Arctic Monkeys Mexico 2010

It’s been a few weeks since my last post and that’s because nothing interesting had happened until two days ago. My alarm clock went off at 4:30 like any other day except for the fact that it was finally April 21 2010, the day the Arctic Monkeys were gonna play at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City. I had bought my tickets almost 2 months ago and the weekend before the concert I made a trip to Cuernavaca to ask Muff if shed like to go with me (she said yes  ). I went to school that day and at 4:00pm after my last class I asked Balero to give me a ride to the CAPU bus station in Puebla, I bought a ticket on the first bus to Mexico City witch was at 4:45 so I had enough time to eat a cemita before leaving. Once on the bus I was very excited and couldn’t wait to get there, the ride felt like it lasted forever and they played a movie called Waitress witch was kind of bad.

I arrived at Taxquña (the bus station in Mexico) at around 7pm, so there I was standing alone in the biggest city in the world with only my concert ticket in my right pocket. I went outside the bus station and took a cab to the stadium, the driver was a nice dude and we talked about how he once had to drive someone all the way to Veracruz and how he charged him 500dls. He dropped me of at the main entrance but it was closed so I followed a group of punks that seemed to know where they were going, we walked around to the other side of the stadium and there was a crowd of people standing in line and buying shirts in the parking lot.

I sat down on the sidewalk and called Muff to tell her I was there but she didn’t answer, 20 minutes later an awesome motorcycle roars into the parking lot and screeches to a halt in front of me, at first I didn’t recognize who it was because of the helmets but then the little person riding on the back jumps of and takes her helmet of waving her blond hair around while giving me the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, Muff had arrived and I just wanted everyone there to turn around and stare so I could tell them she was there with me. She was wearing purple jeans and a yellow shirt with a VW bus print on it and what were once Converse sneakers but now she had painted them, she told me Irune had something to do with all that.

We went to get in line and talked for about half an hour before the let us, once we had crossed the gate and the metal detectors we ran for it and got a decent place around the middle, we stood there while the place filled up and soon we were all super crowded, the concert was supposed to begin at 10pm but it was almost midnight and there was no sign of them anywhere and the crowd was getting very pissed of (I later found out it was all due to horrible planning by Hache Producciones who were in charge of organizing the whole thing). Maybe you wont understand just by reading this but making a wild kid like Muff wait for 3+ hours standing up in the middle of 15000 people is NOT a good idea, after jamming a piece of gum into some poor rockers hair for no reason at all other then the bad luck of being in front of her (she did this twice), the barking, punching, and leaning on other people were the least of my worries. The only good thing of standing there for so long was when she told me we were standing on something and when we picked it up it turned out to be an Arctic Monkey’s shirt; yeah we stole it and decided to give it to Irune since she could come with us.

Finally at around 12:30 the Monkeys take the stage and the crowd goes fucking wild jumping and moving around like waves, I just held on to Muff to make sure she didn’t fall and tried to keep her from getting shoved by the people around us. They played songs from there new album which we didn’t know the lyrics to but whenever they played an old one we would sing along at the top of our lungs and jump around, at the end of every song Muff would scream so loud she left me deaf. The song list was (not in order): ‘Dance Little Liar´, `Brianstorm´, `My Propeller´, `Still Take You Home´, `I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor´, `Pretty Visitors´, `Cornerstone´, `When the Sun Goes Down´, `If You Were There, Beware´, `Do Me a Favour´, `Crying Lightning´, `This House is a Circus´, ´Fluorescent Adolescent´ and `505´.

In the end it felt like it lasted very little in comparison to the time they had us waiting but the lads played very good and the sound quality was ok. We went to get some water and bought some posters before I left her with her dad and then got on a cab to try to find Jutsy’s flat where I was going to spend the night. I had never been there before and even though I had the address that doesn’t help much in a city this big. After driving around for a while (and 150 pesos later) I honestly don’t know how the hell I did it but I managed to find his department building and made it all the way up to room 304 were Yannick opened the door to let me in.

The next day Jutsy woke me up because he had to leave for class so I walked around a bit trying to get a little closer to the bus station so the cab wouldn’t charge me that much (I was running low on cash). After that I took the 9:45am bus back to Puebla and miraculously still had enough money to get to my flat (ok I was 2 pesos short but the driver said it was ok).

In the end it was a fantastic little adventure that ill never forget, not so much because of the concert but due to the fact that I was able to spend some time with my favorite person doing something different and exciting, it will definitely not be the last time we do this and I cant wait for the next one. Right now its Friday 11:30am, two days after that night and I’m typing this while I lay on my bed and listen to some Arctic Monkeys on my stereo and for the millionth time in the last two days I read the little sticker she put on my phone and smile because I know I can believe what it says.

Anti-pop fest 2010

So I did go out yesterday night and I guess it was ok but I didn’t have as much fun as I could have because I was still feeling a little ill from Friday. We went to this place in Cholula called “Pulque para dos” (I know, it’s the worst name ever). Its probably the second most underground/ghetto place I’ve ever been to, only second to “La Factoria” where I wouldn’t be surprised if 3 people died the night I was there but ill tell you about that some other time. Anyway first we had planed to go to Container City but when we got there it was packed so they suggested we try P.P.D, when we got there it looked like a small place but there were people standing outside and you could here loud rock music being played live so we paid the 25 pesos cover and got stamped like 4 times on the wrists (so now we look like Jews at camp).

Once inside we ran into this other girl who my friend new and boy was she hot (red hair and everything) and to my surprise the place was actually pretty big, I think the theme they were aiming for was post zombie apocalypse wasteland. First of all it was crowded, maybe around 200 people but everyone either had 3 tattoos on their face or was missing an eye or smelled like they hadn’t showered in a month, I’m talking about a real, raw, rock hungry, “look at me the wrong way and ill stab you” kind of crowd (yeah, I was happy).

The building was like a mix between an old bomb shelter and an ancient English sewer, with the old brick walls and everything. The stage was in the middle all the way back against the wall and the bar was in the left corner opposite to the bathrooms, of course like any other good “rat-hole” bar the only thing you order is the one liter “caguama” beer for 20 pesos. There are no tables, just a few broken down couches far away from the stage so that there’s enough space for the mosh-pit and oh yeah, there was a green life size statue of a cow (this is where ill just give up trying to describe the place).

We got there in time to hear half of the last song by a group whose frontman had obviously been practicing throwing the mic and spinning it around by the cord, after they got of stage this other band goes on with a very good looking female singer. The band played well and the drummer was beating the shit out of the kit but you just could hear the girl, the only reason I knew she had begun singing was because I could see her mouth moving and apparently I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t here her because the crowd started booing them halfway through their second song. After about another 3 painfully embarrassing songs they finally stepped of stage to give way to these two sort of crowd pumpers for the main headliners of the night.

They screamed around a bit and held a turbo “caguama” drinking tag team contest. By now it was around 1:00 am and you couldn’t fit another soul inside when all of a sudden “The Stoners” take the stage and everyone went wild. The singer was this fat funny looking dude with a Scottish kilt and black boots on; the drummer looked exactly like the one from Foo Fighters and I don’t remember what the others were like. They had top of the line gear complete with a Fender, an Epiphone, a Pearl drum kit and Marshall amps. They played for about 90 minutes and I was surprised to hear that all of their songs were in English.

Everyone got really fiered up and started jumping around while I was doing my best not to spill my beer; it’s a tricky thing trying to drink out of one of those big glass bottles when they’re all wet while everyone bumps into you and to do it with one hand because only rookies use two. Inevitably this dude came hurling toward me and bumped what was left of my beer on the floor, that’s when I lost it and dove into the mosh-pit to unleash my fury (big-ass mistake) after about just 5 shoves this guy picks me up by the legs and sends me flying, I slam on the ground and everyone was ready to start kicking but I literally bounced back on my feet and got out of there as fast as I could.

After “The Stoners” left, the place emptied out a bit and another group went up, they were a bunch of kids with a lead singer who was way to drunk and/or high and who insisted on talking about his songs as if anyone there gave a crap but when he finally shut up the music was ok. They played their songs and left. It was around 2:30 am now and yet another group was gonna play (by then I had realized that we had accidentally stumbled into the Anti-pop Fest 2010). We just heard the first song and called it a night. Lets see what awaits us this week. Until next time. Stay sexy.

Good show at R.P.

Alright kidos what’s up?? Hope you all had a gnarly week. Mine was just plain old normal until Thursday came around the corner. At school I handed in all the paper work I had to do for my scholarship application, I hope I do get it, that way ill have more bar-money heheh. Anyway after my last class I was gonna go home and eat but then I remembered that my roomie somehow managed to fry the microwave and since my culinary skills only go as far as defrosting fish-fingers I made the wise decision to pay a visit to my friends over at Coquitos bar and see if they could fix something up for me. When I got there I bumped into Pau at the door, she was on her way home because she had gotten temporarily suspended for having ditched work the day before to move into her new house. She was nice enough to go back in and accompany me while I ate, Neus was at the bar as usual and they recommended I ordered the lasagna (the image of my moms lasagna popped into my head) so I got that and when I saw it I realized the huge mistake I had made. It was more like a soup with lots of shrimps and other sorts of sea food (im not a fan of sea food) but it was already served so I did the only thing I could do, order a cold beer and suck it up. After that I offered Pau a ride home because it was raining by then (a good thing because I hadn’t washed my car in over two weeks) and then I came home. I was just chilling out here with my music watching Balero and Mike getting all dressed up to gout with Nidia and her friends when Ely called and said “hey bugger-face im on my way to your house, were going out” so I was like “alright!!”, after about ten minutes she arrived with a friend of hers but as usual I cant remember her name haha. We went to RockPub and had some beers and then this really good band began to play, I was surprised at how good they were (yeah I can’t remember their name either) and it was extra impressive because they played their own songs and they even had fireworks going off on stage. They reminded of Franz Ferdinand and the dude that sang even looked like him and moved like him. After that its all a big-ass blur, I just remember that I was attempting to play pool with some girls and then I just woke up on my bed. I hope I didn’t do anything dumb but I still have all my hair and both of my kidneys so I think it all went well. Now I’m off to meet a friend of mine who invited me out because her cousins came to visit her from i.d.c. where. Until next time, stay classy people.

Music Monday Vol. 3

God dam it, I did it again. I just couldn’t find time to post music Monday yesterday but it was for a very good reason so it’s ok. Now it’s Tuesday and I’m sick and my nose hurts but we have a very good song today which was requested by a little girl from the audience (who happens to be my co-pilot at RadioRul) and boy did she pick a good song. Its “I am the highway” by American rock band Audioslave. Now I wouldn’t call myself a fan of this band but the few songs I have listened to (mainly the singles) aren’t bad at all and I kind of feel bummed out about having missed their concert when they came to Mexico. The song appears in their eponymous debut studio album released November 19th 2002 and shares the spotlight with other great songs such as “Show me how to live” and “Like a stone”. The album reached #7 on billboards 2002, Top 200 and was produced my music legend Rick Rubin. The group dissolved in 2007 after Chris Cornell (former Soundgarden frontman) issued a statement announcing his departure due to irresolvable personality conflicts. All that we can do now is just sit back and enjoy the three albums they left us and this incredible tune. Until next time. Stay cool.

A day at the Zoo

Oh man, vacations are over and I have to go back to school tomorrow, it’s not that bad but I just don’t want to get up early. Aarrrggg. Overall I did absolutely nothing in Cuerna, just went out a couple of times with Brun and then to a pool party at the twins house, I bumped into Mariana at a bar one night and it was nice to see her after such a long time. She cut her hair super short but she looks as pretty as always. The only bad thing is that I wasn’t able to go out with muff but oh well, ill make up for it in the summer. I came back to Puebla on Thursday and just hung around here listening to music and reading. On Saturday I went to the zoo and it was cool, lots of animals (you don’t say, really?!) running around but it was full of Mexicans yuk (hahaha) just kidding but it was super crowded and since its like a Jurassic park kind of idea were you go around in your car there was long line of cars everywhere. The bad thing is that there are no gorillas or walrus , what I most enjoyed were the tigers and two huge-ass rhinos. I took a bunch of pics, here are some of them hope you like them (I honestly don’t give a crap if you like them or not). Have a nice week. Until next time. Stay groovy.