The Villa in Valencia
April 28th, 2012 by FezThe potent waft of orange blossom and honeysuckle breezing through this Spanish villa meeting the succulent kitchen contribution of asparagus, cauliflower and artichoke bathing in olive oil from the oversized paella pan in the kitchen where the best parties always end up in an intoxicating diversion from the rigors of the road the last few days.
Our host, Pistola and his amigos graciously invited and led us here. Fortunately, our gig tonight in Villareal is less than a two hour drive, but I guarantee you it will be muy difícil to leave this paradise in the orange groves of Valencia. I could see myself staying here for an extended sabbatical.
Last night’s gig in Valencia at the Durango club was spectacular. The band was on fire, and we had a bevy of Spanish beauties join us onstage to dance for the encore numbers. I’m sure that shit’ll end up on YouTube soon enough.
Certainly I always post about the good times and misadventures, and rarely do I post about the humdrum drives, the bickering, and other everyday routines that go into touring. It seems like it’s all fun and games, but make no mistake, this is WORK. One of the last few nights, some girls were trying to drag us to a disco after party, which fair enough coulda been fun, but my companions and I were somewhat exhausted. I said, “I’d love to come, but we still have work to do now and tomorrow.”
She said (en español) something to the effect of “you only worked two hours tonight” — I really had to think about it, and tried in my broken ‘gringlish’ to explain what went into the alleged two hours of work, which included waking up after 5 hours of sleep, reorganizing the tetris packing of the highway schooner, throwing out trash and cleaning the public van space, driving 6 hours directly to the club, unloading equipment, scrambling to grab a quick sandwich while soundczecking, playing a few songs to get the sound right, stuffing a backpack full of beer and snacks for later consumption, organizing everyone back to the bus, driving around in circles trying to follow an outdated gps to the hotel, checking in, dealing with incompetent and frightened hotel staff, squeezing in a 20 minute power nap, showering, shaving, making ourselves purty, following locals to our designated restaurant, eating a nice dinner then rushing off to the club to start our 2 hour set a half hour late, afterwards, drying off, signing autographs, talking to all the people as best we can with the mishmash of known languages, looking out for our personal bags, coats, equipment, each other, packing equipment from the stage, organizing plans for loading/partying, physically loading the van, Tetris again, all the while trying not to get too fucked up in the process that we can’t find our way back to the hotel… So next time someone says, “you call that WORK?” — I will backhand slap him/her.
That being said, it’s the rare little excursions like this that make it all worth the hassle. 
