Hello sinister, It’s been a while since I did any REPORTING BACK but as I have been to see our fellow beloveds twice in less than a week, I suppose I should pull my ever-increasing weight. Isa thinks enough has been said about Glasgae so I shall skip that and head off to the sunnier and drier climate of Barcelona. Or so I believed. I went about things a slightly odd way, getting the train to Paris, meeting up with Elena the frog, getting the Train to paris and then being picked by Frederic and driving to Barcelona in what was, for my pale English skin, blistering heat. The reason was a question of money, and I convinced myself that it was a good way to “see France”. Of course you can see a country from its motorways. We arrived, met up with the wonderful company of Maria, Jordi, Nal and Aitor dropped our bags off and went out to....queue. It was somewhat reminiscent of the bowlie extravanganza only there was no impromptu entertainment from any of Belle & Sebastian. Instead our entertainment came in the form of a couple from Tolouse who were out of their tetes on something or other. Oh, and I have to admit that the fact the queue was packed with very pretty girls was an added bonus, though it goes without saying that none compared to our own Maria and Elena. It was clearly going to be an eventful weekend, we realised this when the entry system involved having a magnetic card which was then associated with your finger prints and to enter the venue you had to first register your finger prints with your card (hence the queue) and then whenever you entered both were checked. I think I am now known as Paul “Freaky Fingers” Field as this took around....100 scans of my fingers on the Friday night and resulted in my missing the go betweens and half of yo la tengo. So I suppose I have half of it. To cut to the chase, B&S were fantastic. The only slight dissapointment was that the playlist was very similar to the prior week in Glasgow - but as Nal pointed out, the band probably thought nobody was stupid enough to go to both. The only difference that sprang to my mind was the inclusion of “get me away from here” in spain. I was glad to stay. Stuart was once again resplendent in silver scuds and wearing a tight tshirt showing off his pecs and biceps. I almost wanted to fall into his arms myself. The night ended with an encore and another cover version to add to the list - a joint effort between Belle and sebastian and teenage fanclub of Big Star’s “September gurls” Then...after being awake for almost 24 hours it was time to sleep. For all of 6 hours before it started again with the realisation that I had left my camera at the gig after they had taken it off me saying I wasn’t allowed it in the venue. We went off to see Pipas give a typically nigh on shambolic yet still charming performance before doing a bit of the old tourist route which I shan’t bore you with as this isn’t a rough guide. Then saturday night came and so did the rain. How often does it rain in Barcelona? I don’t live there, I’ve never been there before, but I am sure it’s not bloody often. We went to see loads of bands but I shan’t list them as you’ll all get horribly jealous and want to stab me. Or maybe fuck me with knives. It amounts to the same thing I am sure. I will say Sonic Youth rocked with a captical RRR in places but will tedious and dull in other places, I loved wire but I stood alone in that opinion. I thought Fred was with me until we left the tent and he smiled and took his earplugs out. I have never been a fan of the white stripes but they were admitttedly rather good and RRR ocked too though they did tread dangerously close to led zepellin style warbling at times. Oh, and the camera. Yup, it had been stolen. Yo la tengo? ¿quién lo tiene? And now, even though its 9pm, its time for bed. Hopefully until Broadcast on Friday... Adios Amigos, Paul __________________________________________________ It's Samaritans' Week. Help Samaritans help others. Call 08709 000032 to give or donate online now at http://www.samaritans.org/support/donations.shtm +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+