I have just got out of bed after getting home at three and spending half an hour scrubbing the shit (well, dust) off. I still have grit in my eyes, my throat is coated in a fine layer of stoneware, and my snot is as black as a Londoner's. This is what it is to go to festivals and outdoor concerts in Portugal - dust. Not the knee deep squelchy mud of festivals in Britain, but all-pervading air-borne dust, this time from a mix between sand and earth in a big field near Lagoa de Albufeira, which is normally a twenty minute drive away from me.
Yesterday afternoon, it took an hour to get to Super Bock Super Rock, even taking the back roads that not that many people know about. We left at five, because I was going to have a tantrum if missed Stereophonics at seven oclock. I have had fantasies about putting tiny Kelly Jones in a cage in my kitchen so I he can sing gravellily whenever I prod him .... but that's what ipods are for, I s'pose. Driving in to the enormous car park field, it was impossible to see much other than dust. Dust in the air, dust on the staff, already wearing facemasks and scarves, dust on the parked cars. Me being the slob I am, I think this is amusing. The friend who went with me is more Portuguese about dirt.
After a quick feel-up by a sour-faced policelady who confiscated the lid to my bottle of water ("Why?" "Because blah blah blah blah" "oh, ok..." well, she had one of those faces that you don't ask more than once) we were in with time to have a wander before Messers Stereophonics began. It was all very Super Bock, BES, EDP, etc., and a shit LOAD of food. One could have been forgiven for thinking that the only reason the Portuguese EVER go out is to eat (it IS the only reason the Portuguese do ANYTHING) .... where there's food, there's queuing.
Them there Stereophonics were great. We were right up front, and I finally realised just HOW tiny tiny Kelly Jones is, but just as adorable and just as gravelly... I don't know how he manages to not lose his throat entirely. The five of them on stage and the crew all had a great time between themselves, which compensated for the not exactly huge (but enthusiastic) crowd and everyone was very happy that they played "Maybe Tomorrow" and "Have a nice Day".
When they finished, we wandered off to enjoy the dust a little more.
More dust.
Some more dust.
Then a beer. OH, god, I shouldn't have, because then there was THE LOO, which, although not the latrine of the eighties, WAS absolutely grotesque, like an individual plastic sun-warmed latrine full of poo.
Some more dust.
Some sitting and some sitting and some sitting, which included a lot of taking the piss out of everyone. We are bad.
As the evening went on, The Nationals and Spoon did their thing, which we ignored - I have energy enough for jiggling about and "woooooo-ing" for only two popular beat combos per day - and the crowds grew and grew, until there were a good 30,000 people there.... and the crowds WERE ALL OLD PEOPLE.
So, old means over 35. But when we were 17, that was damned old. That was "holy shit, who's that loser, why's he hanging round with US?, he's always got some dope, I s'pose, but damn, he's weird and creepy" old. There WERE people under 35, but more fun to see were the older ones. There were people in their forties (yes, me), a woman who I recognised from somewhere, probably some "famous people are great" magazine, whose teen daughters were incapable of eating with their mouths shut, plenty of leathery tias in their fifties who would be horrified if I told them that they looked like the gypsies they despise, gentle looking people in their sixties, and some in their seventies, looking at odds with their doner kebabs.... a very un-festival crowd. It was funny.
Half past eleven, and we wandered down towards the main stage which was already pretty full. We were close enough for Prince to be slightly larger than a large ant. That was ok.
Just before midnight, that ludicrous symbol appeared on the side screens and the backscreen and WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
More WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! and some intro music played as the New Power Generation (they're STILL called that) got themselves onto the stage.... bear in mind that I had decided that this was going to be a heap of shit, that Prince has gone too far up himself and Jehovah to be even remotely enjoyable (see here) .... Prince stepped onto the stage and my mouth, entirely of its own volition, grinned like a mad box of dominoes (my mouth IS that shape). I remembered all of a sudden that when your hero from when you were fourteen steps onto a stage in front of you it doesn't matter one fig roll that he is the biggest kook EVER and his apolitics and religion and conspiracy theories are kind of questionable and idiotic....
I had no idea what he was going to play. Convinced he was going to do his latest album which I haven't heard, but hear is pretty much THE BIBLE, and that it was going to be a bit dull, I planted myself in my horribly gritty-on-the-inside shoes, prepared to be slightly bored but happy, because I was just a hundred metres from Prince... something I never thought would happen.
"Dearly belov-ed, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life...."
HOLY SHIT, everyone realised, he was actually going to do THE HITS, the good stuff, the sugar.....as he started on "Let's Go Crazy", did "Delirious", went on to "1999", "Little Red Corvette".... oh who GIVES a shit that he's a Jehovah's Witness Conspiracy Theorist Nutjob, he's still absolutely bloody well the best showman.... "You Got the Look", "Kiss", "Nothing Compares 2U" and some crowd pleasing stuff with the absolutely gorgeous Ana Moura (she's a fadista... but she's a GOOD fadista. There's a difference) .... ok, things about his lyrics and style don't match up with his religion, he's weird, he's lost in Planet Prince (see Kevin Smith's talk about Prince on ytube) but FOR GOD'S SAKE, A FOUR MINUTE INTRO TO PURPLE RAIN HAS JUST BEGUN, I have goosepimples ALL OVER, and I KNOW that, as soon as he gets back on stage and starts to sing "I never meant to cause you any sorrow....", I'm going to CRY.
A huge paisley shaped tear fell down my cheek.
Prince thought it was a GOOD idea to get 30,000 people to do the "woooooooo, woooo, oooo, ooooo," bit of Purple Rain.... for about five minutes, until we all felt very VERY silly doing it.
After that there were a few more songs - he KNOWS how to work a crowd, that fellah, and his smile still lights up the stage - and he finished after two hours, having screamed out "DO I LOVE YOU, PORTUGAL???!!!"
"YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!"
"DO YOU LOVE ME, PORTUGAL??????!!!!!"
"YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!"
"DO WE ALL LOVE GOD, PORTUGAL?????????!!!!!!!!"
"er... well, yeah, well, I guess, meh.......kinda"
"DO WE ALL LOVE GOD, PORTUGAL?????????!!!!!!!!"
"yeeessss"
He is mad. He is still tiny but beautiful in a not very-masculine-at-all way with a horrible taste in satin pyjamas. He is still a total nutjob. He is still quite far up himself.
Of course, I felt I had to reciprocate the stupid.
This is also an experiment in internet stupid.
Why is it that the absolutely stupidest things get seen, passed around, emailed, facebooked, tweeted, etc.'ed more than other stuff?
So this is my bit of stupid, dedicated to all the stupid on the internet. I fully expect it to go viral. Unlike anything else I ever bloody do. *sulks*
[disclaimer: I am a musical know-very-little. I can't and don't know or care what is "cool" or even "good" in music. I just know what touches me]
I'm a bit excited.
I'm very excited, actually, but I'm trying to retain a tiny bit of cool (the tiny bit IS quite tiny, I know, I know I'm the uncoolest person ever, I've been reminded of this regularly ever since I was a teenager).
I'm going to see Prince perform on Sunday, at the Super Bock Super Rock (pron. SoopAIR Bock SoopAIR Rrrrrrock) thingy, at Meco. Holding it at Meco makes it sound groovy for Meco has mysteriously attained a certain air of grooviness about it.... but the festival is actually next to Lagoa de Albufeira, which is not groovy and a bit icky, but hey, that's PR for you.
Stereophonics are also playing on the same bill on Sunday, which I'm equally excited about, but I'm not WORRIED about them....
I fell in love with Prince when I was fourteen. In love with his music, at least. I have never really been able to fall in love with him because he is TOO short for me. I've rarely had boyfs who are much taller than me, but I feel like an ugly horse when I'm with someone shorter than me. So I decided never to date Prince. His music was never short, though, so I loved him for that. It was the insane of it that I loved and the this-does-not-sound-like-anything-elseness of it... that is, until Sign of the Times came out and he went way to far over to the R&B scale of things for me. Modern (80's onwards) R&B sends my head into a bucket for its dreary predictableness. 1999, Purple Rain and Around the World in a Day were what I loved and still love.
I've been avoiding reading any reviews of the shows he's done on this tour, because I don't like to be pre-disappointed. I WANT to love it. I'm worried that I'll hate it.
I'm hoping that he will have returned to doing stuff like he used to, pre-R&B-and-faux-rapping, making sounds that noone else could, being utterly kooky, and mad, and oh.... but he's a Jehovah's Witness. Jehovah's Witness are annoying. Jehovah's witnesses have some very silly ideas. Prince has two hips that need replacing, but he won't because he's a Jehovah's Witness and they, as we all know, if we've ever watched an episode of Casualty or ER, don't do blood tranfusions. Which is silly. If they want to be silly on their time, FINE. But this is Prince, my childhood musical hero and I want to be screaming "THANK YOU, PRINCE, FOR BEING GOOD AGAIN".
I was really annoyed that I had to miss “Limpar Portugal” day on Saturday as we had to go elsewhere, but well done to everyone who joined in. Limpar Portugal is an iniciative thought up and organised by a group of friends that rallied the country into a day of picking up the crap that is EVERYWHERE. I was also really annoyed to read that some companies used the knowledge that 100,000 people were going out into the woods and roadsides this weekend to dump their rubbish the day before. What a bunch of utter scumbags.
This country really does my head in. We (I’ve been here almost 11 years, I can say “we” now, don’t you think?) are facing bankruptcy and a good spanking from headmistress Angela Merkel, and rely massively on tourism, yet still it is necessary for a volunteer organisation to take it upon itself to tidy the place up. Keeping the place looking good should be second nature. It should also be damnably easy: partly because Portugal is fantastically beautiful anyway (especially where there aren’t any bloody humans) and partly because the Portuguese are fanatically clean, tidy and keen to keep up appearances. Look inside the majority of Portuguese homes (not mine, mine’s a disaster) and you’ll not find a doily out of place, but as soon as you step outside, you may well step in someone else’s rubbish, falling down beautiful building, builders’ rubble or dog shit.
The last couple of weekends were spent away from home, that’s why I missed out on sticking on my wellies and rubber gloves and mucking in with the best of them in the nearby woodland. And I was reminded of something else that ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH (Sorry, my headmistressly ways are coming out again…. bring back Vitriolica!). For the first weekend we were in the Alentejo, for pleasure, the second in the Algarve, for work of sorts (not mine, his) (gosh, the Algarve is an ODD place. For me, it’s like visiting a slightly different country that isn’t quite Portugal, what with all the Union flags and cod and chips and estate agents’ billboards in English and German. I know it’s not ALL like that, but what an awfully pervasive presence the Northern European has there… I bet you could live there for ten years without coming face to face with a farinheira…, but back to the thing…..).
After many years of being somewhere, one gets used to things… or resigned to them. I am slightly inured to the ways of the grumpy Portuguese whose job it is to provide a service, but ONLY SLIGHTLY. I mean the people who work in cafés, supermarkets, clothes shops, restaurants, hotels, banks, oh, you know, pretty much everybody, everywhere. I must say, before I go on, that things HAVE been getting better in recent years… much to do with the big corps. and the brazilian invasion (I insist you read this before you read on) and when I get a girl behind the reception desk at a hotel easily saying “good afternoon, how can I help you” with a polite smile on her face I am thrilled to see that things really are getting better… only to have my hopes of service greatness dashed as she immediately drops the smile as she thinks she has done her job and hands me the room key without even looking me in the eye.
Whenever I go somewhere new I am uncomfortable. Take a hotel. I don’t know where stuff is. None of us do. Where’s the room? Where’s the bar? Where is the breakfast room? Where’s the swimming pool? I don’t want to be lead by the hand and given a sweetie, but when I ask you where the entrance to the pool is, I do want you to make me feel welcome to use the damn thing and kindly point me in the right direction… I do NOT want you to look at me like I just asked if it was ok to take a shit on the floor. I haven’t been here before. YOU have, because YOU work here. It is YOUR job to make me feel welcome so that I will come back, will direct friends to your hotel, will spend more money with you while I’m here. It’s not that I want you to be subservient to me… I just want to feel WELCOME to come and spend MONEY that will pay your bloody wages.
Is your hotel food utter crap? Because if it is, you’re an idiot, because sometimes I want to go to a hotel, not just to go out and explore, but to use as a retreat and stay IN for a day because I’m knackered and don’t want to drive, walk, cook etc., i.e. the stuff I normally do at home, the stuff I’m escaping from, and will pay good money to not have to go and find a restaurant nearby.
I know I’m talking from a foreigner’s perspective… the history professor doesn’t even notice the less than perfect service in many cases, but that’s kind of the point. Portugal is SO in need of money at the moment, because we might be saying hello to the escudo again soon if we’re not careful, and foreigners have to be made to feel welcome to spend their escudos or euros if we’re REALLY lucky.
Also, could you PLEASE get over this LOOKS thing. If someone comes into your shop, looking a bit crap because she has a busy life and doesn’t have time every day to put on full makeup and dress up for the opera, BUT speaks VERY politely and friendlily (?) to you, could you PLEASE not treat her like scumbag and be monumentally rude, because she would have bought that very expensive bottle of perfume from you for her moth-in-law’s special birthday, but now has told all her friends not to shop with you, and will be sticking her tongue out at you every time she passes your shop, you horrible, badger-haired old bag. EVERYONE WILL SEE MY ENORMOUS TONGUE.
In the spirit of “Limpar Portugal” I suggest a “Bloody well be NICE” day. Tourist season is upon us, and we needs their money. I’m kind of being serious. Who’s up for it?
A really beautiful song by idiot johnson with a video by me. Hope you like it. The song is available on iTunes, just search for Idiot Johnson. myspace.com/idiotjohnson
If you like my films, please retweet them, embed them in blog posts, facebook them, anything to spread the word,.... otherwise it's just going to be my 21st birthday party all over again, and we DON'T want that....
