17 May 2012

I can feel myself slipping further and further behind on these tasks… I wake up the next morning and find a text message on my phone- Clayton has missed his flight from Berlin for the trip to Belgrade and El Infierno’s performance at the Ring Ring Festival- he went to the wrong airport. He’s figured out a way to meet us for our concert by getting to Serbia by 7pm, but we’ll have to do the soundcheck without him. Not the best news with which to start your day, though better than what Clayton was now faced with. The rest of the band gets to Belgrade in the afternoon and works on the sound (Martin does a nice stand in on bass). Interesting to compare the differences between the crew in Huesca and Belgrade. In Huesca there was a well established performance space with lots of equipment and a “professional” technical staff, but who refused to assist the band in a cooperative way. In Belgrade equipment had to be brought in for the festival, and the attitude of everyone working at the Rex Theater was one of support toward the musicians- whatever we needed to make the concert work was provided. Needless to say, even with limitations, the sound and experience onstage in Belgrade was far superior to Huesca. Clayton finally made it to the festival, tired but ready to play. The only drawback was the slowly increasing reverb the soundman added to Christof’s voice during the course of the concert. This finally ceased when Christof said from stage, “the reverb doesn’t make me any sexier, please cancel it.” When playing together feels effortless and electric you know something is going right, and this is what happened that night in Belgrade. Getting to play like this for a keenly enthused audience makes the brutal traveling worthwhile. The only disappointment of the day (other than Clayton’s airport experience) was the fact that the members of El Infierno don’t reconvene until next September. Sonore at the Ring Ring festival: