the ten spot. part 4.
FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1998 -- When I had looked on the dining table last night I found a note from Marti -- my friend Francisco Aliaga had called to say he wanted to fly up to Paris from Barcelona to catch the final WSP gig on Saturday. I had met Francisco & a group of guys I called the Barcelona Boys at the Doctor Music Festival in the Spanish Pyrenées last year; these dudes tripped me out -- they read RELIX & knew more about many of the groups in my magazine than I did! I had just sent Francisco a package of tapes & photos & had asked him in my letter to check out the ticket situation for the three Phish shows at Barcelona's Bikini Club this summer. Francisco, an electrician, knows very little English & subsequent phone & fax communications were actually handled by his older brother José. We gave José transfer information from Orly, told him there would be no problem getting Francisco into the show & that of course he could crash at our place.
Marti took Friday off from work (love those European vacation laws) because her parents were visiting us the following week & she wanted to have some weekend time with me besides just getting ready for Nan's & John's visit. We enjoyed a leisurely morning, made the final arrangements for Francisco's Saturday arrival, did some errands in the 'hood, shopped for the Nan & John stay & did a bit of a café hang before it was time to get ready to go down to Chesterfield's. Our American friends from Germany, Marguerite & Mike, called to say they had arrived in town, along with Linus from Berlin. They would be staying at the apartment of a friend of Philos'. I had reserved us the back booth for the two final nights, but after last week's screwup, I wanted to get down to the club early to secure the arrangements.
When Marti & I got there, we were greeted by WSP percussionist Sunny Ortiz, who was hanging out on the sidewalk across from the Chesterfield Café. "Sunny," I asked, "Do you speak Spanish?" He smiled & replied, "Un poco." Great, I told him, we're bringing a pal from Barcelona tomorrow night & maybe you can talk to him. Sure enough. Then Sunny said the last night would probably be crazy, so he wanted to thank me now for all the Parisian hospitality services Marti & I had provided during the WSP run. We had passed on our restaurant list, shopping guide (even a size conversion chart for the petite Laura Bell), just the usual stuff we have on hand for visiting friends. I had also given J. B. a coffeeshop map & some asterisked recommendations for the Amsterdam swing. Well, Sunny said,
they all appreciated what we'd done & he posed for a photo giving me a big, grinning hug. This guy is the real deal.
As we entered the club, Vicki the hostess told me that our friends were already at the back booth. We were greeted by Marguerite & Mike (he's in the U. S. Army; she does graphics for the army's Stars & Stripes newspaper) & Linus, who was sporting a new close-cropped haircut. Very today, very now. But he still looks like the Charles Schultz character. Soon Christophe & Eric Cougrand joined our party & we ordered tex-mex dinner. Then it was sauna time. Like last week, it seemed the band was getting stronger & jammier each succeeding night. I loved the "Pickin' Up The Pieces">"Stop -
Go">Jam, my head filling in the Branford Marsalis solos in "Pieces" from the upcoming live CD. Late in the set WSP pulled out a rarity, Neil Young's autobiographical "Don't Be Denied." They jammed it into "Walkin' (For Your Love)">"Love Tractor" to close the show. Colorado taper Pat Sprowls later confirmed that Panic had only played the song 7 times before Friday night, the last time being January 22, 1996. It's one of my all-time Neil Young favorites.
Nine shows down. One more to go.
SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1998 -- Saturday morning brought disaster followed by elation. I got up &
brought my stuff in from airing out on the balcony. My wallet was missing. I remembered fumbling with my knapsack & my wallet as we got out of the cab earlier that morning. I must have missed my
inside jeans jacket pocket as I was putting the wallet away after paying the driver. Marti called the credit card cancellation number & I tried to remember what I had in my wallet. This wallet, purchased last summer in Stratford-upon-Avon, was doomed, I figured. I had gotten disgusted with the tobacco smell in my jeans jacket & had washed it -- wallet & all -- earlier in the week. For several days I had wallet & contents drying out all over the dining table. Luckily my good-for-a-lifetime French drivers license & my 10-year Carte de Residence were laminated, as was my sexy photo of Marti from our last trip to NYC together. But now most of that stuff, all dried out & repacked into Mr. Wallet, were gone.
On the bright side, Francisco arrived from Barcelona on schedule. He was carrying a pair of tickets for me to each of the three Phish nights at the Bikini Club in Barcelona in July. I was going for press & photo passes from the Doctor Music people, but it was good to have these as insurance, especially since I would have to lock in my flights several weeks before the shows. We served Francisco the
by-now standard mesclun salad, pasta with olive sauce & Italian biscotti lunch, then took him on a crunch tour of Paris in the Springtime.
Our first stop was the neighborhood police station, to report my lost wallet. It's an impressive new building right around the corner on rue Vaugirard, but once inside we all laughed at how the cops had managed to make this sparkling new facility look just like every other police station we'd ever seen on TV or in the movies: cheap folding chairs, filing cabinets, anti-drug posters scotch-taped to the walls, the regular drill. Typewriters. When was the last time you saw one of those? And to top it off: fucking carbon paper! Inserted wrong side up, of course. So the copy comes out in backwards writing on the back of the original. Jesus, it was getting difficult to keep a straight face. I waited my turn, then after explaining 3 times that these were FRENCH documents I had lost, finally got the guy to whip out some forms.
This done, we bused down to Saint-Germain-des-Prés & led Francisco on the whirlwind tour: the church; Place Furstemberg; across the river via the Pont des Artes; the Louvre (exterior only); Comedie Francaise (exterior); Jardin du Palais Royal; fanzine, used CD & rock bookstore Paraleles; etc. Francisco had wanted to know whether the band was selling teeshirts, but I told him the only ones I had seen were bootlegs & probably sold out by now. Marti & I suggested that he buy a tacky Paris shirt with lots of white space & we'd try to get the WSP guys to sign it with a Sharpie. So on rue Rivoli we found a stand & Francisco made his selection: it depicted a Mad Magazine-type cartoon tourist wearing a beret, holding a baguette & swinging off the Eiffel Tower. Excellent. Next stop on our afternoon tour was the apartment where Jim Morrison did/did not die in 1971. Then we retraced Jim's favorite walk over to the beautiful Ile Saint Louis, where he used to pause before the Hotel Lauzun & fire up a joint en hommage to Baudelaire, Delacroix & other members of the 19th century Hashhish Eaters Club, who used to meet in that building. We stopped for a beer at the outdoor café at the Brasserie de l'Ile, proceeded later to Notre Dame (all wrapped up for restoration), then hopped in a taxi to Place Trocadero, where you get that spectacular nighttime view of the Tour Eiffel. It was going on 8:30 p.m. We metro'd from there to the club.
<;br>
Linus, Philos & Philos' friend Raymond were already there, with a report that Marguerite was feeling ill & that she & Mike would be forgoing tonight's festivities. We were disappointed, but soon
Christophe arrived with two -- count 'em, two -- American Airlines flight attendants: one was Nikki Matheson's brunette pal Ann, whom we know, the other was a statuesque blonde named Kelly. I have before & after photos of the evening; these women look fresh & crisp at the beginning of the night, baked & wilted after a few sultry hours in the club. They were great fun to party with, though, especially when the tequila slammer girl came around. Before dinner, I took Francisco down
to the dressing room to drop off his teeshirt (and my 8x10 glossy) for band signatures. A couple of the guys were hanging out there, but Marti came down hurriedly & said that Sunny was upstairs in a booth, looking for Francisco. Ortiz had spotted Marti & said, "Well, where's your Spanish friend?" We dragged Francisco back upstairs & planted him next to Sunny in the booth next to ours. They burst into smiles & started rattling away in Spanish -- Francisco must have been delighted to finally hear something other than the mangled Spanglish he had been getting from me all day long!
The final show was a killer: right from the "Conrad the Caterpllar" opener (they've never recorded this, but it's on the new live release), it was all winners. I liked "Pilgrims," "Tallboy," a Vic Chestnutt cover called "Sleeping Man," WSP's version of "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and the closing sequence of "Chilly Water" >"Pigeons">"Chilly Water." Given the "Mr. Fantasy" Traffic cover, the final encore would not likely be the "Low Spark Of High-heeled Boys" I had been looking for, but Widespread came up with another of my faves, Talking Heads' "City of Dreams."
What a great ten nights of music!
Marti, Francisco & I went immediately to the downstairs bar, then were invited backstage. We collected our final autographs, Marti chatted with Laura, I got photos of them together, plus lots of
Francisco with band members, we bid everyone a "bon voyage" for the rest of the tour (Amsterdam, Hamburg & London one-nighters), then hailed a cab home.
go to the ten spot. part 5.
take me back to
the ten spot. part 1.
Email: phildemetrion@yahoo.com
