Blog: Garden of Hidden
Fernando’s blog post:
When we reach Ottawa, Canada’s capitol, for the final run of the tour (tomorrow we wrap it up at Toronto’s Mod Club, which will be already a taste of home, since this club is located near the Portuguese area of the city-Little Portugal-) the Sun is up and shining. I really don’t care if the brightest star is mocking us after weeks of dark skies and snow storms. It feels good and I exit our tourbus as soon as I am awake and go for a walk downtown, to think about life.
In three days time I will be home. I will have another tour to show for, whatever that’s worth.I will be very happy when I pick up my son up for the first time in very long days. I will be jet-legged, and even a bit sick on the stomach when i sit down to eat a proper dinner, of homemade food. In a couple of days I will catch up, my internal temperature will regulate, my hours of sleep as well. I am sure I will not be thinking about the tour anymore but looking forward to do new things both personally and with the band.
Not that we have something to regret about this tour. It wasn’t, for sure, a walk in the park and there were many problems, complains, egos, impositions, long travels but, for our band, at least, the compensations came and they are too good not to be mentioned: our fans shredding and singing along every night, packed or not; our friends making it easy for us bringing us food,drinks, herbal entertainment and their priceless company. The shows: all focused, all good, very few mistakes and problems,more passion than anything else. And, of course, all the thoughts in my mind, all that I have learnt about people, about bands, about how they work,the different mentalities. The way people get around. Every time I tour, I can’t help feeling I am on a special band, with special people and that I would not fit anywhere else. Moonspell is the perfect chaos and order cocktail.
Yesterday I was sitting at the quite depressive room in Montreal, Canada, while a girl, a stranger to us, spilled her beans about everything from her relationship with her Dad to her use of liquor. I felt uncomfortable. She could be my little cousin or my little sis and I simply don’t get why would someone use her privacy to break the ice. Actually,she was freezing up the room. When I lighted up a green cigarette,she is telling all of us that we should be doing salvia instead.Not weed. Add that to some strange story about a native Canadian appeal to eat for seal meat and she bore the mark for the night.For such a young girl, it’s quite impossible to have all that life experience, I thought,always oblivious to how the Internet and viral culture, poses, for these hyper-storytellers, as a substitute for real experience. The problem is that we do have to keep track and check on reality as often as possible. It’s easy to get lost and a simple” Hi! My name is…can I hang out for a while? I’m alone.” would have been more than sufficient and a lot more solar.
My life has a lot of fantasy as well. But I know where I came from. My sister still lives there and I check back every other week for dinner and for the cousins to play. I know where I am going to. I even have people expecting me.
The other day in Kansas City I got a bit drunk after show. All day I was oozing around and when I was on stage I thought to myself: “we’ll never make it in the US. We don’t have the right music. ” After this spontaneous and silent thought, it was like the room has heard me and people just started going nuts at the show, slam pit and all. A couple of days after we had a full room in NYC, probably in the best show we ever had in the US of A. How bizarre. Now, entering, the Ritual Club in Ottawa for before-last gig, I see the prohibition everywhere. No stagediving, no smoking, no this, no that. I just wish that they would put so much effort and thought on cleaning up and making it presentable for the working bands, crews and later the ticket buyers. If you want to smoke, go freeze your ass outside. In the meanwhile, you can throw the empty bottles everywhere. Maybe we are living in a kind of Garden of Eden allegory, with moral and hygienic keepers popping secretly up from all places, unaware that with all their prohibition, manners, fixed ideas, and plain bullshit, they are rotting faster inside than that apple they wanted to eat but scrupulously kept up the tree, waiting for a better day.
That day won’t come. But me, I am going home.
