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.
