wake up in castellon and decide to run for the train. am gonna investigate the town of tarragona only just over an hour away.

me and the Blackman woman continue some texting, as i am trying to get her in on the aarhus festival i am partially curating in august. and when anyone sees my ancient cell phone from the 90s i plucked up along the way a while back, they all comment it’s the one from the matrix. but today when it happens (by a russian train traveler) it occurs to me the woman i am texting was in one of those matrix movies. never saw the one.

anyhow. the device is in correlation with the necessary dream like visual aids lining the path onward.

now in terragona, i leave the station perplexed. walk alone. i am no good alone. i am perfect alone. it’s a kind of familiar madness that seems to need me for company. the town is ok.

one of those nestled up against the sea with no easy access to it. it gets explained to me way later that the mentality by the locals was always to prefer to look away from the sea, since it was always a given. its not until just recently, historically speaking, that folks figured there’s some worth there. so. i walk around the town and investigate where the family will come for the last show here and stay a few days. oblige my curiosity the ancient roman ruins. about 2500 years old. then back on the train to castellon.

the gypsies are arriving late. sounds perfect to me. thøger will be the only on time for sound check now. but he is used to that, being on time, because of his innate danishness.  common trait there, being on time. i arrive train happenstancingly late, but still get in a check before gypsies arrive.

when they burst through the doors it feels like christmas to me. such a great gift to play with them. so we set up and barely go over anything. but the doors are opening. we beat it off the stage in time to suck a cola, and maybe change into some kind of elegance, at least from a distance.

then they are taking the stage, and i am still wrangling something to wear, arriving the usual 3 seconds before curtain call.

we commence by juan panki and lin starting alone the groove to  “4 door maverick” (based upon the last bit of advice i remember rainer giving me on what car to buy before he got sick from cancer.)

first 5 songs were done just as we are, with anil on cajon and fernando keeping beats with graveled eggs and production cues.

then we bring out raimundo and his strength of guitar is herculean.

and the show goes and goes and we all hang on. everything sounding fine and a sold out theater to absorb.

i try to end the set with a suspicious version of “light my fire” that owes more to jose feliciano then the doors, but it’s a secret homage to the first album i ever bought .. even though it was by mistake, i am finally getting revenge for such trajectory.

but the new chords i throw in there has everyone twitching a brow.

when we come back for encore, i hit the piano solo for a small while and apparently the gypsies love when i do that. it’s the only thing i can do to really lose them and have them love it.

after the show a shower backstage that is worthy of thankful prayer.

then we head out to a massive long table to dinner with everyone. on the way there i ride alone with the promoter, and he happens to be playing the acoustic portion of neil young’s “rust never sleeps”. its astonishingly good. “pochohontas, marlon brando and me” actually gives me motion sickness trying to hang on to his slipstream imagery.

it gives me such great satisfaction that this was the guy i chose as a kid to lead the way. but then a tear forms when i think of this fellow next to me driving listening and loving the same music that he can’t possibly understand the lyrical details to, no matter how clever. still it appeals. how did this happen ? it holds the secret to why any of us come over here and play so very much so very well. damn.

dinner was a giant plank of a table in the back of a restaurant and it is spectacular gather with the gypsy posse.

and then joan and me head for the midnight train, late and right on time. we just about make it.

the train leaves at 23:59 for granada. it’s a sleeper and it feels like luxury. me and joan talk over the order of the day. loves and songs. deaths and wrongs. we drink the wine and nibble acetunas. the lull of the tracks favors us.

a fine nights sleep.