Road Journal - Michael Katon Tour - 3/2/14

3/2/14 – Our last gig of the tour was in Vittoria, Spain at the appropriately named Helldorado…a great big warehouse of a place in a warehouse district. We loaded in with the help of one of the opening bands and their large and genial tour manager Heavy D, who had been ferrying these young Australians around Europe for a few months. The Helldorado is really a classic rock palace…very few places to sit, a big bar, a huge stage, and a VIP area upstairs with a catwalk to the lighting booths and offices. Behind the stage was the dressing room, pretty large as well, and a good thing too since there were 3 bands playing and we were sharing the space. As usual, of course, you don’t leave too much precious stuff unattended, no matter how nice everybody is. Don’t want an unhappy moment later! But it’s a fine place to change and relax, have a beer, and talk with the other acts.

Backstage at Helldorado.

 We got done pretty quickly with soundcheck (with a good crew, it’s not hard at all) and drove through the crowded streets to our hotel. Once again, Tanya had to drive blocks away to park the damn tourbus, and of course it’s raining, too. Plus, to complicate matters even more, it’s Carnival season and many of the roads are blocked off to accommodate the many parades and crowds of partiers. Carnival is essentially the Mardi Gras of Europe, and they celebrate it very intensely indeed…it must go on for weeks. Here in Spain I’ve seen some of the most elaborate costumes ever. And people dress alike much of the time…sometimes because they’re all part of a float crew, but apparently also just because they like to do that with their friends and families. So you’ll see a knot of Musketeers go by, then several pandas, a guy dressed as a rooster, and some people in mushroom costumes. It’s pretty surreal. Sadly, with the rain most people are covering these get-ups with clear plastic ponchos, which diminishes their effect somewhat. I assume there are indoor parties happening as well that will be going on, well into the morning.

Helldorado from the catwalk.

 And for even MORE complication, the promoter had arranged us to have dinner at someplace far from both the hotel and the club!! I would have much preferred to eat at the extremely nice hotel we were being put up in (4-star accommodations! Such a nice thing for a last gig with this exhausted band), but perhaps he had an in with the restaurant or something. Anyway, we managed with some difficulty to get to the eatery, and it was indeed very nice…I think the Australian band was already playing at Helldorado, but the second group, a rock ensemble from Sweden, was eating when we got there and very kindly gave us tips on the menu and what they’d found good. Very nice guys! So we had an excellent meal, and made it back to the Helldorado in plenty of time for our showtime, which was scheduled at 1 AM! It’s kind of crazy in Spain. 

Helldorado stage from the catwalk.

Being there early allowed us to check out our Swedish friends band, whose name I’ve forgotten if I ever knew it, alas. We stood up on the catwalk above the crowd with some Spanish beer and watched their set. They were a good, extremely well rehearsed group, reminiscent of Deep Purple perhaps. The stage show was, to us, hilariously histrionic, and they ended their show all grouped around the drummer, guitars in the air, in a highly practiced pose. But the crowd loved ‘em, and they were rocking just fine! I knew we’d follow them with some power…we had been honing our playing all through the tour, and we were well ready.

Final encore of the tour, with hats.

It was definitely our best show of the tour…we really put out all we had for them there! Mike, Bee and I pulled out all the stops and went over the top for this performance. It’s always the state I want to be in, when you’re onstage, where the music is just flowing through you like some Cosmic essence, and you’re not thinking about it at all, you’re really just a vehicle for something more, something much bigger. That’s how I was feeling! The Blues were extra greasy, the Rock was heavier, the hits were harder, the dynamics were more three-dimensional, and everything sounded amazing. Mike was rocking masterfully and his slide playing was just wonderful…he’s gotten better and better over the course of the tour, now he’s sort of a force of nature, like a tornado or hurricane. It didn’t hurt that we had a great, rowdy, crazy crowd of over three hundred people, too!! They’d been at it since 8 that night and they were still going strong when we came on. They were shouting and screaming, totally ready for the Boogie we had in store. The energy bounded back from us to them and back, building in intensity till I thought I might just blow up…and that might not be a bad thing, I figured. There are worse fates. On our final encore, the crazed bar owner (he was out of his mind, by the way, on drink and who knows what – and Spanish too, remember, which makes for Extra Crazy) jumped onstage and jammed a sombrero on Mike’s head, and some crazy oversize Biker Leather Daddy hat on me, to finish off the night with some style. There’s some video of that I’ll try to include when I post this, it may be the only film record of Katon in a sombrero anywhere. A memorable night!! We got back to our beautiful hotel rooms at about 6 in the morning, and people were still out on the streets in costume, drifting in and out of nightclubs, socializing and partying. As I said, Carnival Madness!  But for us, we’ve got to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep…and then we drive non-stop to the Netherlands!! 

My 7th floor suite in Vittoria. Man, I loved that room!