Just a quick update to say that as with my first night in Barcelona I spent another night walking the streets looking without success for a place to play. I ended up going to check out the Jazz-Si bar/club where I plan to play on Sunday as I knew that there was a flamenco evening there and I decided that if this fabulous city with nowhere to play was entirely dead musically, at least I could become a spectator for a while.
But when I entered Jazz-Si and heard the fabulous flamenco guitarist and the singing, I stood in the entrance for a few minutes trying to figure out how I could get from there into the room in order to be able to see the musician as well. The room, in other words, was jam packed full of people and I could not see how to get it, and subsequently I could not decide whether it was worth paying the price of the 5 euro or so ticket. But I really wanted to record some footage for the blog.
In the end, the man in charge standing behind the bar started making menacing signs to me as if I was trying to take advantage of standing in the entrance to listen to the music and get out of paying for a ticket. He spoke no English and I tried nevertheless to explain that I could not see, with a crowd like that, how I could get in to see and listen correctly. But he just made even more menacing signs at me – a very Latin raising of the hand and flicking about of the fingers and palm – and I decided that he had come to the conclusion that clearly because I had a guitar on my back I must be a no-good for anything scoundrel trying to weasel his way into the bar. So I left.
Hope things go better there tomorrow when I actually try to play….
On the other hand, with the volcanic ash deciding to avoid every bit of Europe except northern Spain and a flight back to Paris on Monday being anything but certain, part of me wonders if I should try to take a night train back to Paris tomorrow and miss the jam. I doubt it. And I have faith this volcanic cloud will pass elsewhere this time…. Please, please do!!!
In the meantime, I have a lead on a club tonight. So maybe I’ll get lucky this time….