Strangely the flight to Barcelona seemed to take up more of the day than the trip to Madrid had yesterday. By the time I was in my hotel it was about 4pm and after a much needed sleep it was almost time for the gig. Of course that was the benefit of setting off early and gigging so late yesterday, but the price was overbearing tiredness which stayed with me right through the day.
I had only had some fruit for breakfast and decided I would rather sleep than have a late lunch, so by 7.30 when I met up with Stephen for dinner I was really hungry. And the couple of hours sleep I had had, had made me more groggy and spaced out and sleepy than before. I am very impressed with myself for writing a sentence with 3 hads in a row there. I donÂ’t think I have ever achieved that before. ItÂ’s quite satisfying.
Alas the restaurants of Barcelona do not seem to open until 8.30, so we trudged around for three quarters of an hour looking for somewhere decent that was open. This was not what I needed at this point. There was no fuel in the tank and I was sleepy and a bit grumpy and we criss-crossed back and forth across town, coming to another closed restaurant and I got hungrier and more tired and more grumpy. As Stephen lived in the town I was a bit surprised that he hadnÂ’t anticipated this and when he suggested we head to the theatre, do the sound check and then come back to look for food I told him that I really couldnÂ’t face walking anywhere else and that I really needed to eat and that I didnÂ’t think it was really necessary for me to do a sound check as this was just a stand up gig. ItÂ’s the closest to a diva strop that I have got for some time and it was still a fair way away from that, but I was genuinely irritated and if I had had to go anywhere else that was closed at this point I might have hit the inoffensive promoter in his stupid face.
ItÂ’s amazing how an empty stomach can affect your mood, but this endless walking and frustration was not the best warm up for a performance.
Finally we settled in a perfectly nice terrace outside a bar and ordered some food. It took ages to arrive and I thought I might pass out, but finally I got some food inside me and the world seemed a better place.
Stephen dashed off to organise things at the venue, but we had been joined by a friend of mine who lives locally and so I drank and chatted to her. Stephen had drawn her a crude map to explain where the venue was, but when we set off with twenty minutes to go before the gig we managed to get lost and I again found myself traipsing around BarcelonaÂ’s back streets. I thought that maybe I was in a special kind of Hell that would never end. All the locals that we asked for directions, sent us different ways and it was through luck rather than judgement that we finally found our way to the gig.
It was a lovely room and packed out and despite being tired and a little grumpy I managed to get the adrenaline going and had a fun time. Although the audience was a little shocked by some of it, they seemed to go along with it and it was a second good foreign gig in a row, which was a surprise!
After we went drinking cocktails and absinthe in little bars in the city, which I had seen very little of, apart from the back streets. The absinthe didnÂ’t send me blind, though surely helped speed my travels to the Land of Nod. As if I needed any help with that.
It was with some consternation that I realised I would be in Nottingham tomorrow night. Of course I would be. It makes logical sense to do these two towns in a row and doesnÂ’t make a already tiring weekend even more difficult. Still half a script to write too. Wish me luck.
