Playin’ solitaire ’til dawn with a deck of 51
Our stay in beautiful Juarez had been extended for a few hours. Instead of taking an early afternoon Aero California flight to Mexico City, we were taking an early evening Mexicana flight. We were given the reason that Aero California “was not a good airline.” However true that is or was, it would mean we wouldn’t see a hotel in Mexico City until after 11:00 that night, possibly midnight. The gear was being shipped back to Mexico City via a freight company. When I asked HLB about piece counts I was told not to worry about it. So I didn’t. To quote the Goddess of Mon Beach at the big rock show, “I am SO over this right now…”
I slept until about 1:00 the next afternoon. I needed the rest. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging. We gathered late afternoon for the trip to the aero puerto. Same as before, we leave an hour ahead of the rest of the party with the luggage and passports. As we milled around in the bar watching American football on the El Paso ABC affliate, Mr Friend found his way to our table. He was there to offer advice. “Don’t smuggle anything through the airport” was the advice. No shit Sherlock. Not that we had anything we’d need to smuggle. And we are smart enough not to try. He was insistent, “Really, they have guards, with guns. This isn’t like in the States.” The hell you say! Not like the States? Good thing he told me or I might not have figured it out. This guy had worn out his welcome. I excused him with a dismissive hand gesture, the brush off move. Geez, that was helpful advice. Right up there with don’t stab yourself in the forehead with a fork. It wasn’t so much the advice, but the fact he thought we might try to smuggle something. Our first gig was at night, but it wasn’t last night.
We get into the van and the driver, one of the now infamous “got lost for an hour in Chihuahua” guys states that only four, including him are to go to the airport. I’m thinking maybe this time it is a language thing and he doesn’t understand there’ll be six of us on this trip. It’s not a language thing, he’s stating he’ll take no more than four. Whatever, dude. I love Carlos, but he really needs to work on this transportation issue. Never enough room. They end up taking yet another row of seats out of the van to fit the luggage. Good thing we didn’t have the gear. They put the seat in the lobby of the hotel. None of the staff seem too concerned about it. We think it’s kind of funny, cheap entertainment watching them deal with it. As we get in the van, driver says “only four” to which prod dude responds, “yeah, right”. We motor away from the “American Party Jr”.
It was a rustic little airport, though they did have a proper jetway and departure lounge. There was a small customs/immigration desk. There seemed to be some issue, as Carlos, the local driver and the customs dude were conversing and looking at the papers. They finally let us in. It was set up so you had to clear customs before you went to the counter to check in. I didn’t realize it at the time and basically bypassed the whole thing. No one noticed. I didn’t notice until I had turned around in line at the counter and noticed everyone was being screened. When I went through there wasn’t anybody there. We checked the bags, got our boarding passes and headed to the gate. While the facilities were modern, they didn’t let you into the departure lounge until about a half hour prior to the flight. We had nearly an hour to kill so we retired to the bar where we ate mexican food and I drank Red Bull. As we went to board the flight, we had to pass through yet another immigration check point at the security screening. I was the first one through, or so I thought until I saw they had Chucho behind one of the screens, taking him apart. The flight was going to be packed, I boarded and racked out for the duration of the flight.
Mexico City, just as I remembered it. We’d been coming to town for at least a day every week now. We’d have a day off, do “Thee Big Gig” of the tour, another travel day to the coastal city of Vera Cruz for the final show. A new set of locals met us at baggage claim. Quickly six of us were rushed off to awaiting transportation. It was supposed to be six, it turned out to be only four of us. The crew. We were sheparded to the airport taxi van line and placed in a van three slots back from the front van. What the hell? We sat there for about 20 mins. What was the hurry? Seems that yet again the transportation was fubar. At this point, I almost didn’t give a shit. And I mean almost. They finally got us to the hotel, shortly after 11:00. The Reforma was dead. Dead as disco. Since the crew slept the entire flight and most of that day, we agreed to head out into the city. It’s Sunday night, not much is happening. The Cuban joint is shut, so we head to the bar at the “American Party” where we’d stayed while we were here doing the TV show. They refused to serve us, they were closing, though it was about 75 minutes prior to the posted closing hour. Lighting dude told them we had been flying all day and had just gotten into the hotel. Pretty much the truth, yet they though we were staying at the hotel. They agreed to serve us a round, that later turned to two rounds. Just after midnight and we were returning to the hotel. Shit… We were given the location of three other bars open, but they were for locals only. No gringos. We didn’t feel like forcing the issue or heading to Zona Rosa where there are bars that always welcome gringos, particularly gringos with excess cash on hand.
The next day, Monday, was an off day. After sleeping until after 11:00, and enjoying the included breakfast I hit out on the city with lighting dude. For lunch we hit the Cuban place. It simply rocks. Great service, food and drinks stiffer than a guy dying from asphyxiation. FOH dude joined us halfway through lunch. After lunch, we decided to troll Zona Rosa. While in the Zona Rosa, we stopped and an Internet cafe. It was 150 pesos an hour, or about a buck ten US per hour. Tons better than the hotel. There were CD burners, Kazaa and several other tools available to us. Others were downloading porn and burning it to CD, along with pirated music. The place was hopping. We did a couple hours, only about three bucks and were on our way. I also discovered that rover.roaddog.com had crashed and I had no email. I wasn’t about to try it from this place. No telling what kind of keystroke monitoring was going on. We returned to the hotel after a stop at Carl’s Jr for some burgers. All that porn and file sharing made me hungry. I napped until early evening.
I woke about 6:00 pm and made some calls to the other troops. No one was in. No matter, what I wanted to do was explore the bowels of Zona Rosa and it might be best to do that alone. That area is notorious for clip joint strip clubs and hustlers and casas de citas. I can hold my own, and little bit of anyone else’s. I had a pretty eventful evening that night. Clubs, bars and well, a couple of other places that provided good middle aged roadie entertainment. And at a very, very reasonable price. Hell, even you young fuckers would have been entertained. No, really. I thought I knew the lay of the land. I figured I’d take a short cut from Zona Rosa to the Reforma. Except that when I thought I was on the main drag, Paseo de la Reforma, I didn’t recognize a thing. I only had about 10 pesos left and had no fucking idea where I was. Nice.
I always leave my passport, cards and cash I don’t want to spend locked up in the hotel. I had about a buck and a photocopy of my passport with me. This could suck less. When traveling abroad, I always pride myself in keeping in touch with my surroundings. Of course, with the exception of my little run it with Russian mafia types in Budepest in 2000. Ask Briggs, he’ll tell you the story. Cost us nearly a grand, and we didn’t even get blown. Anyway, I was lost as shit in Mexico City, pretty drunk and broke as a motherfucker. Pretty much a new guy move. How did I allow that to happen? I circled around and within a half hour or so spotted the Reforma skyline and was able to triangulate back to where I needed to be. It got a bit tense there for a while. I was in a place where some white guys might not want to tread. At more than two meters and nearly 150 kilos, I was probably OK. The American conversion could be described and one big, fat bastard. The pissed off look was icing on the cake, though many say that is my normal expresssion. I could have been up shit creek without a paddle, or a boat for that matter. I made it back to the Hotel Gran Melia and consumed some beverages from the mini bar. I dodged a bullet. Must be good roadie karma. Lobby call was at 8:45, in at the gig at 9:00. No onsite catering or beverage service. Brutal, dude, brutal…
The next morning at 9:15 we decided to call the errant member of our party. Seems he overslept. We grab the promoter provided van and head for the gig. It’s a big, real gig. I did this gig in ‘95 with another band. We survey the situation. No truss, no Par cans. Movers will be in at noon. Our consoles aren’t there but our processing and a few of the crew from our touring production are there. Seems as a cost saving measure, HLB is using the pair of 4ks in the house, augmented by a pair of Ramsas for support. There was support on this gig, something we did not normally do. It was a twelve piece latin band. Yep, twelve, as in 10 plus 2 musos… The rig was a bunch of powered Meyer stuff and a dozen 12AMs that I wouldn’t use. It’s all about the ears on this gig, baby.
My guy at the venue introduces himself. I don’t remember his name. He (Raphael?) gets the info to patch the stage. I’m still tweaked abit about HLB telling me I’d have my H3k and showing up and there is 4k. It’s only a gig. I can do the job on this gear quite well, it’s just the point of being told one thing and getting there only to find out something different. Again, or should I say still. I’m ready to go home, only two more left. It’s a gig that I can do regardless of what piece of shit they throw at me. At least it’s a 4k. My guy (Miguel?) starts patching. It’s a real gig, the venue is pretty well together.
We are well into the setup when some dude that looks like he fell out of a Minolta ad starts to snap some pics of me at the console. I give him my standard no pictures spiel. I don’t like being photographed, unless I’m naked, of course. Or with Paris Hilton. From basically out of nowhere Mr Friend appears. “No, it’s OK” he says enthusiastically.
“No pictures please, have a nice day” I drone without looking up as I continue presetting the console.
“It is OK, he’s from Soundcheck Magazine and he’s doing a story and interview with you guys” was the explaination.
“Not with me he’s not” is my reply. This time I manage to look up and give them a bit of a smile, just so I wasn’t being too rude. This is the first any of us have heard of it. I wasn’t about to do a translated interview in a mag I don’t read at the last minute without knowing the angle of the story or why they wanted to talk to us. While there are some very good trade pub articles, much if it I think is questionable at best. Basically product placements. If we are working with a manufacturer on a product (though after publishing the blog I doubt I’ll get many more calls for that) or with a sound company on something like a new technology that’s one thing. While our guy is known for some legendary work, our gig is pretty much like thousands of other gigs out there. Ain’t no big thing. FOH dude provided the mag with some quotes and specs. After a couple of hours we’ve had enough, line check most of it and leave squint boy to focus. We’re heading back to the hotel, we’ll be back at 3:00 pm. Then again, we may get lucky and the world would end before then.
We get back to the gig about an hour before the band. The support act is set up on the what is now the raised portion of the orchestra pit. They are using the house Ramsa. The feedback is deafing. The Monitor Mel is having a hard time. That sucks. They sort it just before our band arrives for soundcheck. At the check I ask the star for his acoustic guitar so I can check it prior to use. It seems he doesn’t have it. It “went with the gear”. So how about that piece count, Carlos? That’s right, we’d lost the stars acoustic guitar. Us wanting to count the shit doesn’t seem so bad right now. Does it? I guess that piece count was important after all. Who’da thunk it? I mean, besides our entire crew. We basically had little say over how things went at this point. That’s actually an exageration. We really had no say. HLB did what he wanted and we just got to tag along. A couple of calls were made and the wayward axe was located in the storage closet at the hotel in Juarez. Seems as one of our band guys took it to the last hotel after the gig, and left instructions at the desk for them to give it to the boss when he came back. Support dudes would loan us a guitar and Chucho was able to get a replacement wireless rig in time for the show. I had the receiver but the packs for the guitar were in the case.
We finished check and I headed for the crew room to kick back for a bit. The facility is pretty nice. It’s basically the Radio City Music Hall of Mexico. Plenty of real dressing rooms, appointed nicely. The staff seemed to be organized and professional. I hid out in the crew room until showtime, which was delayed by support going over about 20 mins or so. The schedule called for them to do a 15 min set, but with that many people in the band, we knew they weren’t going to do 15 mins. The soundcheck was nearly an hour. I found out later that they told them to play until they were told to stop. There was still a line outside the building. That was the real reason for the delay. I wanted to get some pics of the room, etc but when I stepped out in front of the curtain about 15 mins prior to support, security wouldn’t let me.
Like all the other shows, the fans enjoyed it and now that we once again had proper production after our fiasco in the North, it was pretty uneventful from a technical standpoint. House security freaked when the band invited several hundred people onto the lowered portion of the pit. All the high dollar tix were sold and had HLB told our prod dude the situation, we could have seated perhaps 50 to 100 in that area. The gap was about 30 plus feet to the front row. If we raised the pit and put the band out there, there would have been issues with lighting and they also would have been 20 ft or so downstage of the PA. As the crowd packed the lowered pit with encouragement from the band, I wondered if the hydraulic system of the pit could support a few hundred, but since they might put a 100 piece orchesta with instruments, etc on that same platform, I though it was probably going to be OK. The real issue and the reason security was freaked, was due to the stage front being stage black scrim. The edge from where the pit raised and lowered from the stage had no hard boundry. There was a 4 ft or so vertical gap which if anyone had fallen through, would have resulted in a tumble of another 10 ft or so. Wouldn’t be fun, though compared to some things we’d seen in a couple of the low budget buildings this was a non issue. Things turned out fine, though for a while there were some pretty frassled security guards.
There was a big shindig after show, of which the crew did attended this time. I split about an hour after I got there. Others carried until the wee hours of the morning. A good time was had by all. We had only one show left and I was looking forward to the tour to end. Normally I don’t like it when tours end. This time I didn’t mind.