Here is the story of what probably was one of the happiest moments of my life.
All started when, one week before the concert, they selected us as the opening
band for
ZWAN. This was followed by a massive
amount of events and I ended up extremely stressed… Finally we departed to Madrid
pretty happy but also really nervous. We arrived on time to La Riviera (a lovely
concert hall) for the sound check. They gave us a big dressing room. Our contact
there told us we had been very lucky because ZWAN had asked for four and La
Riviera has only three. Mckey, the person responsible for the event, told us
it was surprising that they had lent us one dressing room. Typically, foreign
bands do not do so. There seemed to be good feelings… Then, Mckey told us they
were lending us their sound equipment and technicians. There was going to be
a charge for this but they were going to make an exception and it was going
to be pretty cheap. We really appreciated their kindness and started to relax,
while eating all the fruit and candies that Mckey left in the dressing room
and chatting with our technicians, Clockwork (web master of LILITH and other
great bands in Spain) among them. Suddenly, something awesome happened! The
great JIMMY CHAMBERLAIN (former
SMASHING
PUMPKINGS' drummer and current ZWAN's drummer) showed up at the door of
our dressing room and said: 'I can't wait to hear you'. I was so fascinated
that I was unable to ask him for a signature. After then there was scenes of
mutual kindness among bands. ZWAN's technical team would smile to us and say
something to invite us to talk with them. Unfortunately, we could not go beyond
that because our English is not fluent enough and we were too nervous to improvise.
Mckey thought we could not do the sound check because ZWAN started theirs too
late and he was afraid they would not finish until 8 p.m., when the doors were
scheduled to be opened, leaving the opening band with no time for their sound
check (which is what typically happens in these situations). But finally, ZWAN
left the stage at 7 p.m., allowing us to work with their technicians for an
hour, the same time they had spent. I delighted them with a The Velvet Underground's
song a capela. I finished the song shouting while their technicians where nodding
like a hairy heavy gang. And then the best of all: after our sound check the
technicians decided to charge us half of what they had agreed before. Everything
could not go better, could it? Well, in fact, yes, it could go better!! The
time to start the show arrived (by the way, we were not late for the show, the
schedule was changed and we finally had to start at 9 p.m. and so we did). They
had whished us luck. The concert was going excellent. The crowd seemed to like
LILITH from the first song. Whenever we raised our hands (Wayne's World style)
they responded enthusiastically. But they were not the only ones. In the backstage,
the whole ZWAN band was watching us. While in the middle of the show, they made
a sign of approval and encouragement to us, and I responded (I am not sure if
the crowd realized I was gesticulating towards the backstage). We finished our
performance three minutes before scheduled (it is better to finish before than
after) and then, the best of the best: they decided they were not going to charge
us anything for the technicians!!! This is really love at first sight… isn't
it? As you know, ZWAN performed later and the crowd was completely excited…it
was wonderful!! There I was jumping like crazy when ZWAN's road manager came
to me and told me: "I really hope I will hear you again live", and after a hug
he added: "You have to survive". Since all this touched me deeply, I had to
retire to our dressing room for a while. There was my drummer, the guitar player
and Mckey, who said that in twenty years he has been in this business, he had
never seen an American band treating so nicely a national opening band. And
Antonio told him the sweet anecdotes of his tour with
DEEP
PURPLE, with whom he experienced something similar. After ZWAN's concert,
my band talked to them. I did not because I was on the floor with some friends
from Valencia that belong to a band called
MAYBE
ROAD (great band!!) and then I met Aioma and El templario del perro (some
friends of the
portALTERNATIVO
forum) and we chatted for a while. It seemed I was not going to be able to talk
to Billy, but luckily the person in charge of translating in our team managed
to get him to sign my copy of Siamese Dream and he told Billy how amazed I was
in 1995 when I first listened to his album. I said: "This really sounds different
from everything I have listened to before" (during the 90's there was a few
bands whose sound was different) and our team member told this to Billy. The
doors were closing. We were all at the exit and suddenly Billy shows up in a
long coat and with a hat covering his ears (Northern Exposure's style). He came
to me!!! He brought me aside and he told me (heavenly words): "Good singing".
I left with a long Paz (ex-
A PERFECT
CIRCLE) Lechantin's smile after saying goodbye to her and shaking hands
with Billy. This is the end of the story. I only want to say that nobody knows
how tough it is being in this profession and never being recognized from both
a material and spiritual point of view. You sacrifice everything in life for
this… And suddenly, one day, a huge celebrity comes, a world idol, a great musician,
and tells you this…this is like touching Heaven…only because of him it has been
worth all the effort during these years of work…A kiss to everyone, in special
to
ZWAN.
