start to relax and enjoy it rather than doing our best to pretend we’re enjoying it. And when the last chord is hit and the show is over, the applause is warm and enthusiastic. By now we’ve even been getting a few cheers and here that is again. And when that’s done, a few people come down from the seats and immediately ask us for pictures with them. Oh wow this has been a ride of a show and certainly an experience. When it looked like we weren’t going to, we have now come through our first real test in Mexico. The rubber has hit the road and the car is still moving.

And it has to keep moving right now because our next show is in just over an hour and of course we have to get ourselves organised here, get there, and soundcheck. While Richard is keen to get moving, he doesn’t forget that we’ve just done our first show here and is quick to congratulate us and tell us he feels it went very well. And with that his phone goes. He comes out of the conversation and says that our 5pm start for the next show is now 7pm. Great. Relax, sit back and take in what we’ve just done and the fact that we did actually get through it and the audience was with us. Richard says that of course he saw the first few walk outs, but he says that what mostly likely happened is that once those people saw the show was in English they didn’t want to stick around for it. Fair enough. And yes, that does make us feel a whole lot better.

As we walk back out and across the auditorium, the soundman and light engineer come down the stairs and say that they loved it. And then here comes Horacio. He shakes both our hands then speaks to Richard for a minute or two, then he comes back and says thankyou then he’s off. Busy day. Richard says that Horacio would really like to get together and hang out with us next week. Right. That really is job done. First show down, and the more we start to think about it and the further from our minds those early walk outs become, the more we start to think that this has been a success. Now it’s time to casually make our way to the next one.

On the way Richard takes another phone call. He’s on the speakerphone and speaking Spanish so Maja doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m in the back – I’m the much smaller one. I’m always in the back. So I can’t hear too well. I try but I’m missing so many words that I just decide to pretend I don’t speak Spanish and wait for Richard to fill us both in at the same time. Once he’s done he tells us that Luis, his brother and bass player in Los Ekis may have got us a gig, and there’s also now the possibility of Los Ekis playing a gig while we’re here, and we’d support that. If that happens it will be at Richard’s own bar – El Zapata – which we’ve seen photos of but have yet to visit. It will also be outside in the garden. Oh that would be a good one to have happen.

We arrive at the next venue. A place called Faro Aragon. There will be a lot of faros in here. For that, think cultural centre. We will learn that a lot of our shows here are in faros because, like so many venues in London, if you don’t have your own following, no-one is going to be at your show. It’s not like venues have standing audiences or walk-in audiences or just people who turn up to see what’s on. No. They go because there is this one band they want to see. And if they don’t know you they ain’t going. I do see this in London a lot with people arriving all excited to be playing a London venue and then the crushing disappointment and incomprehension on their faces when they realise no-one’s come and no-one is going to. But…we’re in London. Yep. Sorry. It’s like that. There will be some exceptions, but that’s why you’ll be coming along with us to a lot of cultural centres – faros from now on. As a rule, by the nature of them being cultural centres, they’ll have other things going on, or just people passing in and out like visitors at a museum. And as such, we’ll have something of a potential audience out and about and ready to come in.

Back to Faro Aragon. Another really large building and there’s someone out in the street with a megafone telling people to go in and check out what’s going on today, and yep, we hear The Diaries in there.

In we go and there are a lot of people milling about around various exhibitions, and outside in the courtyard before entering the building there’s a traditional Mexican singing circle going. Not sure if any of these people will make up our audience, but at least they’re there.

We walk into the space we’re going to be playing and oh my, this is something like a small arena. I mean, the place is absolutely cavernous. While we’re entering there’s something of an actors’ workshop going on on the stage and people are of course able to watch. The stage is significantly raised and huge. Like a full on theatre stage. Out front I guess no-one’s expecting to fill the place. There are a load of chairs arranged in front of the stage. About five or six rows and I guess 20 or so in each row. Which would make a substantial enough audience. Through this we go to the side of the stage and walk up a ramp and into a dressing room which is bigger than some bars we’ve played. Add the toilet and shower area and it truly makes a decent sized apartment. The truly dramatic scene is to stand quite far in and look out the door through which all you can see is stage. In half an hour or so that’s going to be ours.

And then it is stage time and our second show of the day. That stage, well, we use it. And the backdrop in here. Wow. Just beyond. Even bigger than the last place. If anything, this is an exercise in how to really use a stage. You can really get up a run in here. Although I choose not to fully utilize my wireless to go out front. I tried in soundcheck just to see if I could hop back on stage. Yeah, but really not to be advised. Especially making that large step with a guitar on as well. But there’s enough up here to be going on with. A few of the actors have stayed behind and generally, people come in and out. Overall, of course we don’t fill that huge arena of a room out front, but there’s always enough of an audience filling the chairs, even with all the comings and goings. The best thing in this environment is seeing a group of five people walk in, stand behind the chairs for a while, and then all agree that yes, they’ll stay and see this one. A long way behind that is seeing the same thing and, at the same time, they all decide to walk out. But we have to remember it is a cultural centre with a lot going on. Some people really do have places to be and people to meet and are in here for the five or six minutes they have between activities or because they arrived a bit early and thought they’d check us out while they waited. Richard has taken great care to make us aware of these concepts because it would be too easy to get disheartened at people walking out or not staying. But again, we have a steady audience and some great reactions. Indeed, we don’t notice this ourselves, but afterwards Richard tells us of one guy who was kind of trying to grab the air in front of him and pull it in. With this, Richard explains, he was trying to catch our vibe. We’ll take that as compliment of the day.

OK. First day of playing and first two shows done. And we’ve been able to see that yes. What we do works here and people have been reacting well to it, even with lyrics they can’t understand. Which means the actual melodies, rhythms and structures have to do all the work. Not to mention actual performance. Looking forwards a little to tomorrow, and first thing in the morning and me and Maja have a chat about this and I admit my anxiety about this to her for the first time. She comes straight back saying that she had also been feeling the same way. But yeah, first two gigs down and we’re feeling pretty much OK with it now. It hasn’t at all fallen apart on first contact like we mildly feared it really could have done.

Back to today and we are far from finished. First, Richard is going to take us to a large cemetery where we’ll be able to see a Day Of The Dead celebration. And after that we have a house party to go to.

The cemetery. Right. This really is a big deal. We arrive, and it’s full on party time on the streets which are thronged with people as we all make our way there, buying beern to drink on the way, as everyone else is doing. Once at the cemetery, we join the hundreds and maybe thousands of people wandering the areas between graves, all of which are specially decorated, and surrounded by friends and family having their own private parties with their departed loved ones. We wander round in here for well over an hour, then go to make our way back to the car. As we do so, we see the new crowds arriving. And they really are crowds. It’s like walking against the exit of a concert. We are slo glad we arrived when we did. These people are not going to have the casual meander we had. We have no idea what kind of experience awaits them and are not sorry we will not find out. We are just very glad we got there when we did.

Now for a spectacular night drive overlooking the city as we get an on-the-ground look at the overwhelming vastness of it all. Half an hour or so of this and we’re at the house of Richard’s friends. A really big house with a lovely covered party area out front. And in there a Mariachi band is playing as we’re offered home made tacos. Yep. For their Day of the Dead houseparty, the people in this house have hired their a band. Somehow during all this I get allied up to play with them. As I write this, I have no idea how that happened, but there I am, up in front of everyone about to play with this eight or nine piece band. And on double bass. An instrument I have had hands on just three or four times, and I certainly have never played in a band with one. How it got around that I was able to do this, I repeat, I have no idea. But they go through the chord progression of the next song with me and I pick it up and am able to do something resembling a passable impression of a double bass player who knows what he’s doing. Maybe even a little more than that as I start to really feel the rhythms and put into there what I think should go. After it all and I’m back sitting down and relax, a member of the band comes up to me and says quietly, ‘You are a great musician.’ That could well be one of the finest compliments I’ve ever received.

And we’re still not done. Because once the band finishes, it’s announced it’s our turn to play. And so we get ourselves up and prepared to play our third show of the day. We stand in the middle of everyone and fire out a short set including I LIke You (Better When You’re Naked). And yes. Once more, it all hits. So now, first day really done and down and it couldn’t have been more fun, encouraging or active. Did I say active? Damne. That’s just one day. The first gigging day. We’re here for another two weeks.

We get back to the apartment and tiredness has become an exhaustion that feels like a wall. All that and we’re still at some level of jetlag with our body clocks at this late Mexican hour tuned to london time, where it is sometime mid afternoon as we sit here deep past midnight. Richard opens a beer and on hearing that satisfying crack, I go into automatic reaction and reach for one myself. At this, Maja says, Mark, please don’t. And then in some kind of tone of tired desperation says, ‘Will you please just go to bed.’ Her Scandinavian consonants mean that that final D comes out particularly strong. You know what? I think she might just have a point. I go to bed. We both do. Damn. Day one of gigging. Just wow.

Oh. But, final note from me. We’ve noticed that when Richard tells us about gigs coming up, he addresses them as ‘We’re playing.’ We just love that. We really are a team of three and we tell Richard this and tell him to please feel free to express it like that.

Maja: 

The shows have been great. I’ve been truly enjoying having some better stages to work on, with more space for movement and performance. We are by design a quite small and nimble band, but having space to move is absolutely great. I feel that my movements are getting more defined and expressive. 

I LOVE being on stage. I just do. I’m not feeling nervous or uncomfortable even though my manager insisted I was. Instead, I just look forward to it. 

There have been multiple new experiences. 

• I don’t like using ear protection with us, but at the levels we’ve had to play at today it has been necessary.
• The first soundcheck was hard. And the reverb of the auditorium made it so much harder to perform.
• Performing, I thought the gigs went well, but it is so weird to not hear ANYTHING but the guitar and vocals. I could barely even hear the counts Mark was doing to provide time for me during some of the songs. I thought it sounded a bit empty. With just us. I guess that is how it feels on a big stage. Different. Not at all what I was used to.

It was fantastic performing at the Mexican house party. People absolutely loved us. And I thought the mariachi band The Estudiantes were amazing. 

Day four

Sunday November 2

Mark:

Early on today and we discover that today’s gig is going to be on the street. No idea how that’s going to work, but OK. An outdoor show in Mexico. Fantastic. Bring it on.

Maja:

We packed too light regarding our clothes. We were planning on Mexico being hot all the time, and it mostly has been, but we’re discovering temperatures can also drop at times. Right now I’m cold, so we need to go shopping. But that’s good, because we can add some luggage on the way back and it is cheaper than buying clothes in London. And both of us really need to update our wardrobe. Mark, because he is just the worst at shopping, me, because I’ve lost weight and my clothes don’t fit me anymore. 

We have a discussion in bed this morning. We really enjoy having Richard as our manager. He is doing a great job, which is amazing. It’s amazing to get to work with someone that is actually so professional and great. But what struck me as most impactful is that most of his advice is actually good. Many people have given us advice from the best of intentions, but that advice has often been from a place of less experience about us than what we have, and of things that we either don’t want to do, or know would be bad for us. And sometimes we’ve already tried what they’re suggesting and know it doesn’t work. But Richard he, well, he just gets it. Maybe not completely yet, but he is starting to understand us, and so much quicker than just about anyone else we’ve ever met. And as he gets to know us better, we’re very confident that will improve. 

Mark:

Richard’s decided today is the day to introduce us to his bar, El Zapata, for the first time, and he says now that there’s also the possibility of us doing a show there with his band Los Ekis. OK. So that’s another gig dropped right out of the air.

Late morning and we’re in his car and on our way there for lunch. It’s in a really cool out of the way type setting, and we enter into a large ceilinged and quite large and open bar area. Through that and the place opens out into a full on really quite large garden. About a third the size of a soccer pitch with loads of different patio seating options, another bar out here, and a large raised and covered stage area over there in the corner. And if we’re to play here, that’s where we’ll play.

For lunch we’re delighted to be joined by Eduardo, trumpet player with Los Ekis. This is another joyful reunion with one of our Mexican London friends. And there’s a little more news here as we discover that Eduardo will be one of the people responsible for managing us at times when Richard isn’t able to be around. As for lunch, we go with Richard’s kitchen recommendations featuring steak and enchiladas. This first experience of real Mexican enchiladas, complete with the green chilli sauce really is special, as is the addition of a side of cactus. And the red and green sauces on the table, made in house, are just amazing with the red one explosively hot. I elect to mix it with the green one for my own creation and still massively satisfyingly hot. While the sauces here are totally of El Zapata, we’ve been seeing the same concept everywhere and I already know I’m going to miss this when we’re back in London.

And if you don’t know, and we certainly didn’t, El Zapata was a Mexican revolutionary leader and still a hero to many in Mexico today. That’s about as much Mexican history as I think I should really go into here.

This is a huge street fair and we’re walking through costumes and past stages all the way until we see our stage up ahead through the thronged street. As we approach, the man on the stage says in Spanish, And here come The Diaries who will be playing for us soon. Oh wow. I would say how’s that for an introduction, but there’s more. At the front of the five foot high stage our name is right there. The Diaries From London, England. And then the man comes down – Jose Luis – and we’re introduced to him and he presents us with bum bags on which are stamped The Diaries. Now we’re into what an honour territory. And we’re just in time as well. All that’s left is to tune up and head on up there, and once we’re in position and looking out across the street and across the endless stream of people and cars coming past, we look down and see Paco from Los Ekis on sound. We are in good hands. 

I should say here that Paco will be a recurring sound engineer for us as he works in this capacity for the council and we will later learn that it is through his contacts in the council that many of our gigs have come.

Now it’s all us as we hit the first chords of what will be another 45 minute set. As we storm through it all, we see people across the road dancing and grooving, and I also realise we’re on a 270 degree stage as, to the left and right of us we also have market stalls and people watching on. With that, we begin to play with it all, going fully left and right to give everyone a part of the show. And then Richard’s on stage taking photographs, and someone else is up on stage taking photographs and maybe a little video. And the market is happening out there with the cars and the endless stream of people walking down the road and across the stage. And then there’s us doing our thing and playing our frenetic Make Me Shine far too quickly. It really is a 360 blur of activity with us right in the middle of it all. Then, when we’re done, we are really not done. Nope. This show is just one part of our day. We’ve been part of the festival. Now it’s time to get out and see what it’s all about. And our host? The man who greeted us all at the beginning – Jose Luis.

We’re not going to make it to any shopping. There’s just too much going on here and it all feels like the experience of a lifetime and we’re so privileged to be in the middle of it all and some kind of centre of attention as we’re enthusiastically taken round the streets with Jose Luis, Richard, Paco and Eduardo. But first, coming off the stage, we’re introduced to the Queen of the festival. I’m really sorry but I don’t get her name. Photographs with her against a wonderful wall painting. And into all this comes Alex, who we met when Los Ekis were in London and who we’ve kept in touch with since. He’s playing with another band now, who are also on the bill today, and he’s made sure to be here while we’re here so that he can say hello. It’s just amazing to see him and to hang out for a while and to get a few photographs, also around this time. 

Then he has to go and get ready for his set and we’re whisked away through the colourful throngs by Jose Luis. It’s really hard to keep walking because just about every step presents another photo opportunity. Either a colourful stand, or some street art, or another amazing shrine. We do stop at a few but we have to exercise some kind of restraint or we’d probably still be there now. Into this comes another photo related regular stoppage and something of a phenomenon. People keep stopping us and asking for photos with us. We’re told we really stand out as Europeans in this Mexican fiesta and, to be fair, especially the striking, Nordic Maja. I have to accept I’m just tagging along in photos really. This is all about Maja. Looking every inch the rockstar and, just also totally different. Exotic I suppose. Which is massively ironic given that to us, everything around us is incredibly exotic. But then, I guess, that’s the contrast and the whole point when seen the other way around. Richard really nails it when he says, ‘You two look like no-one else here.’

This whole thing really is overwhelming. And all beats of the music are still kicking off everywhere. And now the band after us has started back that at the stage we recently vacated. Which means we can now hear Alex on drums, which adds just that little bit of extra special dimension, if there is possibly any extra room for dimension to be added.

Now we come to yet another incredible element of all this, and just another enormous privilege. We’re told we can go into houses. Yep. There are people along this route who have set up fantastic shrines to their departed loved ones right there in their living rooms, and everyone is welcome to come in and share in these respects. We go into a few, but it’s particularly special when we go into the house of the family of Jose Luis and are introduced to everyone. 

It’s about that time that we do a 180 and start to make our way back. And it’s not far off a repeat of our way here as we take up photo opportunities we passed up on our way here, and people continue to stop us for their own photographs, almost with increasing regularity. All the way through the other side and we say our emotional goodbyes and thankyous to Jose Luis, then we’re back at the cars and making our way back to Richard’s

And there, with the other guys having joined us, of course it’s tequila time and a lovely rounding off of the day, especially when we all do that musician thing of stumbling onto the idea of a song and develop a quite wonderful shared chorus based on one or two of Maja’s mistakes speaking Spanish to audiences. Not least her often shouting out from the stage, ‘Gracias camarones,’ instead of gracias cabrones; Cabrones is something of a term of endearment couched in a playful insult to a crowd of guys. Camarones is prawns. 

Day five

Monday November 3

Oh wow. After that epic whirlwind of four shows in two days, not to mention the amazing first few days before it all began with the unstated anxious energy and anticipation, we slowly emerge into the morning of what will be a quiet, chilled day. We’ve come through the storm and proved ourselves in front of Mexican audiences and know we can do this and it’s been an incredible experience. We were planning a spa day today, but even that just feels too energetic. Let’s just enjoy the wonderfulness of doing nothing. Not even touristing. Just around in the neighbourhood and in the apartment. 

It’s also an opportunity to me to be able to leisurely catch up on social media. This is all been a flurry of activity up to now and I’ve practically been at full stretch to keep up posting about gigs coming in, and posting about gigs done and keeping up with replying to messages coming in about it all. I’ve even been doing this on my phone in the car on our way here and there. Writing diary about it all at the same time? Forget about it. This has been social media-ing in the apartment, just managing to get finished before it’s time to leave, then just about managing to get us up to date back at the apartment before it’s time for bed or to join in the impromptu party. So yeah. I’m able to just catch up now without any freneticisms. Then we’re out and about walking casually around the neighbourhood as Richard introduces us to the fantastic local market full of exotic fruits and vegetables we’ve never seen before. The most fascinating of which is the green oranges and total lime type things which we’re constantly having to be reminded are lemons. And mini mini mini bananas. And amazing dried fruit which is like having just the most amazing sweet. But it’s fruit. 

Afterwards we have a bit more of an introductory walk around the neighbourhood and Richard takes us to the centrepiece of it all. A small and beautifully kept Japanese park, presented some years before by the Japanese ambassador to Mexico. There are a few wonderful little foot bridges over koi carp ponds and over there is a girl dressed in full on princess outfit getting her picture taken. Totally a thing here and we’re told to expect to see that a lot. With Maja’s Japanese experience and with our next travel plans set to be Japan, this is a really appropriate thing to have at our doorstep.

Among all this, Richard explains some of what we see walking around. Which is pavements suddenly burst upwards like mini mountains. Like some giant mole has sprung through the concrete and run away. This kind of thing is everywhere. Raised curbs, smashed up stones. Apparently it’s little earthquakes which happen just all the time, and it’s totally possible to wake up one day and just see your driveway totally broken up. That, and the fact that Mexico is built upon an enormous lake, and the splashing and moving water activity below sometimes causes things to break up above. And it all happens so much and so relentlessly that so much of the time, clean up or reparation just isn’t done. It just isn’t possible to keep up, and it’s probably going to happen again in a month or two anyway. So we’re just surrounded by fractures and the constant refrain to ‘Watch your step.’ Really. Do that. It could be so easy to just trip down a hole that, in our relatively pristine London surroundings, just wouldn’t be there. And we understand that this is one of the things that fascinated some of our friends here so much when they were in London. Everything was just tidy and not all broken up. 

Into the serene evening and Richard introduces us to a wonderfully Mexican film and a hugely appropriate one for us – Coco. An animated movie all centred around The Day of the Dead. What a perfect way to round off our first experience of the whole thing and, to use the word again, what an incredible privilege and experience it has been to be part of it all.

But just before putting the film on, we go through a little more prep for tomorrow morning. Which is to be an interview on national Spanish radio with celebrity interviewer Maria Letona. Celebrity in both senses of the word. Which is, she’s the one who gets all the big interviews whenever a major band is in town, and indeed, the one by whom all the major bands want to be interviewed, and she is also a celebrity in her own right. I’ve been watching videos of her and she really is cool, and is also a club DJ and magazine journalist. This is who we’ll be meeting tomorrow. After getting through our first few gigs, this feels like the last really big challenge hurdle. But again, Richard prepares us properly and says it will be a standard 10 minute piece; how did you form, what gigs are you doing, tell us about your music. So that’s what we prep. With that, we’re ready. Play Coco. So I watch that and try not to be nervous about tomorrow. I really have been working on my Spanish in the few months before coming here, and tomorrow will be the first big test of that. In front of a national audience. Go Coco.

Day 6

Tuesday November 4

Up quite early today and the first thing we hear is that another gig has been added to the agenda. But there isn’t too much time to think about that, as we have to head straight out to get to our live radio interview on Mexico’s Reactor 105FM.

That’s going to start at 11am so we’re on the road not long after nine. We really have no idea of how big a deal this is we’re walking into. But when we arrive at the studio and meet one of the DJs outside, he can’t believe it when Richard tells him we’re going in to be interviewed by Maria Letona. He repeats the whole name to make sure he actually heard it right.

Then we’re past security and into the large building, all dedicated to Reactor 105FM. It’s basically broadcasts to Mexico City, but that alone means going out to a population of 25 million people, and we’re assured that many people across the country also listen to it online. I’m not saying we’re about to go and be heard by an audience of millions, but unofficial numbers suggest the reach is consistently in the deep hundreds of thousands in Mexico City with worldwide internet users also added to that number. And within this, one of the most popular personalities is Maria Letona. 

We’re led upstairs and to a small hallway outside the studio. As we arrive, it’s off air and the door is open and there’s Maria, the personality we’ve had a bit of a look at on Youtube. Right now she’s actually talking to the DJ we just met in the carpark. We discover now that he’s the stations movie critic, so that’s what they’ll be talking about when the red light goes on again. But for now, she becomes aware of some activity out in the hallway as we arrive and turns to face us to smile and mouth hello. Then the door closes, the red light goes on and they’re back on the air again.

As we’re waiting here, a guy emerges from one of the nearby offices and approaches Richard, who introduces us to him. This is Axel, the station’s head of programming. He’s asking Richard now for a song or two of ours that he can put on the station for rotation following our interview. As he leaves, Richard is clearly hugely surprised. ‘This is not normal,’ he says. 

We don’t have time to process that because it’s now just about approaching 11am and the ad break has started and our DJ friend from earlier leaves the studio and says hi and good luck before we’re gestured in by Maria. In we go and she’s out of her chair and up to hug us and enthusiastically say hello. ‘So, you’re The Diaries.’ Oh wow. This voice has already become a little familiar to me, as has the face, so it’s really cool to be able to say hi to her now and feel such warmth coming back. She’s mid to late 20s, looks very fresh and has an easy smile and a huge charm. She really is every inch the radio and overall media star she seemed to be from afar. With this, we just settle into conversation. She speaks great English which we use more than Spanish to make it easier for Maja. And for me. Let’s not kid ourselves here. Through this chat we discover that Maria grew up in England with English as her first language. But she moved to Mexico early enough so that when she speaks English, as fluent and easy as it is to her, that wonderful Mexican accent comes through bright and clear.

But damn she’s enthusiastic about us and almost immediately starts telling us about putting our music on while she was in the shower and thinking, ‘Yes. Today is going to be a good day.’ Still off air, she coyly confesses that not every band fills her with as much enthusiasm going into an interview having heard their music, but she says she was very happy with what she heard today and is now delighted to have us there. This energy is fully received and given back and before we know it we’ve become a team of three and the red light hasn’t even gone on yet as we chat freely like old reunited friends. 

During this, the one bit of housekeeping comes up as she asks if we have a gig list she can see. We do, and Maja wrote it out super clean so that it could be read easily by someone else, ie Maria, as we plan to ask if she could read it out as she’ll be able to pronounce all the venues properly and without hesitation. ‘Of course I’ll do that for you,’ she says graciously. Brilliant. That’s that sorted. But as she reads through it she’s like, ‘You guys aren’t messing around. Most people come to Mexico for the first time and they’re like, we have this show and maybe that one. But wow, you have like ten on here already.’ Fast forward mild spoiler. Throughout our stay, Richard and his friends keep adding shows, and by the time we’ve leave Mexico City we will have played live 17 times, one of them in here. I can’t claim to have a comprehensive account of which shows were added when, partly because so many other shows get talked about which either just don’t quite materialise, or we can’t do them because they clash with something we’ve already got, or Richard knows we wouldn’t be able to make it in time. And in at least one case a show gets refused because Richard says it’s just too far away. So yeah, if we could have done every show offered, we would have sailed well past 20 for our time here.

Back to Maria reading the list in the studio. She suddenly looks up as she’s reading through it to say, ‘Wow, you have Pata Negra in here. That’s a good one to have.’ Not only that, but we’re actually headling a six band bill at Pata Negra. Of course, we will get to that. We have already been told it’s a big deal to be playing there our first time here, but it’s only really now that we fully realise that yes, it really is. 

This gig list has given Maria and us fresh impetus to talk a little more, as if we needed it really. But there it is. So much so that when the red light does go on and the interview proper begins as Maria comes back from the ad break and introduces us, there’s no feeling at all that we’re suddenly live on the radio to potentially hundreds of thousands. Instead it just feels like we’re continuing the same conversation without any break at all. Just three friends chatting energetically and having a wonderful time. And yes, I get to talk Spanish with her and she is wonderfully complimentary about it, even saying, ‘It sounds like you were born speaking Spanish.’ As compliments go, I’ll clip that one up. But Maja is here, it’s very important she’s included too and Maria happily and freely switches languages, every now and again indicating to us with a polite hand to pause so that she can tell her audience what we’ve all just been saying.

This is not what we had prepared for at all. The ten minute how did you start, tell us about your sound, where are you playing. No. This is full on special guest treatment we’re getting here. Well, 10 minutes have whizzed by and we haven’t got out of casual sparkling chat mode when Maria announces they’re going to play a song by us, and with that, Make Me Shine comes on. Some of our songs have a lot of pauses, and Make Me Shine comes to a sudden violent stop near to the end with a pause that deliberately holds longer than is comfortable, which makes the coming back in all that more impactful. However, we haven’t warned about this and when that stop comes, Maria comes right back in and the song is cut. It actually becomes a comical moment, but we really are right on it with, ‘No, the song’s not over.’ But the moment has gone, we’ve already moved on and that’s that. But we chat a little bit more, Maria enjoying the moment with us and being genuinely sorry about it too, then we’re into the ad break. Immediately Maria removes her headphones and goes, ‘Great chat guys. This is really fun. We are a team.’ Me and Maja are ecstatic and I’m just ridiculously relieved. This has been a big pressure moment weighing on me for days; through all our triumphs and passed tests, I always knew this was coming and it felt like the biggest one and that I wasn’t going to be able to relax until it was done. And even at that if it was done well and my Spanish held up. Tick tick and tick to all and every box. And we’re really not even getting started. Maria’s clearly showing no sign that we’re going to be in and out with the ten minute almost prepared questionnaire. Instead she’s chatting away to us like we were before and yeah, this is just going to roll on and on.

After the break, we’re back on the headphones and Maria announces that we’re going to play live a little later. And you know what, I don’t feel remotely nervous about this and I don’t think Maja is either. We are just so relaxed, chilled and just hugely ridiculously happy to be here. Oh, I should mention now that Richard is in here with us too, standing in the corner and just watching happily as we smash this thing all over every park and back again. Wow, this really is a long way away from our first night here when I was stumbling over my Spanish and looking every inch like I hadn’t come properly prepared and was totally flunking the test before even getting behind the wheel to attempt to drive the thing properly. Yet, here we are powersliding through all the corners on full throttle and two wheels.

In fact, it’s going so well that a little into this next on-air chat, Maria announces they’re going to have another song from us. This was definitely not prepared. By any of us. And she asks us which one we would like them to play. Now we have a real live mini chat about what song to play, which sees me even go to stand behind Maria so that I can see our playlist on her screen. Me and Maja have a totally unselfconscious chat and wonder about this before we finally settle on Freefall. Because it shows a gentler side of us and we’ve just had Make Me Shine and are in no doubt that I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) is going to be our live song. So Freefall it is. But what we’ve forgotten is that this has a whole bunch of pauses in it and we have to keep signalling that it’s not over as Maria laughingly says that all this is making her nervous as the song produces yet another slightly prolonged bout of dead air, especially in the intro to the mid section where it sounds like it’s climaxed to an ending before gently coming back in again with something completely different.

But yes, the whole song does get played this time.

Chat chat chat. English, Spanish, back to English, and then it’s live session time. With this, me and Maja stand up and prepare to fully launch into I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). Richard has warned me that my hard playing style might be a bit too much for the sensitive microphones of radio, so maybe I should tone it back a little. So I try, chunking the deadened strings for the four count into Naked. But trying to play that little bit gently means I don’t have as tight a grip on the plectrum and with the fourth sweep of the strings, on live radio, it flicks out of my hand and across the studio. In the moment I totally forget I always have spare plectrums in my back pocket for precisely this reason. So instead of smoothly reaching into my back pocket and instantly starting again, I lurch forward to retrieve the escaped plectrum from the floor, right at the feet of Maria. Having recollected both that and my thoughts, I quickly give the count again and we’re off. And we really do get into it, Maja just thundering away on the microphone over there. Also, with the loosely gripped plectrum drop having happened, all thoughts of me holding back for the delicacies of live radio have just gone and I’m powering away as much as I ever have. And it works and it sounds and feels great and Maria is there just vibing away with us the whole time.

When the song hits its triumphant final beat, and is very clearly over, Maria just throws her hands up and cheers in jubilation, proclaiming, ‘I think I do like you better when you’re naked.’

Unbelievably, this has all been going on for nearly 45 minutes and we’ve just covered so much ground and chatted excitedly over everything. With that, Maria says, ‘You know what happens when you’re having fun…Yes, time flies. We’ve come to the end now.’ With that she starts wrapping up until Richard suddenly jumps in gently and politely says, ‘We need to do the gig list.’ She stops herself midflow and says, ‘Oh, what was I thinking. Yes. We need to do the gig list.’ This is the one thing we had prepared for as though everything would pretty much centre around that. You know, the who are you, what are your influences, where are you playing, over and out. But of course this has gone so far off script, we’ve all forgotten to read the actual important part of the script. But Maria is on it and, as agreed beforehand, we give our list to her and she reads it out, and then we really are done as she thanks us, the red light goes off, and we all sit back and look around at each other. Wow. We’ve really done it and wow, that was special. Maria is sharing every bit in that as well because yes, we really have been a team of three in here. And four really as we have to count Richard who’s been there the whole time and has felt like a warm safety net underneath us if ever needed. It wasn’t, but I think knowing he was there on hand to help out is probably the reason it’s all properly worked how it has because we were maybe able to relax more, knowing there was someone to catch us if things did go slightly west. But really, they never even began to. Oh, but of course there was that one moment when he had to jump in to remind us all to do the gig list. And that was an enormously important catch. And then we also have to give a huge thanks of how this has all gone to Maria who put us so much at ease right at the beginning and made the whole thing feel easy and effortless. What a huge pro she is. I’ve been a journalist, and I’ve also done live radio – radio at the very lowest college level, but still, the job is the job. And it is not easy. And the whole journalism interviewing thing as well. Not easy and it doesn’t always sing as you would like it too, but you still have to keep it all moving. So yeah. What a total pro she is, especially given the widely held sentiment that the best people make the hard things look easy. Well, I present to you one Maria Letona.

But we’re still not quite done as she now tells us that everyone who comes in to be interviewed get their picture taken with her for their social media and then also has to do a shoutout for the station. So we line up together in front of the effervescent Reactor 105 sign, then it’s up to me to get out my Spanish once more and do the promo. Now the job really is done and the four of us spill out into the main lobby where we were nervously waiting less than an hour before. We’re joined by their social media person Dulce who took the pictures and did the filming, and there’s a lovely quick group chat out there before Maria really does have to rush off. She has another assignment to get to for her magazine writing. The life of an on the go adrenaline fueled media personality. Her and Maja in particular part as long lost and new found friends.

Richard waits until we’re down the stairs and safely outside and out of anyone’s earshot before he says, ‘This just does not happen. Forty-five minutes and three songs. For a new band in town. No. This is not normal. Well done guys.’

Well, how to cover the rest of the day? Certainly not in as much detail as all that or we’ll never get out of it, and the park and museum visit about to come up would in normal circumstances be worth an entry all of its own.

First, in celebratory mood, he takes us to an amazing steak restaurant. The kind of place they bring out a selection of raw steaks for you to choose from.

Yes, this really does feel like a celebration. I’m sure there are more tests to come, but coming into all this, we were looking at this as the last big bump. And over it we now totally are.

After the restaurant Richard takes us to Bosque de Chapultepec, the huge central park of Mexico. A wonderful walk through here and we come to the National Museum of Anthropology which has objects dating right back to the Mayas. Yep, after whom Maja was actually named. In here we also learn about Zapata, after whom Richard’s bar is named. Back outside again and we come to the viewing platform from where we can look over a huge swathe of this almost impossibly vast city. It really is hard to take in the scale of this place, but this is as good a place as any to start.

And when it’s time to buy drinks, I discover the quite wonderful flavoured fizzy water of Topo Chico. This becomes an instant favourite and something I will constantly seek out during our time here. Today is pink grapefruit flavour. Quite brilliant and I already know I will miss this greatly when the time comes to leave. 

But for now, the only place we have to leave is this park as we head to a semi outdoor bar right outside a replica of Madrid’s famous Cibeles roundabout. I used to live right down the road from the real thing, and Maja got to see that too when we were in Madrid right about this time last year.

After this we head back to Richard’s neighbourhood of Coyocan, but the day isn’t over yet as he takes us to the town centre area here and into the Irish bar they have. Here, we sit very contentedly at the bar and try to take in just what happened today. As one of our very own songs says, another Oh what a day.

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.