Nuble

Last night I went to a local concert here in Salamanca, Spain. This time, however, it was more of what I would call a real concert. It was held at a bar by the name of Cafe Destroy, the band was Nuble something or other.

The bar was similiar to a standard bar in the states, it had two section that were only separated by 3 steps down and a hand railing. The band was setup towards the back of the bar on a stage that was situation on the lower section of the bar. The show was slated to start at 11:00 but, like all shows, it really started close to midnight. I arrived at 11pm and noticed a flock of young espa?oles in front of the bar, regardless of my age I went into the bar. Inside I was still one of the oldest people in the crowd but the closer to midnight it got the larger the group of "my people" got. The average age of the teenagers was about approximately 16 (16 is the legal drinking age in Spain) and the average age of those in the 20s was approximately 25. The band members all appeared to be between 17 and 20.

I was thrown back in time when I looked at the band, ok just listen to the description. The drummer was the darkest one of the club with somewhat long dark black hair, he played a standard drum set. The lead guitarist had shoulder length brown hair and played an acoustic guitar. The bass player though, ok pay attention, was pretty white had curly blond hair (was definitely spanish though) and played a blonde Fender P-Bass. What?s more is that the bassist was the most outgoing of the group and slapped his bass like no other, he was pretty talented. The guitarist on the other side was about my height had hair just past his ears, hadn?t shaved in a few days and was somewhat tan but still pretty white. He played an double-humbucker Ibanez guitar with?a Floyd Rose tremolo, locking nuts and painted a sparkly gray. It was pretty interesting to seem them because they honestly looked pretty similiar to Chris, Dale and I.

The crowd was awesome though. A lot of the kids had longer hair, shoulder length or attempting to grow it to shoulder length. They were the standard t-shirt and jeans. I saw a Steve Vai shirt, Led Zeppelin, The Cure and a few other American band shirts mostly bands were traditional rock. In Salamanca it is easy to find a club/bar that is filled with english speakers from Holland, France, England, Taiwan, the US, etc. but there was not a single english speaker in the place. I loved it.

The pre-band music that was played by the DJ was a mix of Spanish music of the rock genre and American classic rock. It was great the DJ played a lot of Zeppelin and the Stones and these kids knew every single word in almost perfect english too (well perfect rock english).

Now for the band. The band hit the stage in the perfect high-school rock band style, dressed in raggidy jeans and t-shirts with a little fog machine at the side of the stage creating a "mysterious" effect. I thought it was awesome. Their first song was pretty slow and contained a lot of acoustic guitar licks, the entire thing (all of their songs) were in Spanish so I had not a clue what they were singing about. They did have quite a nice fan base though all of their friends were singing along to the songs and having a really good time. The band played fairly tightly together but they missed a few beats here and there, overall though they were really good for their age.

After playing a few slow songs they started busting into some faster rock. The bassist started to get warmed up and his finger began to slap and pluck the heck out of his Fender P-Bass. I think he was just having way too much fun up on stage. The guitarist was also decent but he you could tell that he needed to practice a bit, although he was pretty good at tapping, played a nice song that sounded pretty simliar to some old Steve Vai licks.

The best part of the show, however, was the last song. I think they purposely saved that song for last. The band did a cover of the oh-so-traditional Spanish song. You know what I?m talking about... thinking about it.. Here let me help.. Dun---dun-dun-dundundund--(up one note)Dun---dun-dun-dundundun (up one note then down two notes) ba da da dun. repeat a thousand times. If you still don?t have it end your head think of Spain and then think of the first song that comes to your head. The band did a great job at it though and the guitarist played a really nice hard rock slant to it by tapping and bend strings like crazy. The bassist also got into the song by doing his slap thang on his bass, it was pretty good.

The concert ended around 12:45 or so and after that I met up with some friends at the Chupiteria (come?on you spanish speaker figure out what that place sells). I made it home around 2 or so.

Today (Friday) was the last day for many of the student at Colegio De Espa?a and we had a farewall ceremony and presentation of Diplomas for those that are leaving. Next week is going to pretty bare at the school and probably in the town.

Tonight I am meeting up with some friends at 9pm in our piso and then I?m meeting up with another friend at 10pm to go to another Jazz concert. At 12:30 there is a Salsa concert at the local Salsa bar, so that should be fun. Since this is Spain I am about to go take my Siesta so that I can stay out to the normal time of 4:30 to 6am in the morning (last call at most bars is 5:30 or 6am).

Tomorrow, a classmate and I are going to take the bus to Santa Marta for a bullfight, more concerts and a huge fiesta that starts at midnight and lasts until 7am. That should be quite fun.