This story actually begins long before May 2026, forging behind the scenes sometime in 2023. On the 13th of November that year, the Austrian Embassy in Tokyo held a ceremony to appoint Japanese singerHyde as “Ambassador of Tourism for Austria”. Technically, a “tourism ambassador” is a trained professional who deals with tourist experiences, but in this case, Hyde’s job was promoting a country he had never visited and encouraging his fans to travel there. And he did the work so well that the assignment was extended. He later travelled to Vienna and Salzburg to make whole photo books and film promotional music videos. He also promoted trips from Japan and popped up into the Austrian pavilion in the Osaka Expo.
Hideto Takarai, known artistically as Hyde was born in Wakayama, Japan, in 1969. The year 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of his music activities, either with the rock band L’Arc~En~Ciel [ラルク アン シエル | Laruku an Shieru], VAMPS, or on his own. He has sporadically collaborated with other artists such as Starset and Yoshiki, with whom he also worked on the the failed “supergroup” The Last Rockstars alongside Miyavi and Sugizo. In 2019, Hyde became the Tourism Ambassador for his hometown, and in 2021 he received a commendation for his activities (maybe that inspired the Austrians?), and he seemed pretty comfortable promoting the place. The city even opened a commemorative gallery in the town hall to thank him for his efforts (which included his own train).
During the European leg of the Hyde [Inside] Live 2025 World Tour there was a lot of speculation and questioning about no stops in Austria. I mean, they must have some live houses, along with all those amazing classical music halls, mustn’t they? Even before the [Inside] tour was over, on the 26th of October 2025, a new one was announced – Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL. It was an acoustic tour, with classical arrangements of his greatest hits and new songs. Right up Austria’s alley, don’t you think?
Any rumour of an Austrian concert was, however, met with a firm “no” at first. Until on the 23rd of December, it turned out that… yes, there was a concert scheduled for Vienna, the capital of Austria – a special live named Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL in Wien. And it was, I kid you not, aimed at Japanese fans, to the point that there was an organised trip from Japan that for around half a million yen, which provided tickets, hotel with breakfast, basic airfare and transfers airport-hotel-venue. There were a lot of “not included” items, one of them being a day trip from Vienna to Salzburg, (three hours each way. I toyed with doing something similar, but changed my mind) to visit some of the spots chosen for photos and videos.
At 00:00 on the 13th of January 2026, tickets went on sale through the Wiener Konzerthaus website, and by the time I managed to get through the “buy tickets” English page, my friend D****e had already succeeded in securing seats for both of us in the first row on sale (115 € per person), using the German version. I was extremely impressed.
As soon as I had dates locked, I booked my plane tickets and blocked those days out of the calendar, then got the hotel room. Since D****e and I had decided to bunk together, we had a virtual planning meeting in early April. I was tasked with buying train tickets, she was with booking restaurants, as she wanted to try places that Hyde had visited beforehand. We also agreed that we would not do everything together, but split up for a few hours both Sunday and Monday – as we had some different priorities. Hence, the weekend before I left, I got myself some tickets and made my own plans, which would also give me some time alone to get into my head space and recharge.
We would both arrive in Vienna on Friday the 22nd, meet at the hotel, and plan the day from there, depending on how jet-lagged she was. On Saturday the 23rd, we would take a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Back in Austria, on Sunday we planned to take a short trip to the Alps, then split until the evening. The concert would take place on Monday – assigned seats meant no need to queue up, which is always good news. We left Tuesday rather open to see what we felt like.
It was going to be an intense few days and a couple of early mornings, but she was going to be in the wrong time-zone and I would be in early-morning mode anyway.
I think it was in early September 2025 when I saw the announcement that fesFE[M], one of the Japanese visual kei bands that I enjoy, was doing a mini tour in Spain. It was originally stated that they would play in Málaga, Madrid and Barcelona, though the first never happened in the end. I put it on my calendar and made sure to keep up with social media for announcements, since the organiser was not considered the most reliable one. There was very little promotion, but I was able to learn through the band’s own Instagram when tickets would go on sale.
I paid 30 € (+ 2 € fees) for a ticket, 47 € (+ 3 € fees) for the VIP upgrade on 11th November 2025, to attend the MAMA. × fesFE[M]: Harmony in Dissonance EU Tour in Madrid on Saturday 21st February 2026. The concert turned up to be the same weekend as the Medieval Fair in Tendilla, so I had to give that up this year.
I first saw fesFE[M] in 2019, when they came to support Jupiter, also in Madrid. They were the discovery of the day – despite the horrible planning on the promoter’s side, which made us VIPs miss most of their performance. After the concert, the band was happy to take pictures and sign CDs. Later that year, I made a point to see them again in the Saitama Summer Rock Festival, though I was not lucky enough to meet any of them there.
fesFE[M] is a six-man band, where all the members have a “doll” persona. At the moment, they are “Japanese clothing dolls”, donning pretty yukata and Japanese traditional masks (well, their cheap versions). When I saw them in 2019, they were tragic or horror puppets. The ensemble features Rion [リオン] on vocals; Aito [アイト] and Zeno-P [ゼノP] on guitars; Tohru [徹] on bass; Rensa [蓮沙] on drums; and Jun (not a doll, but the “dollmaster” – I think they meant puppeteer) on keyboards. They have a very particular style that ranges from energetic to creepy, and I of course could not pass the opportunity to see them again.
MAMA.defines its own style as “visual hybrid music”, whatever that means. The core of the band is composed by vocalist Mei [命依], guitarists Kagome [かごめ] and JiMYY, and bassist Mana [真], alongside a support drummer whose name I honestly didn’t catch.
My original plan was driving to Madrid’s venue Sala Silikona, and back home, but two factors altered that plan. First, Chinese New Year – though it fell on the 17th, the parade was scheduled for Sunday the 22nd. The second was the schedule, released a week before the concert – VIP access would open at 19:00, doors would be at 20:00, and the support act, AKNIA, would start at 20:30. That meant driving back in the middle of the night and waking up early to take a train back to Madrid on Sunday. I decided that I was not doing that – and thus I searched for a hotel along the underground line that stopped near the venue. It was not cheap, but it was convenient.
I decided to head to Madrid mid-morning, and took a connection towards the park in the Usera district Parque de Pradolongo, where the first activities to celebrate Chinese New Year were to take place – I wanted to check those out. In its core, Chinese New Year marks the beginning of spring – hence its official name “Spring Festival” [春節 | chūn jié], and it’s a worldwide celebration that has been classified as Intangible Cultural Heritage as Spring Festival – Social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional new year, with traditions that have been recorded since the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE). It is celebrated on the first day of the first lunisolar month, which is in turn determined by the new moon – usually the second new moon after the winter solstice. Technically, the year starts on the new moon closest to lichun [立春], the first Chinese solar term, determined by the Sun reaching the celestial longitude of 315º. In the Western calendar, all that translates into sometime between the 21st of January and the 20th of February. In 2026, the date fell on the 17th of February, marking the start of the year of the Fire Horse. Public celebrations include lion and dragon dances, fireworks, firecrackers, and red decorations.
For the last few years, the Chinese community in Madrid has been organising ever-growing activities to celebrate the Spring Festival. I had to miss welcoming the Year of the Snake, but I was there for the Parade of the Year of the Dragon (2024). I think they only had the parade and the food market that year, but there were tons of activities this time around. One them was an exhibition of the traditional Yingee Dance [英歌] by the Fumei Yingge Dance Troupe [富美英歌舞团队 | Fù měiyīng gēwǔ tuánduì]. The performing company was founded in 1998 in the village of Fumei (Guangdong), and since 2005 it has been a sort of ambassador for the dance, travelling internationally under the blessing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Yingge (literally “The Hero’s Song”) Dance is a folk dance with elements of acrobatics, Chinese opera and martial arts, typical of the eastern region of the coastal province of Guangdong. It is performed after the beat of one or several drums. The dancers’ make up calls back to the 108 heroes of the 14th-century Chinese novel Water Margin [水滸傳 | Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn], attributed to Shi Nai’an [施耐庵]. With 108 protagonists and 100 chapters, its plot would be too complex to explain, but it boils down to “good vs evil” struggle. In 2026, Yingee became national intangible cultural heritage. It combines dancing, martial arts (especially the style known as “southern fist” [南拳 | nán quán]), and Chinese opera acting. During the dance, every performer holds two wooden sticks or mallets which are used for acrobatics and noise. There are also jumps and leaps and incredible stunts.
I reached the park Parque de Pradolongo a bit later than I would have liked, even if I was lucky with my connection. The food trucks and the stands were already overrun, and the poor girls who were supposed to give out information had none. It turned out that the dancing troupe had run into some transport trouble, so instead of a first show at noon, they would do it at 12:30. Just as well. I waited around and I actually stayed for two of the performances, repositioning myself between the first and the second to get a better view. It was extremely impressive, not only due to the artists’ coordination, also because the acrobatics seemed impossible.
After the second dance, I walked around the park to figure out the layout of the parade for the following day, then headed back towards the train system. It did not take long to reach my hotel. The façade was under restoration, and the automatic doors did not want to let me in. My room ended up being on the 8th floor, with views of the Madrid rooftops. I popped out for a second to buy some lunch, and got ready for the concert. Since VIP was around 19:00 I left the hotel around 17:00, so I arrived at the venue Sala Silikona, where the the MAMA. × fesFE[M]: Harmony in Dissonance EU Tour concert was to take place, around 17:30. The queue was pretty relaxed. There were no incidents at the queue, and we even managed to successfully handle the security guard’s power trip. I found it a bit offensive though, that after carding everyone around me, he said he did not have to see my ID…
The VIP included early entry, a present – which turned out to be a bunch of trading cads – and photos with the bands. We also got a lanyard, and sooner than I would have imagined I found myself inside the venue, where we were admitted in small groups. I knew one of the organisers so I asked her to allow me to ask for fesFE[M]‘s autographs on the printed photo I had from 2019, and she told me it was fine as long as I had my own marker – which I did. The only drawback was that I had not found a silver one, only a black one.
I first had my picture taken with MAMA.. I thanked them for coming and we exchanged basic pleasantries. Then I got my turn with fesFE[M]. I told them it had been a long time since I saw them in Saitama in 2019 (hence I became “Saitama-san) and got them to sign our photograph together. They acted both surprised and happy, and asked if the picture was from their last time in Madrid. Of course it was, you silly geese. It was a nice moment when I had their undivided attention and they looked genuinely happy. After that, we took a reboot of that same photo – I am in the same position, only instead of holding the signed CD from Madrid’s 2019 concert, I am holding the autographed picture from that day. I look exactly as awful.
Afterwards, I got out of everyone’s way and found a spot on the tiny first row. I think we were like eight people there, tops. I was a little to the left and, for once, it was the almost-perfect place to be. The stage was not raised, there was no barrier whatsoever… You can say this was a close-up experience. I say that my spot was almost perfect because while it was awesome for viewing (I never thought I’d end up too close for pictures in a concert)… I ended up with a guitar head slammed against my shoulder and a bit of a “war wound”. It did not really hurt at any point, but it’s made for an interesting crescent-shaped scar…
The Spanish support band AKNIA (with a backwards K) might have been good, but they had not done their sound homework. The quality was pretty much a disaster, to the point that at some point the singer stopped and helplessly pleaded “my guitar is not working”. They looked and sounded pretty young and full of enthusiasm but I don’t think they were the right choice for the crowd.
The venue was so weird that the bands had to walk through the crowd to get to the tiny stage – despite there being a door there, it was blocked by the instruments. As the support act went away, the venue’s crew plugged and re-plugged instruments and brought out a stand for the main vocalists to stand on… a couple of honest-to-god beer boxes. The first band to come out was MAMA.. Aside the support drummer, there is four of them, and three – Mei, JiMYY and Mana – stayed on my side of the stage all the time, while Kagome owned the other side. Maybe… three metres away, it was a cosy gig. They were okay, I kind of liked them. They did not steal my heart though (which is good, because there is no way I can support even more bands).
MAMA.’s setlist:
1. Omen
2. Cry Morry
3. Nope
4. 罪×罰 [Tsumi to batsu]
5. ALiCE iNSOMNiA
6. めいさんの成分 (抽出) [Mei-san no seibun (Chūshutsu)]
7. Witch??
8. 命日 [Meinichi]
9. Pink Moon
10. 毒入りミルクはママ.の味 [Doku iri milk wa mama. no aji]
11. Murder Red Chainsaw
12. Maria
It was finally time for fesFE[M], and the beer box was now right in front of me. I think I got hit by Rion’s sleeves twenty to thirty times. I haven’t seen any artist that close in my entire life. I am still not sure who hit me with their guitar / bass, it might have been JiMYY, Tohru or Zeno-P. But I did not notice that until later.
I used to say that Kamijo is the only singer who has ever sung to me – and hence my huge soft spot for him. But now I’ve gotten a heart-gesture from Rion, too. I think I had not enjoyed a concert this much in years. It was silly and fun and cathartic. I mean, I got my favourite song from the band, Night Circus, in second place. The rest of the concert did not disappoint.
As they were preparing, vocalist Rion glued a lot of katakana for his emcees under his feet – and I actually managed to get those papers after the concert, along with a guitar pick and some hair decoration from Zeno-P’s. While Rion did slip into a lot of Japanese, he was at least brave enough to try some Spanish. It was adorable. And yet, I’m not sure how any of them can breathe in so many tight layers.
The band came out in “traditional Japanese outfits” and wearing masks – cheap masks from the one-hundred-yen store – that they kept in for the first song. They might have tried to make it look creepy, but it looked like cute, like kids dressing up using their older siblings’ cosplay. I am all in for the look though, it fit the mood.
fesFE[M]’s setlist, including the emcees, since I managed to grab the papers from stage and thought it would be fun to transcribe them:
1. 月蝕の逢瀬 [Gesshoku no ōse]
2. Night Circus
3. Mr Imitation
4. the WORLD; Nightmare cover
¡Hola Madrid! Qué alegría estar aquí. ¿Estais listos para la fiesta? ¡Vamos!
Hello Madrid! (We’re) so happy to be here. Are you ready for the party? Let’s go!
5. バラバラパーティー [Bara Bara Party]
6. 狂咲幻花 [Kyoushou Genka]
7. 君のアニマに届かぬモノログ [Kimi no anima ni todokanu Monologue]
8. Doll in ブルーベリィジャム [Doll in blueberry jam]
9. 黒き森と愛惰と [Kuroki mori to aijou to]
10. Doll’s bride
¡Queda poco pero todavía podemos (seguir) más, Madrid! ¡Vamos a darlo todo hasta el final!
There’s little (time) left, but we can still (continue) a bit more, Madrid. Let’s give everything to the end!
11. Obake no Tomodachi
12. Darkness and collusion
13. 百花繚乱 -A riot of colors- [Hyakka ryouran -A riot of colors-]
MC:
ラスト！！ラスト. マドリー·ダロ·トド
Last!! Last. Madrid, dalo todo.
Last, last. Madrid, give it all
14. フレイヤ [Freya]
MC:
グラシアス
Gracias.
Thank you.
I enjoyed myself so much that at the end of the concert I dropped 60 quid on a fan, a pick, and a “2shot”, which is a small Polaroid with one of the members. Rion had been nice and noticed me, so I decided to get a photo with him. Afterwards, I headed back to the underground, bought a snack in a fast-food joint that closed in the wee-hours of the morning, and turned in for the day after fighting my contacts off.
The next morning I woke up and headed down for breakfast – it was included in the room rate. The buffet was pretty well-stocked and it had coffee, juices and chocolate con churros (hot chocolate and fried dough pastries). Next, I left my backpack at reception and headed off towards the train. I had arranged I would meet my sibling at the train station near the park Parque de Pradolongo to find a place to watch the Chinese New Year Parade. The Chinese New Year started on the 17th of February, and will end on the 5th of February 2027; it is a lunisolar calendar. The Calendar Year is bing wu nian [丙午年].
The Chinese lunisolar calendar has been used for around 4,000 years, as it was first established during the Xia Dynasty in the 21st century BCE, but it does not use numbers. Each year is named after a Heavenly Stem (in this case Bing) and an Early Branch (Wu), and assigned a zodiac sign, one of the five elements (earth, wood, water, fire and metal), and either Yin or Yang. The combinations of 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches generates a super-cycle of 60 years. Apparently, this is not confusing at all.
The accompanying zodiac comprises a cycle of twelve animals chosen according to an old legend – the Jade Emperor wanted 12 guardians for his castle, so he commanded the animals to go to him. The first animals to arrive would be the guardians, and the earlier they arrived, the higher their rank would be. These animals were, in order, the mouse, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep / goat, the monkey, the rooster, and the pig. The thirteenth animal to arrive was the cat, who got left out from the horoscope after being tricked by the rat, hence kickstarting the rivalry between cats and rats. Each animal has its meaning, strengths, weaknesses, and compatibility with others, of course.
Chinese New Year is also called “Spring Festival”, a festivity which falls on the first day of the Chinese Year. While some claim that “Lunar Year” is more inclusive than “Chinese Year”, the community in Spain advertises it as the latter, which is the notation I use. Hence, the New Chinese Year is the Year of the Fire Horse: the horoscope is the Horse (马, mǎ), the element is fire (火, huo), and it is a Yang year.
The Madrid festivities have been moved from the main streets in Usera to the park Parque de Pradolongo and while it is great for some of the activities, I think it was not the best place to hold the parade, mainly because the route was too narrow. People – especially dancers and martial artists – got stuck and did not have enough space to move.
The parade started at noon, and it took about an hour and a half to pass in front of us. We were pretty close to the beginning, as I wanted a barrier spot and tiled ground under my feet (and also to avoid solar flares in photographs). I was flabbergasted though by the sheer audacity of some people – a couple of older ladies who arrived 10 minutes before the whole thing started and wanted barrier spot. They managed to push the family next to me away and had the nerve to complain I was not moving. Lady, I arrived almost an hour and a half in advance to grab the spot. Why on earth do you think I’d give it up to you? I’ve survived Japanese festival crowds, you ain’t shoving me out of your way…
All kinds of groups walk the parade – Embassy representatives, language and primary schools, associations, shops and business… Everyone of them marches alongside the designated dragon- and lion-dancers. It was less elaborated than the other time I had seen it, but still pretty cool. The parade opened with inflatable horses to commemorate the starting year. People of all ages (both Chinese and Spanish) participated demonstrating traditional dances with fans and lanterns. There were also martial artists. As Madrid’s “Chinatown” is a popular neighbourhood amongst Latin American people, they also participate in the parade. One of the last groups to come were Bolivian, and one of their Carnival (Carnaval de Oruro) characters came to dance with me!
After the parade, we headed back into town. We thought we could check the Sweet Space Museum, but it was closed. We picked up my luggage from the hotel instead and spent some time in a Starbucks until 16:00, when I had booked afternoon tea at Flor y Nata in the hotel Rosewood Villa Magna. I feel like I’m on a mission to try all the afternoon teas in Madrid…
When we arrived at the hotel, at first we thought the place would be in the terrace behind it, where there are several cafés and restaurants. It wasn’t, so we had to walk inside the hotel. I was certainly not dressed for that – or so I thought. I realised that I have more style – and manners – than some of the people who can afford more than afternoon tea at that place.
The staff were incredibly friendly – but I suspect the reservation had slipped their mind, or their system. We informed them that we had a booking for afternoon tea, and we were seated next to the chimney, at their “usual tea table”, which was not ready. They asked us if we were celebrating anything special, but just my afternoon-tea-addiction I guess.
The menu included a glass of white sparkling wine, but I gave mine to my sibling. Tea time started with a selection of savoury sandwiches. Then there was a palate-cleansing yuzu and red berry granita (lovely). I usually have my scones before moving onto the sweets – they were warm and accompanied by raspberry jam and clotted cream – though the menu calls it “sour” cream – and I am team “first cream, then jam”. The sweets included chocolate cake in textures, almond éclair with vanilla and candied pear, spiced Sablé Breton cookies with pecan ganache & praliné, mini financier and mini cookies. This last part was a bit too sweet for me, but the sencha tea we ordered to accompany it all was a good balance. I was, however, unable to finish the desserts. It was fun that the treats were prepared in an open kitchen and we could see the process.
Since the tea was paid for at reservation, we just left when we were full – but seriously, I got the impression that we could have walked there without any kind of booking, ad they would have served us just the same. Or maybe not, considering how packed the space got. As a funny note, all the decorative plants were so pretty that I thought they were plastic. However, they were natural – they broke havoc with my allergies. And regarding the dress code… I understood that some people are happy to spend a lot of money on shabby-looking designer clothes… and to seep at the tables with their feet on the sofas in front of them without a care in the world for their luxury shopping bags…
We eventually walked back towards the train station to catch a train home.
The sun was not even up yet when we reached the queue (I refused to learn what time D****e had set the alarm clock) for Hyde [Inside] Live 2025 World Tour at Le Bataclan, which was a couple of minutes away from our accomodation. We stepped out of the hotel, and had to walk right back inside for umbrellas and raincoats, because just as we set a foot on the street it started raining. The line had already been started, and in front of the venue door stood a stone memorial, flowers and candles. It was eerie. Throughout the morning, Paris cleaning services came to take care of the tributes. I had never stopped to think about what happened to mementos that people put up for vigils and memorials. In this case, the flowers were very carefully arranged in baskets and carried away to the permanent memorial in the park opposite the venue. The candles were also moved, still lit, there.
Origins of Le Bataclan can be traced back to 1864, when architect Charles Duval designed it as a theatre in the Chinoiserie architectural style, a current that depicts European interpretations of China’s artistic tradition, which was popular between the 17th and 19th centuries. The original name of the venue was Grand Café Chinois, and it was a typical Belle Époque establishment, known as a café-concert, with a theatre, a dance hall and a café. It became popular for its vaudevilles and went on to change hands, appearance, and functions several times. In 1969, starting with the band Soft Machine, it became today’s modern concert venue, featuring artists such as Velvet Underground, Ramones or Iron Maiden. In the 1980s, it was dubbed “the temple of hip-hop”. In the 21st century, it was revamped and repainted to resemble its original appearance and started catering to techno events.
After the massacre in 2015 during a concert of Eagles of Death Metal, Le Bataclan was closed for a year, with bands such as U2 cancelling their acts. The venue rose from its own ashes 364 days later with a minute of silence for the victims and an exclusive show by Sting. Aside from the tragic memory attached to the mass shooting, the building itself has been considered a historical monument since 1991.
One expects that a venue with such history, experience and tragedy would be able to smoothly manage a queue, right? Wrong. This was probably the most disastrous line I’ve ever had the displeasure to be part of.
The first security team arrived around 8:00, and they were obviously displeased. The queue at that time was about 20 or 30 people, who were sitting by the walls to brave the cold and drizzle, and respecting the doors of the nearby shops and houses. We were minding our own business checking out the doggies on walks when the staff started putting out barriers. No issue there.
Mid-morning, D****e and I went for breakfast and a toilet break, along with a visit to the Memorial to the victims in the park Jardin May Picqueray, where all the flowers and candles had been taken. It felt weird to take a picture of that, but I wanted to remember the image, the feelings it caused within me.
It was around 13:00 when the security guard had his power trip. The line was relaxed at this time. Some people were sitting, others were standing to the side, but the “expert concert goers” knew that it was around the time the band would be coming in, probably with the chance of spotting Hyde. The staff started putting out more and more barriers, forcing people to crowd behind them, so the whole concept of queue went to hell. Fortunately, a few locals who spoke both French and English were able to bring the queue, at leas the first hundred VIPs or so, to a resemblance of order.
It did not help that the soundcheck would be watched from the upper floor, and then we had to make it back to the main floor if we wanted arena spots. It was a damn mess. Then they started checking us in for the VIP experience – which I didn’t understand. Fine, the VIP tickets had our names on them so they could not be resold. But they did not ask for ID, which beats the whole purpose of it.
When they finally opened doors, we were subjected to a fast pat down, then we went upstairs. We had a few minutes of relaxing of sorts then – presumably to buy merch – but in the end it was stupidly stressful. What was the point of queueing for hours if when it mattered, we were back to a crowd? In the end, some fans managed to negotiate that the French and Japanese staff would allow people to step down the stairs in the order we had arrived – supported by the numbers we had written on our hands.
The soundcheck, which started at 18:00, lasted around 10 minutes was… lacking. There were three song bits and that was it. Whether that and “stress free” merch shopping justified the price… I honestly don’t think so. Early entry? Maybe. I mean, Hyde is a huge artist in Japan, where your entrance to the venue is determined by the number in your ticket. Fanclub members will always get the best numbers, so they are the only ones with a chance to do first row. This was my one and only time in a Hyde – or Hyde-adjactent project – when I was able to get barrier, and that was only because of D****e’s knowledge of the Japanese fandom and what time they would head there. I don’t think I’ll ever do that early of a queue ever again, even though we were extremely lucky with the weather. Besides a bit of drizzle early in the morning, the weather was stunning, especially for mid-November in Paris.
The concert was scheduled to start at 20:00, and it did so around 20:10. We were at the barrier around 18:15, and it turned out that the background flag was too big for the stage. All this time, I was trying really hard to concentrate on what was to come and not the flowers outside and what they meant. Maybe that atmosphere spoiled the concert a little. Maybe I’ve lost my passion. Or maybe it was the fact that I did something stupid, queued for too long, the next day I went off sightseeing, and a week after returning I had not completely recovered. I’m not sure. But I lack the normal fuzzy feeling I used to get after concerts. I thought not having that after The Raven Age was normal, because I was just checking them out. However, Hyde used to be one of my big artists.
Hyde was born Hideto Takarai in Wakayama, Japan, in 1969. He has been active since the late 1980s. In 1991, Hyde formed the rock band L’Arc~En~Ciel [ラルク アン シエル, Laruku an Shieru, Laruku for short] alongside bassist Tetsuya, a music ensemble that went on to sell 40 million records. From 2001, the band has been more or less separated, coming together on and off to launch a single or do a live in order to remain relevant.
During the period of inactivity, Hyde launched his solo career, often collaborating with arranger and guitarist KAZ from Oblivion Dust, with whom he formed the rock band VAMPS in 2008. VAMPS was active until in 2017 it went “on hiatus” with a press release in Japanese and English, and nothing was ever heard of them again.
Hyde went back to his solo activities right away, with a tour in summer of 2018, which felt a bit lacking. He collaborated with other artists such as Yoshiki and Starset. For a little while he was part of the “supergroup” The Last Rockstars alongside Yoshiki, Miyavi and Sugizo. The current tour Hyde [Inside] Live 2025 World Tour is the promotion of Hyde’s 2024 album Inside, so most of the songs from the setlist came from there, with some “old hitters” he holds the rights to, and a couple of covers.
The concert was good. Objectively good. I enjoyed it. But it was not that deep, belly-felt enjoyment I had before with songs like The Jolly Roger (during VAMPS times), or the one-and-only time I’ve seen L’Arc~En~Ciel.
Setlist:
1. Let it out
2. After Light
3. Defeat
4. Devil Side (VAMPS)
5. Taking them down
6. On my own
7. 夢幻 [Mugen, Fantasy]
8. 永久 –トコシエ [Tokoshie, Eternity, but written with weird kanji]
9. Faint (Linkin Park)
10. 6or9
11. Mad Qualia
12. Social Virus
13. Midnight Celebration II
14. Last Song
15. Pandora
16. Honey (L’Arc~en~Ciel)
17. Glamorous Sky
18. Sex Blood Rock N’ Roll (VAMPS)
The concert started at 20:10 with Hyde perched up a high tower. He was supported by guitarists Yas Nomura (Yas) and Julian, keyboardist Hiko (Hikonyan), drummer Shuntaro Kado (Kadoshun) and bassist Tomohiro Miki (Miki-T), all wearing masks – Hyde included, for the first couple of songs. The music was powerful, and the delivery impeccable.
Hyde knows how to own his stage. For 6or9 he wanted us to crouch and jump and… no. I was holding onto the barrier, and there was no way I’d make a jump. I hid a little and then stood up. He also tried some French. He managed quite well with ça va? (“what’s up?” of sorts), but merci beacoup (“thank you very much”) sounded hilariously like the English word “mercy” and the Japanese standard-male I boku [僕]. He also enjoyed yelling swear words around.
On other concerts, Hyde has poured a bottle of fake blood on his head towards the end. Knowing what had happened in that venue, I am extremely happy he did not do such thing. During the goodbye, he sent “his condolences to those who passed away in this venue”. That almost broke me, honestly.
All in all, it was a really good concert, and I enjoyed it a lot but… in a different way from I used to. More like I enjoy Starset. I thought it was just that I had a different connection to them, but I now believe it’s a change within me since the Pandemic. I just do not live concerts in the same way any more. I think I am okay with that. I really liked the aforementioned 6or9, Midnight Celebration II and, somehow, Glamorous Sky, which was a song I had never really felt a connection with before.
After the concert, we went through the typical Japanese ritual of waving goodbye to the artists as they leave, and someone from the flats above through a bucket of water at the car. They must have been annoyed by the noise, though it was a Friday and not even 23:00, along with it being a busy boulevard with lots of bars and restaurants around. D****e and I made a short pit stop at the nearby convenience store, which apparently was open beyond its usual time to carter to the concertgoers (I love when they do that). I got a sandwich and a coffee for the next morning, but I never thought about buying lunch too. Afterwards, I took a shower and we went to sleep (or try to) for a few (very few) hours.
When back in May 2025, Hyde announced his [Inside] Live 2025 World Tour with several stops in Europe, I wished that I could feel the excitement that used to take over before the pandemic. But truth be told, both Japan and JRockers have made a bunch of questionable decisions as of late. It fell kind of flat, to the point I even considered not going. Hyde himself has said and done a few things I can’t agree with, and I did not know if I wanted to give him money. I was in Malta when the ticket sales started, and I decided something – if the concert was not sold out when I came back, I would go to the show in Paris, France (and see a friend or two, hopefully).
I found tickets upon my return, even VIP options. Though apparently there were a lot of issues with the upgrades, I was able to purchase a VIP package without a hiccup. Not that it had many perks – early entry, priority merch shopping, and soundcheck. However, French fans are hardcore, and I thought being a VIP gave me more leeway to find a safe spot in the venue.
Once that was taken care for, I started organising the trip. The concert was on a Friday in November, a month when I have usually finished work season, so I could take off for a few days. I fumbled with dates a little, and – just for kicks and giggles – I looked for things to do outside Paris. I found an insanely cheap train ticket for Nice, and it turned out that flying round trip to Paris was about the same price as flying to Paris, then taking this train, and flying back from Nice. Furthermore, I found a Nice hotel at a great price.
You might wonder about the sudden Nice idea. Nice was not the goal here (though I ended up enjoying it more than expected), Monaco was. Since I was a little child, there is one place I’ve always wanted to visit, but the stars never aligned for it – the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. This time around, everything seemed to be fitting in flawlessly. I know I cannot afford to stay in Monaco, but Nice is about 20 minutes away using public transport.
I locked planes and trains. I found a hotel near the Paris venue to share with a friend, booked tickets for the Oceanographic Museum, bought a small Nice and Monaco guidebook, and turned on about a hundred alarms to remember to book free tickets for Notre Dame (three days before in May, two when I actually got down to it in November). It kind of looked like a trip like any other.
It was not.. There is something else I feel I need to address beforehand. Hyde’s concert was in the venue called Le Bataclan on the 14th of November. Ten years prior, on the 13th November 2015, 90 people died there.
During 2015, France suffered a number of terror attacks, linked – by self-claim – to the Islamic State, or IS. Thriving between 2013 and 2017, IS was designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, as it enforced an extreme version of the Islamic Law and the war against the infidel. They stated they had control over worldwide Muslims, though most of them refused. On the 13th of November, a terror operation was launched in Paris, ending the lives of 130 innocents and 7 attackers.
Three suicide bombers attacked the stadium Stade de France, though they could not gain access. Another group ran rampart shooting at cafés and customers downtown. Around 22:00, a third cell broke into the Bataclan, shot at the 1500 concergoers, and took the survivors hostage. The attackers claimed to be avenging airstrikes against IS. Police attempted to enter the building twice, and tried to negotiate for 50 minutes, until there was a full-blown charge shortly after midnight.
Most of the victims died in the first few minutes of each attack, but some took their own lives at later dates due to PTSD. On top of the 130 casualties, there were 416 injured, about a hundred in serious condition. The attacks sparked rejection by thousands of people – there were vigils all over the world, social media campaigns spread like wildfire, and monuments were lit with the colour of the French flag. In Paris, a state of emergency was declared, people were urged to stay home, and residents opened their doors to those who became stranded and couldn’t go back to their own places due to lack of public transport. Schools and universities did not open on the 14th, sports events were cancelled, and the army was deployed in town. Even Disneyland and the Eiffel Tower closed down. On the 15th, the French Air Force launched its largest operation against IS, carrying out airstrikes in their claimed territories, mostly in Iraq and Syria.
French President François Hollande declared a nationwide state of emergency, which was extended until mid 2016. But then, the Nice attacks happened – around 22:30 on Bastille day (14th July) 2016, a man drove a truck into crowd celebrating at the promenade, killing 86 people and injuring 458 others. IS also claimed responsibility for the attack, and the state of emergency was extended again until 26th January 2017.
Thus on this trip, a lot of this was weighing on my mind, especially in Paris, as we were there during the ten-year anniversary. We saw the police officers, the candles and the flowers. People coming and going, people who might have been there that day. People who lost someone.
So thank you, Hyde, for foregoing your act of singing drenched in blood, because that would have been traumatising. On my account, nothing further from my intention than exploiting the pain of so many people, or making it about me, but there is no way I can describe those two days in Paris without referencing the memorials and vigils. I’ll do my best to do it in the most respectful and caring way possible. However, as I look back on the unadulterated joy my inner child felt in the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, I wish I could return to that actual innocence, and not have to think about how the world can be a scary place sometimes…
Before the trip I did try not to read up much on the attacks and remind myself of what I had heard a decade before. My plane was scheduled to land in Paris Charles de Gaulle around noon, so I hoped to be downtown around 13:30. Though the RER is only about 45 minutes, the last time I landed there, we had to wait 40 minutes for buses to get to the terminal. Since people had been complaining about the queues at Notre Dame, I booked a free entry ticket for 14:15. I actually was up at midnight two days before to secure the entrance spot (and one the following day for emergencies).
I also purchased my Oceanographic Museum ticket in Monte-Carlo, and tried to find out how to book at the Casino, though whenever I tried, I ended up at the luxury items page. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved a tour on a Ferrari through Monte-Carlo, or – even if I have no idea about car racing – a ride on the circuit. But I don’t have the budget for that, even in the lowest low season. Oh, and I bought a raincoat because the weather app forecast rain with a 95% chance on Saturday, and 100% on Sunday…
Thus, here are my adventures in Paris, Nice and Monaco in November 2025.
The “Wall Concerts” Conciertos de La Muralla is a late-summer music festival that takes place in Alcalá de Henares. As far as I have learnt, it has been going on for almost a decade, with “artists of the highest level”. I’ve only heard about a handful of the musicians that have played there, but I’m not much into the Spanish music scene. A while back, I read that violinistAra Malikian would be making a stop in town as part of his promotional tour Intruso.
When checking for tickets, I found a lonely fifth-row empty seat in the arena, too good not to be bought. The show was to be held in the outdoors area known as Huerta del Obispo, where Alcalá de Henares also carries out its RenFair. Since tickets and seats were numbered, there was no need to queue or be there early. Though the show was outside and I was prepared for chill, it turned out to be just a bit windy so I did not need the extra layers of clothing I had brought with me.
Born in Lebanon to an Armenian family, Ara Malikian started playing violin in early childhood. He was good enough to give his first concert and 12 and be invited to study in Germany at 14. He went on to play with and for the best orchestras in the world. He has published 30 albums, composes, and covers classical and modern pieces.
His stage persona is outlandish, with crazy hair and clothing. He tells stories on stage that are a little real and very embellished with fantastic details, to the point that you’re not even sure if the outrageous titles he’s quoting for the setlist are even the actual ones beyond the covers of famous composers and musicians.
For this gig, Malikian was accompanied by drums, piano, guitar / bass and cello. He played alongside a quartet of Cuban musicians, whom he claims met in Havana 30 years ago. After he received a scholarship to go to Cuba to play a “contemporary piece” he did not prepare, he met these young artists who had not rehearsed either. Together, they decided to improvise while the composer yelled “imposters” and “pigs” at them, thus the piece being now called “Concert of Pigs and Imposters” Concierto para cerdos e impostores. The ensemble comprised Iván “Melon” Lewis on piano, who almost died a couple of times choking on his own laughter due to the bizarre stories that the violinist told; Ivan Ruiz Machado on classical double bass and regular bass; Georvis Pico, specialised on jazz, on drums; and finally Dayán Abad García on guitar.
Thus, Ara Malikian claims such titles as the aforementioned “Concert for Pigs and Imposters” or “Ratboy” (Niño Rata) or “Rhapsody of not doing anything” (Concierto Rapsódico de No Hacer Nada). The first comes with a tale of a quartet of musicians improvising with him on stage in spite of the composer of the piece they were supposed to play hurled insults at them. The second derives from a crazy story about being hired to stand in a bar and not doing anything to create curiosity amongst the patrons.
There were covers of famous composers, both classical – such as variations of Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A minor – and more modern, like Paco de Lucía’s Zyryab. The concert ended with a beautiful song called Nana Arrugada (Wrinkled Cradle Song). All in all, I enjoyed the concert very much – though I could not find a believable setlist to compare my information anywhere.
My seat was honestly fantastic, and not even the wind could spoil the sound or the ambience. If any complaints, the fact that people seem not to understand that if they enter the area at 20:00 and drink a huge glass of beer, they are going to need a toilet before the concert is over – making everyone around them stand. Also, a concert might not be the best place for random people to yell political slogans…
I had a good time, and when the show was over, I walked around the city centre to see if there were any monuments lit up. There were some, and the main street was packed with people enjoying the last days of summer. I thought I would get some frozen yoghurt, but there was a queue. Thus, I decided to wait until I got to the ice-cream parlour a bit further up the street. Even a longer queue. And at the last parlour, it was even longer than both of the other two combined.
It became less crowded when I left the pedestrian area, but there were enough people so it did not feel dangerous to walk to the car – despite the town having been on the news due to violence a few times in the few previous weeks.
I was home before midnight, not even extremely tired. Since I had to do some shopping before the concert, I decided not to combine it with any visits or anything. And as there had been no ice-cream for me, I ended up having some home-grown watermelon I had been gifted…
Lots of things came together on the 2nd of July. First of all, due to weird work schedules that I had no control over, I had a day off in the middle of the week. Second, I had a doctor appointment in the morning – lucky how I could fit it there. Third, Jurassic World: Rebirth, the new film in the Jurassic Park franchise came out. Finally, back in January, I had bought tickets to watch a concert in the goodbye tour by the singer who composed the soundtrack of my teenage-angst years.
So it was just a stroke a luck that work just happened to give me the day off because of unrelated reasons. It would have been luckier to have the following day off too but what can one do? Actually, I propose an unpaid leave called “I had a concert yesterday and it’s not that I’m tired or sore or anything, but I don’t want to go back to reality just yet, I deserve to bask in post concert ‘the world is okay’ bliss.” Think about it, it’s a great idea.
Since I had the doctor’s appointment, I could not plan a whole day out. Once I was done there, I changed clothes and then drove off to the train. Of course, there were delays, what else is new? Halfway, one of the doors got stuck open and we could not start until that got closed manually. But instead of blocking it, they allowed it to keep opening at subsequent stations – so it got stuck again and again.
I reached Atocha just in time to change trains and get to Sol using the same system without a wait, so in a few minutes later I was out in the heat. The original idea had been a light lunch at Yatai Market, but the air conditioning in Kawaii Café was stronger. I had been to another of their shops before, and the food was all right, so I thought why not? I ordered a strawberry frappé and a “sleepyhead bunny” Conejito Dormilón – a Red Velvet crêpe filled with strawberry compote and decorated with cheese cream and blueberries, along with a vanilla-jello bunny mascot. Adorable and delicious. Quite pink, too, due to all the strawberry…
When I finished, I headed towards the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, a monster movie with a homage to the Jurassic Park book. I guess the film is better if Scarlett Johansson is your type. The film retcons the whole “Jurassic World” premise: now the dinosaurs are dying (and nobody cares about them any more!) and only surviving on an island near the Equator. It turns out that they somehow hold the key to cure heart disease. And then the palaeontologist says that they need to collect samples from the three biggest dinosaurs: Patagotitan (okay, it’s famous now), Mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have already been featured in previous films and are not dinosaurs. Then there are mutated freaks and a Tyrannosaurus with the head of a xenomorph and some extra arms, because the dinosaurs can’t survive, but the “mutated experiments gone wrong” are alive and well? The best from the film was a scene taken from the book, with a Tyrannosaurus and a raft. Unfortunately, this new Tyrannosaurus was not Rexy. Furthermore, the special effects are… not good. Too much bad CGI makes the creatures less believable than those in the 90s instalments, which is… a huge faux pas.
I am glad I saw it on opening day, though – I was able to avoid most spoilers and went in with an open mind. It was not a good film but I didn’t hate it. I will just probably ignore it exists (until the next film comes out, we all know that). Points for the pro-planet message, but it falls a bit flat when you know that Michael Crichton, the original author, was pretty much anti-science…
The film was around 133 minutes long, but oh god, the previews were long. Thus, I left the cinema around 19:30. I had to take the underground, and I knew that some stops would be closed due to Pride. However, last year I had learnt that you’re still allowed to transfer even if you cannot enter or exit the station. I used that knowledge to get myself to Movistar Arena Madrid for Joaquín Sabina’s final tour Hola y Adiós (Hello and Goodbye). I am happy I bought the tickets when I first saw them, because most concerts have sold out, and I got quite a good seat considering the event and the venue.
Joaquín Sabina is a Spanish singer and songwriter born in 1949 in Jaén, in the south of Spain. When he finished his studies, his father offered him a present, and he asked for a guitar. Due to his leftist ideas he had to exile himself in London for a few years during Franco’s dictatorship. When he came back, he lived a life of debauchery, mostly in Madrid, and he probably was not the best role model. But between 1994 and 2000, when I was an angtsy teen, his music was important to me, though I eventually moved away from it. When I heard he was retiring (again) early in the year, I thought I wanted to see him at least once, despite the fact I have not consistently listened to his music much in a couple of decades – there are a few hits in my car playlist. And then there is ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, Who stole the month of April from me?, which hit me very hard during Covid lockdown and I’ve skipped since then, but never had the heart to delete from the playlists.
Security let me in with my tiny water bottle, thankfully, and I found my seat about 45 minutes before the show was due to start, and 15 minutes after doors – it was weird, I had expected a larger crowd, and I had been a bit stressed leaving the cinema 20 minutes later than what I had calculated. I was on the side stalls, on a ninety-nine-euro spot. There is a whole etiquette about concerts with seats, and while I am quite happy to stand up when it is appropriate, and in this case, I decided I would stand up when people in front of me stood up. Pretty easy.
Setlist: Un último vals (One last waltz; recording and MV)
1. Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha)
2. Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears)
3. Lo niego todo (I deny everything)
4. Mentiras piadosas (White lies)
5. Ahora que… (Now that…)
6. Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street)
7. 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights)
8. ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?)
9. Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies; band intros)
10. Camas vacías (Empty Beds; vocals: Mara Barros)
11. Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen; vocals: Jaime Asúa)
12. Donde habita el olvido (Where oblivion dwells)
13. Peces de ciudad (City fish)
14. Una canción para la Magdalena (A song for Magdalene)
15. Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos (Through the Broken Dreams Boulevard)
16. Y sin embargo te quiero (And yet I love you; folk copla song; vocals: Mara Barros) + Y sin embargo (And yet)
17. Noches de boda (Wedding nights) + Y nos dieron las diez (And the clock struck ten on us)
Encore:
18. La canción más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful song in the world; vocals: Antonio García de Diego)
19. Tan joven y tan viejo (So young and so old)
20. Contigo (With you)
21. Princesa (Princess) La canción de los buenos borrachos (The good drunkards’ song; recording)
Well, what can I say? Sabina has got old since I was a teenager. His voice has cracked – after all, he is a smoker – and he has swollen up. But his concert made me feel 30 years younger, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ll freely admit that I bought the ticket back in January purely out of FOMO. However, I am happy I did. I did not get any of my personal favourites, and I am okay with that. Most of what he sang was part of those times.
The concert started with Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha), a description and homage to the city of Madrid, which the singer holds particularly dear – despite the fact that he has a bad record with concerts in the city – he once had a panic attack and another time he literally fell of the stage and ended up in hospital. He started sobbing right at the end of the song. Figures.
The venue, of course, cheered and applauded, and stood up to bounce to Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears), which has too dark lyrics for how… perky the music is, but I guess the message of “survivor, yes, damn it” is what matters. It was during Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street) when the old guard took over, so Sabina turned the microphone towards the attendees, which did not only sing chorus but brought down the dome with their voices. He was visibly moved.
Good thing that next came 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights) a getting-over-a-break-up song during which people can yell, and broke the spell. That made me strong enough for ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?), the first time I’ve actually listened to the song since 2020 – “who stole the month of April from me? I kept it in the drawer where I keep my heart” did not sound so threatening surrounded by hundreds of other people.
During Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies), which is a list of all the good things in life and “over a hundred lies that are worth it”, we got the band introductions. Sabina sang himself, and played the guitar for some songs – he stayed sitting down on a tall stool. Safer for him. Antonio García de Diego played guitar, bass, and harmonica; Jaime Asúa Abasolo and Borja Montenegro also played guitar; Josemi Sagaste played sax and non-drums percussions; Pedro Barceló played drums; Laura Gómez Palma played the bass; and Mara Barros did the choruses and had some solo vocals.
Sabina retired to rest for two songs, alleging that it had always been a dream of his to have a song of his sung by a beautiful woman – Camas vacías (Empty Beds), performed by Mara Barros – and by an actual “rocker man” – Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen) with Jaime Asúa on vocals. Soon after Sabina’s return came a song which holds one of the song lines that has impacted me the most in my whole life: Noches de boda (Wedding nights) hopes that “the end of the world finds you dancing”. I really hope it does.
I guess part of the fun of a concert is that you feel special. Of course that the singer has a speech for every city, and holds each one close to their hearts, or are the best or whatever. But this one did hit differently. I guess my inner child enjoyed it immensely, and even if neither of the songs of the encore did much for me in terms of nostalgia, I was incredibly grateful and happy that I had been able to attend. If it is the last tour indeed, I will have said my hello and goodbye, even if it has been 30 years after the time Joaquín Sabina’s was the only music that played in my room.
Also, another extremely convenient thing: though I went by train, I had a ride home, as my parents were in town and driving back around the same time. Which was great, considering that a storm was brewing, and that there were many underground and train stations still closed due to Pride…
The Barcelona hotel charged 20 € per day and person or breakfast, and I was not willing to pay for that, and so I told my sibling. They had no option but to accept since they had decided to delegate all planning and credit-card’ing on me. Instead of booking with breakfast, I brought cold latte bottles and snacks – good for taking headache medicine, which I did. After a quick breakfast, we set off. As we left, I asked at reception if they could do something about the air conditioning.
We headed towards the underground. It should have been an easy twenty-five-minute commute, but one of the stations was half-closed. We had to go outside and walk towards the other entrance to change lines, which was strange and consumed a ridiculous amount of time. We had to be at the ticket booth of our booked visit ten minutes before the allotted time, and we barely made it – though they did not seem to care. When I was looking at tickets, I found a combined ticket that saved us 10 € for two iconic buildings in town that I had not visited before. That however implied exchanging vouchers for tickets, thus the extra time.
We reached the former hospital of Saint Paul Sant Pau Recinte Modernista ten minutes after I had anticipated, right at the time we had to be there. Sant Pau is a huge hospital complex erected between 1901 and 1930 by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1849 – 1923). Domènech favoured Modernisme, and is considered one of the most influential architects in shaping it. He designed buildings which balanced functionality and decoration, with lots of mosaics and polychrome. Though the precinct had been a hospital since the Middle Ages, it was completely redeveloped for the early 20th century project. Today, it is half of the Unesco Heritage Site Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona.
The hospital is considered one of the most important, and largest, complexes in the local Modernisme style. The complex was designed with 26 buildings, 12 of them pavilions for patients, separated by sexes and kind of disease. The pavilions were connected by underground tunnels, leaving space for gardens and open spaces between structures. It was originally conceived to be self-sufficient, closed off to protect the rest of the city.
The buildings are erected in brick, and decorated with ceramics both inside and outside, some of them forming complex mosaics on the roofs and ceilings. After a new hospital was built next to the original one in 2009, the complex was recovered as a museum in 2014. We could visit the pavilions, the tunnels, and the administrative building. The whole enclosure is magnificent, and incredibly large. It took over two hours to see everything we were allowed to visit and I loved every second of it. Well, except the pavilion with political propaganda.
Afterwards, we headed out towards a fun restaurant I had found online – Verne Barcelona, decorated simulating Captain Nemo’s Nautilus from the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by French writer Jules Verne. We shared a cone of tempura vegetables and I ordered a “Submarine” – a sandwich made from toasted brioche bread – called Turtle, with battered squid, sauce and salsa (I just don’t understand how they are supposed to resemble a submarine…).
We headed back towards the hotel, stopping at a Starbucks for a coffee – a matcha in my case – because I helped my sibling dress up for the concert. We had been carrying the cosplay after all, of course they were going to wear it!
We were in Barcelona to attend the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Orchestra World Tour, to be held in the CCIB – Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona. Final Fantasy is an expanded video game anthology which set off in 1987. Since then, it has spawned 16 main games and countless spin-offs, media, plushies, and remakes. One of the most famous games is the seventh instalment, Final Fantasy VII, released in 1997. The game is set in a cyberpunk dystopia where energy is obtained by draining the Planet’s life-force. Gameplay follows the adventures of a party which opposes the system, embodied by the electric company Shinra, while at the same time trying to stop the main antagonist – mad soldier Sephiroth – from destroying the Planet itself.
Since 2015, Final Fantasy VII has been under redevelopment into a trilogy using modern graphics. The first game was Final Fantasy VII Remake, released in 2020, whose music had its very own World Tour in 2021. The second instalment, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out in 2024, and its music event – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Orchestra World Tour – began almost immediately, ending precisely with our concert.
We were at the queue already when doors opened, but not early enough, so we needed to line again for the merchandise booth, almost an hour. It was in that queue where something amazing happened. When we attended the previous concertFinal Fantasy Distant Worlds 35th Anniversary – Coral –, we were stuck at the merchandise queue for about an hour too and by the time we reached the front, they had ran out of most of the items. That included what I wanted the most – the chocobo plushies. Chocobo are a recurring species in the Final Fantasy franchise, large birds that can be ridden in-game, and in real life be sewn into cutesy toys.
It turned out that in 2023 the last chocobo plush had been bought by the guy who was sitting behind me. I might have made some jokes about stealing it and running away, and he promised to get me one for the next concert. I of course filed that under “one encounter silliness” and forgot all about it.
Well, he did not.
In that queue, two years later, he found me, and he gave me a chocobo plush. He actually found my sibling, who was easier to identify due to the cosplay. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. Never in a million years would I have expected something like that to happen. Just… figure that everything that went on afterwards was coloured by a feeling of puzzlement and amazement at this stranger’s kindness over a silly plush I wasn’t able to buy two years before.
We got to the front of the line over an hour later, almost at the time of start. I only wanted a programme, and we were seated around 20:50. I am good at choosing seats, by the way. We were dead centre at a great distance from the stage.
Setlist:
First part:
1. The Unknown Journey Continues
2. FFVII Rebirth Opening
3. Main Theme of FFVII – Battle Edit
4. A New Journey Begins: Grasslands / Junon / Mt. Corel
5. Crossing the Planet: Corel Desert / Gongaga / Nibel
6. Queen’s Blood
7. Stamp – Rebirth Medley
8. Rufus’s Welcoming Ceremony – A New Leader
9. Costa del Sol – Fun in the Sun
10. Custom Valkyrie
11. End of the World Medley
12. Cosmo Canyon – Sanctum of Planetology
13. Bare Your Soul
14. Welcome to the Gold Saucer
Second part:
15. Loveless Symphonic Suite – Gift of the Goddess
16. No Promises to Keep – Loveless Ver.
17. Galian Beast
18. J-E-N-O-V-A Lifeclinger
19. Sephiroth Reborn Symphony
Encore:
20. One-Winged Angel – Rebirth Medley
21. Aerith’s Theme – Return to the Planet Medley
The orchestra was directed by Eric Roth. It was all right, I enjoyed it. However, I don’t think it was as powerful as the first one I saw, but that one was the first post-Covid event so it was emotional in other ways. Then again, I am not a gamer. I just watch gameplays on the Internet… I was a bit disappointed by the arrangement of One-Winged Angel, it felt… too elegant. What I love about the song is the pure chaos it represents, after all.
In attendance was composer Masashi Hamauzu [浜渦 正志 | Hamauzu Masashi]. He started working for Square Enix in 1996 under Nobuo Umematsu, the main composer of Final Fantasy VII music. Hamauzu’s first direct work related to the saga was the Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon soundtrack in 1997. He was in charge music for the Final Fantasy VII spin-off Dirge of Cerberus and alongside Mitsuto Suzuki, he has worked in both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
After the concert, we joined the VIP queue for pictures and autographs. Though I had brought the CD from the time before – when I did not get the pamphlet – I was equipped this time. And I even managed the Spanish – English – Japanese cacophony without messing up either of them. That’s a first for me, I think. I got my programme autographed on the setlist page, and then my sibling and myself headed back to the hotel. For 179 €, I keep thinking the VIPs should at least get their own merch queue, or an item to get signed. I guess there are lots of people to get paid…
Something that surprises me a lot about this area of Barcelona is that not even the McDonald’s at the shopping centre is open after 23:00, so I always make sure we buy something to snack after the concerts. The room was at least not freezing, though not particularly welcoming either. I had a hot shower, and that finally got rid of my headache, just in time for bed…
Sometimes one has to wonder what guides music promoters to make certain decisions. It would be interesting to be aware of factors like costs of renting a venue, fuel, ticketing and so on. Because on occasion, it feels like tour schedules are suboptimal from all angles – acknowledging the lack of information. In the case of The Forsaken Tour by The Raven Age featuring Disconnected, I think that the most important factor that was considered was minimising bus-tour kilometres. Unfortunately, that placed their Madrid show on a Thursday, in a venue which… I’m pretty sure was inconvenient for everyone but myself.
The Raven Age is an English heavy metal band formed in 2009 by guitarists George Harris and Dan Wright – though Wright has since left the band. Current members are Harris and Tommy Gentry on guitars, Matt Cox on bass and backing vocals, Jai Patel on drums, and Matt James (MJ) on lead vocals. They have released three studio albums, and supported Iron Maiden, Anthrax and Apocalyptica during the Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol 2 Tour 2024. Though I saw Artics supporting that tour, my friend A****d saw The Raven Age and highly recommended them – actually she was the one who informed me of the upcoming tour and the Madrid date and place.
The concert was held in ReviLive, a concert and party venue associated with the musical studio ReviRock, which provides recording equipment, sets, rehearsal spaces… It is located near the Vicálvaro train station and Puerta de Arganda underground stop in Madrid. Unfortunately, it’s pretty far out from most commuting hubs. I had first thought about driving there, but my Sat-Nav has been failing lately. Furthermore, I did not feel comfortable parking and walking around the area – not the best – without knowing my way.
Since Vicálvaro was close and the way was rather straightforward, I decided to drive to a nearby station, then take a high-frequency train. But in the end, that day I had a headache, so I wanted to drive as little as possible. That meant risking it with the trains. I had previously checked finishing times and with doors at 19:00, I should be out at 22:30 latest. I had no intention to queue, so I took a train that arrived at the station around 18:50. That got me to the venue at 19:05. I was all right with staying back, but the crowd was so small that I found a spot at the barrier… And I was not wearing barrier shoes, at all. The good thing of a small side-lined venue is that security is nicer – and you are allowed to do outrageous things like bringing in your water bottle.
Supporting act throughout the tour was the French artists Disconnected, an independent French progressive metal band. Formed in 2016, it features Ivan Pavlakovic on vocals, Adrian Martinot and Florian Merindol on guitars, Romain Laure on Bass and Amaury Pastorelli on drums.
Doors ended up being at 19:30, not at 19:00, which was mean to the poor fans that had been there since early, particularly the meet & greet ones. I have to admit I did check for M&G tickets, but found no way to get them, else I would have. Maybe they were fanclub-only, I don’t know. I was hoping the venue would fill up more – similarly to La Riviera, where the crowd (that I’ve seen) skips the supporting act and drips in without queuing.
At 19:50, Disconnected started their act, and it was quite all right. What was unfortunately not so good was the sound. For such an empty venue, it was a pity, because it was not as if there was a roar from the attendees. The vocalist had great energy, and he was fun – though painfully aware of how few people there were. They sang in English and French, but the ratty sound made it a bit difficult to follow.
Disconnected’s setlist:
1. Living incomplete
2. I Fall Again
3. The Wish
4. La Puissance
5. Unstoppable
6. A World of Futile Pains
7. Life Will Always Find Its Way
8. We Carry On
Unfortunately, the venue had not filled up when it was time for the main act, and that was a bit sad. Despite the ongoing sound problems and the small crowd, The Raven Age had a great presence. The music did not sound as powerful as what I had been listening online though, and I am sure that they did not have any tea in their thermos bottles…
The Raven Age’s setlist:
1. The Guillotine
2. Promised Land
3. Forgive & Forget
4. Nostradamus
5. Surrogate
6. The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships
7. Scimitar
8. The Day The Earth Stood Still
9. Essence of Time
10. The Journey
11. Seventh Heaven
12. Angel in Disgrace
13. Serpent’s Tongue
14. Grave of the Fireflies
15. Fleur de Lis
It was extremely amusing to hear a heavy metal singer with such a strong British accent, talking in a natural way and dropping swearwords without sweating them. The members seemed to be quite happy taking over all the stage, and there was a lot of interaction, which is always good and fun. Unfortunately, considering that promoter was giving tickets away, I don’t think I’ll ever have the chance to see them close to home again.
The act was not long. They started at 20:50 and finished at 22:10, so it was a relatively short show, but it went by really fast. There was no real encore, because MJ said “this is the time when we go backstage, you guys yell for more, we come back and sing some more, so we’re going to skip all that and go on.” I approve of that.
The whole event had a weird atmosphere from start to end – the lack of a queue, the… chairs outside so we could wait… The… “hey, hold my spot, I’m going to change into this merch shirt I just got” and “Sure, but then hold mine while I go to the toilet” conversations… And especially, the lack of people. I really hoped that there would be more concertgoers after 20:00, and at least some more enthusiasm. When I saw Kamijo in Barcelona there was a small crowd, but it was loud. Here, it was lukewarm. I felt a bit heartbroken for the bands, because they both did a great job.
The train I was supposed to take back did not pass, so I had to wait almost 45 minutes at the Vicálvaro station. That was not fun because the only seats were in the open platform and my lower back hurt – bad choice of shoes. It was extremely cold, too, so I just huddled on a bench, and it felt good when the train finally came. I got to my car just before midnight, and home soon after. I was so tired I almost hit the kerb on my last curve, so it is good that I did not drive back and forth on the speedway, actually.
All in all, I enjoyed the day, the supporting act, and the concert. Would I travel abroad for The Raven Age? Probably not. Will I buy their CDs when I have money to spare? Probably yes. Although I keep getting sidetracked by activities and places to see and burning through my fun budget… Just you wait until there is a concert somewhere I want to visit, and I’ll be taking this whole “not travelling for The Raven Age” back.
When we walked out of the rooms to go down and have breakfast, my parent’s alarmed face made me worried. They informed my sibling and myself that “it had snowed”. That was spooky for a second – until I ran to the window and saw that the “snow” was just a very thin layer of scattered white powder. It was safe to go out, even with my senior parents. We had breakfast and we got ready to go out.
At some point, my family “caught” that I like Natural History museums, so they really, really thought I wanted to go to Vienna’s Natural History Museum – Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, and just wouldn’t listen to “No need, I’ve been there already, Their reasoning is that I had mentioned it before, which I actually had, to inform them that the Venus von Willendorf was there. That is where we ended up, and I was happy to oblige – the museum has rocks, meteorites, fossils and dinosaur animatronics. All right up my alley.
The museum’s oldest collection 250 years. In 1750, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I bought what at the time was the largest collection of natural history objects at the time – around 30,000 objects. That same decade, the Emperor founded the Schönbrunn Zoo and the botanical garden, and he ordered the first scientific exhibition to be held. Upon his death, the collections were donated to the state, and the first museum according to the Enlightenment principles was founded – and soon expanded.
The museum building was also commissioned by the Emperor. It was designed by architects Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer, with an identical exterior to the nearby Museum of Fine Arts. Works began in 1871, and the institution officially opened in 1889. Though it was indeed originally designed as a museum, it feels more like a repurposed palace, with decorated ceilings and monumental staircases. It has 39 halls with almost 9,000 square metres of exhibits, still keeping the 19th century outline. We just did halls 1 to 13: mineralogy, petrography, meteorites, palaeontology and prehistory galleries, including the Venus von Willendorf. The 11-centimetre figurine was made in limestone around back to 30,000 years ago. It is a nude woman of large proportions, and even if she does not have a face, she is mostly anatomically correct and has plaited hair.
My family was fascinated by the collections, and I guess I felt a teeny bit smug about that – considering how much fun they poke at me because natural history museums are very high on my priorities when I visit a new place (see: my first time in Brussels).
We left the museum after a couple of hours, around noon. We did not stay at the Silvestermarket at the square, but headed out towards the Imperial Butterfly House Schmetterlinghaus. It comprises half of an Art Nouveau greenhouse turned tropical botanical garden and butterfly zoo of sorts. I really love the iron-and-glass architecture of the building – and I would have loved to have had lunch in the brasserie that fills the other half of the greenhouse. The building was designed by architect Friedrich Ohmann and erected in 1901 as part of the Hofburg Palace and is, next to the Burggarten palace.
Most of the butterflies we saw, if not all, were forest giant owls Caligo eurilochus, very large butterflies originating from the Americas – they can live from Mexico to the Amazon basin. They have marks like big eyes in its back wings (hence the commmon name), and the inner wings are blue. They are pretty, and they seem to like fruit, as they gathered around the feeders to snack on it. The sad part is that they only live around 24 days.
We then headed to the restaurant Centimeter, near the Rathouse (town hall) to have lunch. It is a place that has a lot of things measured – you can order sausages by the metre. I was somehow was not feeling hungry, so I decided to get Gebackener Emmentaler mit Sauce Tartare und Preiselbeeren, breaded and baked Emmental cheese with tartare sauce and cranberries. After lunch, we expected the Silvestermarket next to the Rathaus to be open, as it was one of the places to be for New Year’s Eve. We were wrong! That was a bummer, because in hindsight we could have cancelled the reservation and just stayed at the market in front of the Natural History Museum. That was a bummer, but at least we were warm.
We headed back towards the hotel, and we stopped by the supermarket next door to buy something for dinner. I grabbed myself some pre-emptive sushi, because I was pretty sure that my family was not going to find what they wanted – basically stuff like they would get at home. After half an hour of going back and forth, they decided to settle down with sandwiches and more sushi. We also picked up some chocolate thingies that would end up being more coconut than anything else. Not that I have anything against coconut, but I do not appreciate it replacing chocolate unannounced.
We took the groceries to the hotel, and had a bit of downtime before got ready for the main event. During that time, I went on the online airline webpage to make sure that the travel agent at El Corte Inglés had checked us in. The check-in was done, but someone had made a typo on my parent’s email address so we had not received the boarding passes. I retrieved them and downloaded onto my phone to distribute later.
A bit past 18:00, we left for the Wiener Musikverein, the Viennese Music Association, home to the Vienna Philharmonic Wiener Philharmoniker, where we would attend the 2024 Silvesterkonzert. It was a bit strange to head to such an event using the underground, but that was the most efficient means of transport, to be honest. We ran into the Spanish lady and her husband again – and that was great because that way we could take pictures of each other without having to get a stranger to do so.
The Musikverein was designed to resemble an Ancient Greek Temple in a Neoclassical style, following plans by architect Theophil Hansen. The building was inaugurated in 1870, and it has a small decorated entrance, very underwhelming staircases, a small chamber music hall, and the main music hall, the Großer Musikvereinssaal or Golden Hall. Walking in there was… surreal. It’s a hall I’d seen so often on TV, and it actually felt… I don’t know, a bit… pale. Less bright than on the screen. Maybe it was that the flowers were white and pink, so they did not pop. And it’s not like I know anything about flowers, anyway. I was just happy they were artificial enough not to trigger my allergies, it would have been awkward to sneeze all throughout the concert…
Though the “New Year Concert” is the one that everyone knows, there are actually three concerts with the same set list – the Preview Voraufführung on the 30th, the Silvesterconcert Silvesterkonzert on the 31st, and the New Year’s Concert Neujahrskonzert on the 1st. I honestly would have thought that it would be full of wealthy people and they would be all cool as cucumbers, but it turns out, a whole bunch of us were just excited noobs taking pictures of every and anything. My family’s seats were on the second floor balcony. I just couldn’t believe everything that was going around around me, nor where I was. I bought the programme, because I really wanted something physical from the soirée, aside from the ticket.
The Vienna Philharmonic was founded in 1842. It is formed by the best musicians from the Vienna State Opera. It is actually run by the musicians themselves. Every year, a conductor is chosen to direct the concerts, and for the 2025, it was Italian Riccardo Muti. Maestro Muti was born in Naples in 1941, and studied in the Classical Lyceum. He proceeded to move onto studying Piano, then Composition and Conducting. He began his career in 1968 as the music director of the opera festival Maggio Musical Fiorentino. He conducted the New Year’s Concert in Vienna in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2018 before this year. In 2011, the Philharmonic awarded him Honorary Membership. He is also a bit of a troll.
The concert had two parts, including the encore:
First part:
1. Johann Strauß I. Freiheits-Marsch, op. 226 – Freedom March
2. Josef Strauß Dorfschwalben aus Österreich. Walzer, op. 164 – Village Swallows from Austria, waltz
3. Johann Strauß II. Demolirer-Polka. Polka française, op. 269 – Demolition Men’s Polka, French Polka
4. Johann Strauß II. Lagunen-Walzer, op. 411 – Of friends, Waltz
5. Eduard Strauß Luftig und duftig. Polka schnell, op. 206 – Airy and fragrant, fast Polka
Second part:
6. Johann Strauß II. Ouvertüre zur Operette “Der Zigeunerbaron” – Overture to the operetta “The Gypsy Baron”
7. Johann Strauß II. Accelerationen. Walzer, op. 234 – The Acceleration, Waltz
8. Josef Hellmesberger (Sohn) Fidele Brüder. Marsch aus der Operette “Das Veilchenmädl” – Fidel brothers. March from the operetta “The violet girl”
9. Constanze Geiger Ferdinandus-Walzer, op. 10 [Arr. W. Dörner] Ferdinandus, Waltz
10. Johann Strauß II. Entweder – oder! Polka schnell, op. 403 – Either … or! Fast Polka
11. Josef Strauß Transactionen. Walzer, op. 184 – Transaction, Waltz
12. Johann Strauß II. Annen-Polka, op. 117 – Polka Ana
13. Johann Strauß II. Tritsch-Tratsch. Polka schnell, op. 214 – Chit-chat, fast Polka
14. Johann Strauß II. Wein, Weib und Gesang. Walzer, op. 333 – Wine, Woman, and Song
Encore:
15. Johann Strauß II. Die Bajadere, Polka schnell, Op. 351 – The Bajadere, fast Polka
16. Neujahrsgruß (New Year’s Address)
17. Johann Strauß II. An der schönen blauen Donau, Walzer, Op. 314 – The Blue Danube
18. Johann Strauß I. Radetzky-Marsch, Op. 228 – Radetzky March
Honestly, what can I say? It’s nothing and everything like what you watch on TV. The music was fantastic, but somehow it felt like the conductor did not do much, the orchestra did whatever they wanted, not in a bad way. They knew exactly what to do and just did it. I know next to nothing regarding classical music, but they made it feel absolutely effortless. I am not sure how much work they do on their own and how much they do with the conductor, but I can tell had Riccardo Muti a blast. At some point, when he was coming in and out, he knocked over some of the viola or bassoon’s music sheets all over – he was very apologetic about it. Also, although neither photographs or videos are not permitted (mine are totally… sneaky, you see), one of the ladies in the first row was shamelessly filming, and he winked and waved at her. Furthermore, he would just… jump during some of the polkas, which is a feat considering the man is 83 years old.
The concert always ends with Strauß’s Radetzky-Marsch, and the public is invited to clap along. Muti completely had the concertgoers in his pocket, controlling them (us) with a finger and a look. It was amazing to watch. All in all, he was absolutely… not careless but carefree. It was great to see, somewhat magical in a way.
The concert felt much much shorter than the two and a half hours it lasted. We went down to the first floor for pictures during the intermission, and we were not the only ones. However, I think we kind of… snuck past the intern or something, not sure we were supposed to be allowed on that floor. People were having champagne but I only cared about seeing everything. I might be a bit… weird. I make no apologies. I really loved the experience. They say it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but to be honest, I would just try the lottery every year from now on. I mean, I now have the right clothing for it…
After the concert, we went back to the hotel where we had our dinner. To be completely fair, there was a part of me that would have totally wanted to go out to watch fireworks and Vienna’s way to celebrate the New Year – and then be an absolute wuss, freeze my butt off and need to come back to the hotel. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and since I did not get to see it… It must have been the most interesting thing ever! It’s okay though, because I got to see the concert, and it was already my once in a lifetime most interesting thing ever… But it took me hours to get to sleep, so maybe I could have explored some, because in the end I’m greedy and I want it all.
Planning for this short getaway started on the 23rd of February, when I bought my ticket for the Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol. 2 Tour 2024 stop in La Riviera in Madrid (50.50 €). Almost immediately, I headed off to Apocalyptica’s website to buy the VIP Tour 2024 Upgrade (58,90 €). The upgrade consisted on early access, photograph / meet & greet / autograph session (the important part), VIP lanyard, fabric patch, pin and tote bag. Honestly, all that for barely 100 € was a sweet deal. Back in Antwerp for Starset, someone I was queueing with complained that VIP tickets were too expensive for “a broke uni student”, but for me, meeting with the artist, albeit briefly is usually worth it – early entry is a plus, too, because for some concerts I either find a barrier spot or I just have to go to the back. The bundle was dispatched on the 9th of June (according to the email. Do Finnish post offices open on Sunday?) and it arrived on the 18th.
I originally booked a cheap hotel about half an hour’s walk from the venue. Later, I decided that I preferred the more expensive one less than 10 minutes away, so I changed my booking a week before the concert. I did not book there originally because it required prepayment, and my card was playing up..
On Friday the 4th of November I received an email with instructions for the Meet & Greet, which was to start at 18:30, and I should be there at 18:15. All right, I could do that. It was only a matter of waiting.
On Monday, 17th of November, I took a morning train to head out to Madrid with some leeway for time because I needed to do some small item shopping. I had to dodge some guys trying to get people to sign up for an NGO, but at 11:40 I made it to my first stop of the day – the light museum Museo de la Luz. I had been putting this visit off to go with someone who had expressed interest. However, I also waited for another exhibit and I missed my chance as it turned out to be only temporal. Thus, I decided to head to the Light Museum on my own – it was also one of the few exhibitions open on a Monday morning.
The Light Museum is a modest exhibition with interactive artworks that are mainly made out of lamps, lasers and lights. When you come in, you are given covers for your shoes and a key for a locker – all for free. Then you wait until an attendant takes you in and shows you how to interact with the first artwork “The birdcage” (La Pajarera), a box made out of light and metal that you make change colours with the movement of your arms. Once you know how to “play” with the art, you are left on your own to wander for an hour. At first I thought it would be tight, but the place was small – a bit too small for the price, I thought. I was there for around 40 minutes in total.
There were few people and I was able to check out most of the artwork uninterrupted. The next exhibit is made out of a number of old music festival lights – those that gave a lot of heat from the 90s, which are supposed to be a reference to climate change. Then there is a giant kaleidoscope you can walk in – this one became my favourite. Other rooms or works include a wall of lights that follow you as you move or dance, something with lasers (that I think was broken), some light illusions, a room full of hanging lights, a cube of mirrors and light… At the end there is a wall reading “light museum” in differently coloured lights. When I left, the lady at reception gave me a badge for booking with the official website.
I walked out and headed towards the restaurant where I wanted to cheat the system. I crossed the square Puerta del Sol, where they were setting up the Christmas tree – it was about 45% Christmas. On my way, I walked by the underground stop Metro Banco de España which has a tiny door for Little Mouse Pérez – Ratoncito Pérez, the Spanish equivalent to the tooth fairy. I never remember to check it out when I am around, but I made the connection this time.
I finally made it to the James Joyce Pub – which is technically a sports bar. I was not there for the TVs though. I had a while back found the place looking up places which served English breakfasts in Madrid. The James Joyce prides itself in being an Irish pub and offers Irish All-Day Breakfast (12.00 €) – two pork sausages, two rashers of bacon, baked beans, fried egg, sautéed mushrooms, grilled tomato, blood pudding, chips, two half-toasts and butter. No, I would not survive that for breakfast, so I ordered it for lunch (and dinner), thus tricking the system indeed. Unfortunately, it was really good and authentic, so now I’ve got to come back for the sausages and the shepherd’s pie, so at least twice.
After lunch, I headed out towards the park known as Madrid Río. The park runs along the banks of the river Manzanares. It covers 121 hectares, and it was designed after to cover the space emptied when the belt road M-30 was rebuilt as an underground tunnel. The original project was created by a team of architectural studios and landscapers, with strong ecological consideration – aiming to help the area recover from the degradation and pollution caused by years of road traffic. The project was carried out between 2006 and 2012. In 2015, a second project was carried out to “renaturalise” the river, opening the dams to allow the water to flow freely, which in turn caused the recovery of many plant and animal species (to the detriment of… the local rowing team).
There are also bridges that connect both banks of the river. One of them is the one I crossed – just because I could. It is the pedestrian bridge Puente Monumental de Arganzuela, designed by Dominique Perrault. It is a bridge in two parts – one crosses the river, the other overlooks the park and connects to the urban area, and a total length of 278 metres. It is a tube made out of steel and wood that I’ve been wanting to check out for a while.
Another important bridge is the completely different Puente de Toledo, a baroque bridge built by Pedro de Ribera. It was erected in granite between 1717 and 1732 as the previous ones had been taken down by torrential floods. This one was made to stay, with nine solid arches opened to allow for the river floods. It was… ready for Christmas.
It was weirdly warm for a November afternoon, so when I went to my hotel I opened the window while I had a shower. Around 17:00 I headed out to the venue, where there was a small group of people waiting already. La Riviera is a 1,500 people venue, with really good acoustics – and very dedicated staff. The place was originally a cinema, which was turned into a disco, and then into a music venue and nightclub. It is the same place I saw Epica and Apocalyptica in 2023, and I was surprised how many people came for the M&G considering that last year we were… six. We were around 30 this time around.
At first we were chatting in front of the main door, but soon a queue started forming. A little later, the nice security guy (who last year told me “I looked the part of an Apocalyptica fan”) took us to a secondary door, and the queue was properly organised. Surprisingly, bags were not checked – while last year they even took markers from people.
Apocalyptica is a Finnish symphonic metal band. It was formed in 1993 as a tribute to Metallica with a classical touch – playing with cellos. Their debut album Apocalyptica plays Metallica by Four Cellos was released in 1993. They slowly moved from covering other bands in a neoclassical style to their very own repertoire. Today, the members are Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lötjönen and Perttu Kivilaakso, three classically-trained musicians with a deep love for metal. In 2024, they have gone full circle with the album and tour Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol. 2, performing with drummer Mikko Kaakkuriniemi.
We were ushered into a queue for signatures, and afterwards we would go at the end of the line to wait for photographs. I had brought a print-out of the picture from the previous year, and I told them that whenever they came to Madrid, I would come see them. I got a smile for that. It was an awesome photograph, after all. After everyone had their stuff signed we had the photographs. I asked for “a big metal hug” and got trolled instead. Fun times though!
After the photograph, I found a spot at the barrier. Last time I got on the right, this time I went left. Just a little. I did not want to go dead centre in case anyone decided to moshpit, but I might next time as there was no issue – everyone was too entranced for anything like that, I’d say.
The opening act was the Finnish band Arctis, a baby band who has just debuted with their first CD. They were pretty fun, maybe… a bit… too happy bouncy for metal? I’ve read their act described as metal-pop. It might be. I liked them okay, and they were nice.
Setlist:
1. I’ll Give You Hell
2. Remedy
3. Tell Me Why
4. WWM
5. Bimbo (Lambretta Cover)
6. Fire
7. Frozen Swan
8. When The Lights Go Out
9. Theater of Tragedy
Apocalyptica came on stage at 21:00 sharp, and the live was glorious. All the songs were Metallica covers, from the new album, the first one, or the remastered version of Plays Metallica released in 2016. Despite that, one would not even have to be a Metallica fan to enjoy the concert, because the three men that compose Apocalyptica have an amazing magnetism. Perttu reminds me of the Duracell Bunny, he just did not stop for a second throughout the whole concert, which lasted a good two hours. Paavo seemed to be in his own little world, as he usually does. Eicca is the one doing most of the talking, and he is hilarious when he delivers his puns with a total deadpan voice and face.
Setlist:
1. Ride the Lightning
2. Enter Sandman
3. Creeping Death
4. For Whom the Bell Tolls
5. Battery
6. The Call of Ktulu
7. St. Anger
8. The Four Horsemen
9. Blackened
10. Master of Puppets
11. Nothing Else Matters
12. Seek & Destroy
13. One
The audience was mostly moved by Nothing Else Matters, I’d say, judging by how they chorused it. Perttu was all in for that. Personally, I found Seek & Destroy and One, particularly, to be extremely powerful. Also, knowing that they dug up the original bass track from deceased Metallica member Cliff Burton for The Call of Ktulu was half-amazing and half-chilling. All in all, it was a fantastic concert, no matter how one looked at it.
Afterwards, Arctis was hanging out by the merch. I got their CD, they signed it, we took a photo. It was fun!
I left the venue and I brought an ice-cream and a sports drink for “dinner” of sorts, because I was thirsty. I had both in the hotel room before my shower – the second of the day – and collapsing onto the king-sized bed. I had to wait for the phone to finish charging before I slept though, so I watched a movie before I zonked out.
I woke up on Tuesday, 18th of November and drank my coffee before I set out. It was freezing out there, with frost on the grass, in spite of the warm afternoon the day before. On my way, I found the ancient walls of the city, remains from the old Moorish fortress alcázar, which stand to the side of the Royal Palace and the Almudena cathedral. I walked towards the centre of Madrid – The Sol Christmas tree was about 60% ready – to meet up with my relative for breakfast at a new place called Kawaii Cafe. Inspired by the Japanese kawaii [可愛い]. Kawaii means pretty, childlike, cute, and the Kawaii Cafe has taken the idea to heart, maybe not not in a complete accurate manner though. Everything is pink, full of fluffy and glitter. The food is not only tasty, also pretty. However, the wait staff is dressed as “maids” [マイド], which I tend to associate more to the… hm… more risqué side of hospitality. When food is brought out, you are offered to chant a spell for it to be even tastier.
I found the place existed by chance, and I was instantly smitten by the rainbow waffles, because they were adorable, and very, very rainbow-like. Thus, I ordered them, along a matcha latte. My relative tried the pancakes with a cocoa. She was ecstatic at the quirkiness of the place.
We stayed for well over an hour, and then headed out to one of the local museums Museo de San Isidro – Museum of Saint Isidore the Labourer. Isidore is the patron saint of Madrid. He is credited with several miracles – multiplying wheat and food, having his oxen plough on their own, and rescuing a child from a well making the waters inside rise. According to tradition, the museum is housed where he used to work, and legend has it that the old well is the one he pulled the child from.
Today the museum hosts some palaeontological and archaeological exhibits, from a mastodon and ancient rhinos to Medieval artefacts, running through the Roman occupation and the Muslim period. The place is a complement to the Museo de Historia de Madrid, or maybe its competition, though I think both belong to the same institution – and both are free. As the building is a historical place, it offers the chance to enjoy its small but beautiful Renaissance courtyard, with sculptures of mythological heroes, and of course St. Isidore and his wife. There is also a tiny Baroque chapel.
Right next to the museum stands the Baroque church of Saint Andrew the Apostle Iglesia de San Andrés Apóstol , which was getting ready for Christmas. The church is one of the oldest in town, though it was rebuilt after its destruction during the Civil War, and it has been recently restored. It hosts a number of religious sculptures and a painted vault above the altar.
We took the underground at the station Tirso de Molina, which can still be accessed through the historical entrance hall, which is similar to the one that was closed off in Pacífico. It was beautiful, though of course busier than the museum one. Over the entrance to the platform there is a tile mosaic with the old shield of Madrid, dating back from the original station. It was installed in 1921, and it is the oldest artistic item in the underground network.
From there we commuted to Nuevos Ministerios, where they had just kick-started the Christmas market. It seemed to be the “brands” market, with Lego, Disney, and so on. There was also a food truck by a famous chef selling basically chicken sandwiches at outrageous prices. I had been vaguely curious but not going to break the bank for a chicken sandwich, especially after such a breakfast!
I took a train from there back home, with no incidents whatsoever (because by now I’m desensitised to trains being late…)
A while back, I read on Keita Kanazashi’s Instagram that Ha·Ya·To Project was going to come back to Spain for a small tour with their show Ha·Ya·To: Drum Masters. The most convenient place for me to see them was Teatro Buero Vallejo in Guadalajara. I got tickets as soon as I realised they were out, and still I did not beat the local crowd who buy tickets for any and everything.
Ha·Ya·To: Drum Masters is a Japanese percussion show wadaiko [和太鼓]. While Ha·Ya·To is officially formed by the three Kanazashi brothers, Keita Kanazashi, Ryota Kanazashi, and Yuta Kanazashi, for Drum Masters they are joined by Koji Hada, Takayuki Hashiguchi, Makoto Sekine and Shunichiro Kamiya, along with special guest stars Chieko Kojima (first female wadaiko master) and Masato Shibata (Japanese guitar shamisen world champion).
The show depicts the seasons of the year. It starts in Spring, with flowering cherry blossoms and a slow build up that yields to a super-energetic Summer, full of bouncing and strong beats. Then there comes the break and afterwards there is Autumn, where Chieko Kojima really shines, though the rhythm is a bit lower and more melancholic. Finally, energy picks up again for Winter – because it’s cold and one needs to warm up.
The show was absolutely fantastic. Afterwards, there was a “collective M&G” with pictures with the musicians. I did not get any autographs, though Ms Kojima did notice that I was carrying the DVD I bought in 2018. That lead to her, Keita and myself talking a little. I also had a photograph with Keita from an event in 2019. Their manager is very strict, and once she decides picture time is over, she really ushers them away. I did manage to sneak a selfie with Makoto Sekine after the rest of the group had left though.
I love taiko. It really energises me, and it was a great way to spend the evening. I could’ve combined it with something else, but I had plans for the next couple of days. I was off to see Apocalyptica the following day.
The weather was clear but crisp in Antwerp [Anvers | Antwerpen] when I left the hotel to grab a coffee at a small supermarket at the station. I walked right up to the Cathedral of Our Lady Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal. The interior was spacious, with a feeling of light and openness, with pointed arches. One of the key features of the cathedral is the art it houses, particularly the four paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640), the most important Flemish Baroque artist, known for his nude characters, whether mythological or biblical. There are four of his works in the cathedral – The Elevation of the Cross, The Descent from the Cross, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary and The Resurrection of Christ. The cathedral boasts that it contains more “masterpieces”, both classical and contemporary, but they pale in comparison.
The cathedral is 123 metres long, and its tower is 123 metres high, giving it a special proportionality – which would have been even more spectacular if the second tower had ever been completed. The nave has a “secret” skylight that can only be seen if you are standing right underneath – this is supposed to represent the presence of God. The building is considered late Brabant Gothic, with some Baroque decorations. The stained glass windows are mainly Neo-Gothic, since the originals were destroyed. Underneath the nave there is a Medieval crypt.
Afterwards, I headed out for the Plantin-Moretus Museum Plantin-Moretusmuseum, a Unesco Heritage Site. It is a museum on the history of book printing, especially from the 16th century printers Christophe Plantin (founder) and Jan Moretus (heir and son-in-law), located in their former house and workshop. The collection includes original printing presses and typesetter letters, drawings and paintings by Rubens, and hundreds (thousands?) of books printed throughout the centuries, and even some manuscript codexes. There were Bibles, atlases, medicine books… It was absolutely fantastic – though taking pictures was hard due to the lightning (so forgive the strange angles).
I was feeling a bit woozy, probably because I had not eaten anything solid in 24 hours. Thus, I found a supermarket and bought a few items to have lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following day. I was heading back to the hotel, but I became distracted as I walked by the Stadsfeestzaal. Now a shopping centre, it used to be an exhibition hall, built at the end of the 19th century. It burnt down in 2000, and in 2007, it reopened after restoration as a shopping centre… which was celebrating Hallowe’en.
I ate a sort of pizza bread, warm from the supermarket, on the way, and some sushi when I got to the hotel. It was an unorthodox combination, but it made me feel fine again. I saved a salad for later, and I got some rest and got ready for Starset’s concert Immersion: The Final Chapter. I reached the venue Trix Zaal around 16:20, and I was… second in the VIP queue. The VIP passes were issued around 18:30, with a staff member taking our names and checking IDs. Doors opened at 19:00 and the curtain literally fell at 20:15.
I once had to describe Starset and I did it as “weird”. Not in a bad way. They have a futuristic image, with an emphasis on a future rather terrifying technocratic dystopia. The concerts carry out a narrative – the New East is a sort of mental empire that controls everything through a device implanted in your mind. Their music videos are independent though. Their music style is hard rock or alternative metal, I’d say.
When I first saw them in Japan, they were officially four members: Dustin Bates (lead vocals, keyboards, soundboard, guitar), Ron DeChant (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), Brock Richards (guitars, backing vocals) and Adam Gilbert (drums, percussion) – those were the ones I met for the sainkai. They are currently touring with Zuzana Engererova (cello), Siobhán Richards (violin, keyboards), and Cory Juba (guitar, synth). I am very happy to report that the touring members are – at least for the two concerts I’ve attended in Belgium are present for photographs and meet and greets.
I enjoy Starset concerts a lot, I kind of feel the music. Besides, there are a bunch of songs that hit my soul really hard. Out of this concert’s setlist, I particularly love Carnivore and TokSik. However, Trials, Monster and My Demons are the ones that touch me really deep.
The stage was set with a bunch of rotors between the musicians and the audience, and there was a lot of neon and smoke to help with the visuals. The concert took about two hours, with a break in between to take down the rotors (in a matter of minutes). The “final chapter” the tour title refers to turns out to close down the futuristic plot and kickstart a present one with… time travel. And it makes total sense!
Setlist:
1. Unbecoming
2. Carnivore
3. Manifest
4. Perfect Machine
5. Frequency
6. Trials
7. It Has Begun
8. Waiting on the Sky to Change (Downplay cover)
9. Devolution
10. Infected
11. Telekinetic
12. Brave New World
13. Faultline
14. Monster
15. Degenerate
16. Echo
17. Die For You
18. Halo
19. My Demons
20. TokSik
During the concert, the person who had been first at the VIP queue had a bucket with a glow in the dark message asking for guitar picks. They caught an extra one and gave it to me afterwards! I was extremely grateful! After the encore, VIP pass holders could stay behind to take the official photograph and get some items signed.
I had brought a printed copy from my photograph from the VIP event at the previous concert. Whilst last year the VIP experience was a pre-concert acoustic, this time around it was afterwards, and it consisted on “hanging out with the band”. I had heard about it before, but I could not imagine how that went. First, we lined up for the official photograph. They built up a backdrop for the. After the picture was taken you got a signed poster and the QR to download it, and off you went back to the floor. I was talking to the people I had queued with when I suddenly looked up and saw Cory within the crowd. How can these guys be so tall and at the same time so sneaky? Because I swear, Dustin is 2.5 times me and I never saw him coming.
I asked each member to find themselves in the photograph and they signed it for me. Some asked when it was from, and I explain the one from the previous year. Though technically they could sign two things, I forewent the CD I had because the photograph was easier to hold on its own. I praised Zuzana on the girl-power vibe she and Siobhán had going on for the tour and she was happy “someone noticed”. Trust me, it is very noticeable. It was extremely weird and fun to be chatting with all the members like that. I am not sure it makes sense, but I am a bit intimidated by the interactions with Japanese stars – I would blame it in Japanese being my third language, but both Miyavi and Yoshiki are fluent in English. I could blame it on all rules being broken after the stint on the floor of the Royal Albert Hall, I guess. Or maybe it is just different with American artists, since I had the same feeling with Misha Collins – “approachable and human”.
Though the manager had said “no selfies”, towards the end, when he was the last around and a bunch of people had left already, Dustin (vocals) took a few with the fans who remained. I was one of the lucky ones. Then we ran into Andy (drums) at the bar and we were chatting for a while longer. We also took a selfie, yay us.
Afterwards, I undid the way towards the hotel. I walked because it was actually shorter than taking public transport. It was after 23:00, and the streets were mainly deserted as it was cold, but I had no incidents. I had to walk fast to keep myself warm, so that helped reduce the time out. I was also glad I had bought myself dinner, as I thus I did not have to look for a fast food place open at the time and I could head directly into the shower.
All in all, the whole experience was fantastic and I had a blast, or two. Thank you, Starset, for such an awesome event, and all the nice fans who had zero issues with switching to English whenever I was around, and especially to the person who gave me the pick.
According to the weather forecast, there was a chance of rain in London in the morning. When I got up and drew the curtains open, it was actually pouring, so I decided to wait the rain out. When I left the hotel around 9:00 to head to the queue, there was still a bit of drizzle which cleared as I was walking. However, when I reached the venue, I was surprised to find a notice on the door “We reserve the right to refuse entry. Anyone queueing before 16:00 will be refused entry.” Ho-kay, that sign had not been there the evening before – or I would have planned accordingly. I shrugged it off and resolved to make the most out of the morning and early afternoon, and be back at 16:00 sharp. I mean, what else could I do, mope at the hotel?
I took the Underground to the London Bridge stop, in Southwark. The first thing I came across was Borough Market, which had never even been in my radar before – I tend to stay on the other bank of the Thames. The market is an Art Decó building designed by Henry Rose in 1851. As a business, it had been in operation for centuries at the time though, and the building would get many refurbishments in the following years. Borough Market claims to be place for sustainable products with a short supply chain. There were wholesalers, coffee brewers, tapas bars and for some reason a bunch of guys yelling that everyone should try their mushroom risotto. The area was packed, and it was almost impossible to get a good picture.
Next to the market, stands Southwark Cathedral, officially Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie. London has four cathedrals: St. Paul and Southwark are Anglican, and Westminster and St. George are Catholic. Southwark Cathedral has stood in place for at least a thousand years. However, there is a legend that places its foundation in the early 600s, and there is archaeological evidence of a Roman road dating even further in time. The current structure is gothic, erected after the previous building was damaged in an area-wide fire in 1212, then transformed with the passing centuries. In the 19th century it was “remedievalised”, and in the 20th it became damaged by the Blitz and requited restoration. Today, it prides itself in being LGTB-friendly and having a resident cat, Hodge. It is also common that a fox, nicknamed Richard, visits the garden. Not sure either keeps the cathedral mouse- or rat-free, or they are too full with treats from the congregation.
After the cathedral, I headed to the actual reason I was in Southwark, The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. The museum is located in the attic of a former church – in other to access it, you have to climb up a spiral staircase with 52 steps, up the bell tower. The church was attached to a medieval hospital, in whose attic (or garret) the apothecaries dried medicinal herbs and stored medicines. In 1822, this garret became an operating theatre, with a huge skylight built in order to let light in – we are talking about a time when surgery was performed without anaesthetics, painkillers or antibiotics. The hospital was abandoned some 40 years later, and the theatre was lost to time, until it was rediscovered in 1952 – it is considered the oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe.
The museum has a small collection of pathology specimens, a bigger one of nightmarish medical tools, and a reconstruction of an apothecary shop, with a counter and a lot of herbs, and informative panels. Funnily enough, it also runs through the history of medicine, and the great London epidemics using… rubber duckies. Not collecting rubber duckies is becoming more and more difficult… Anyway, these particular rubber duckies have been painted and modelled over, and next to them there is a list of symptoms. From those, you need to diagnose the duckie with “silent killers of the past” – measles, tuberculosis, cholera…
The duckies were a good comic relief of sorts from the pathology collection and specimens, the pre-science artefacts, and the history underlying at the theatre itself. The theatre had several rows of stands where people watched / learnt from the operation while the patients were awake – allowing the procedures to be public was the only way poor people had access to medical treatment and the good surgeons. Honestly, the idea of surgery is scary enough, but just thinking about amputation without anaesthetics makes me shiver. Especially when you see what was used for it – basically a handsaw – with spectators.
It was still early afternoon, so I hopped onto the Underground towards Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square. I had not seen The National Gallery London since I was a child, and I remembered next to nothing of it, so I wanted to revisit it. The National Gallery, in the City of Westminster borough, dates back from 1824, when the government bought 38 paintings from a private collector – and it has been continuously expanding since then. The current building was designed by William Wilkings in 1832, and opened in 1838. the collection comprises over 2,000 paintings by 750 artists, among them Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Tintoretto, Veronesse, El Greco, Caravaggio, Velázquez, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Canaletto, Goya, Constable, Delacroix, Degas, Monet, van Gogh…
Here’s the fun thing, I always thought I liked the impressionists, but it turns out that seeing Monet’s Water Lilies myself was rather underwhelming. Conversely, I found myself enjoying British landscapers a lot, especially Constable. I spent a few hours in here, looking for the masterpieces, but a lot of them were on loan to other sites.
At one point I was taking a photograph and a gentleman thought he was on my way. When I reassured him he was not bothering me, he said something akin to “That’s because you’re a professional”. I wonder, a professional what? I was not carrying a camera or anything, just the phone…
I did a run throughout the whole gallery, and I was considering staying at the café for a bite, but… I was rather close to Leicester Square… so I thought I could walk there and check if I could have lunch at Coco Curry or somewhere in Chinatown. The line at Coco was rather short – surprisingly, since the Chinatown Coco is always pretty full. Thus, I decided to wait it out and have lunch there – after all, it is the “iconic” one, and the previous time I had only visited the Bond Street shop. I’m not sure when Coco became the feeling of a taste of Japan, but it is one of my favourite food places.
I had a bit of extra time. Not much for exploring, too long to just stay at the restaurant. I wandered Chinatown a little, and then got to Leicester Square. I’ve been to the Lego store, and the M&Ms place, but there is also a tea boutique, the TWG Tea Shop which I had never stepped into. I did it this time, and I was really tempted by a few of the green teas in pretty tins. I however talked myself out of buying any, since it would be silly to take them to the concert, and if a water bottle is a hazard, I cannot imagine what would be thought of a metal box.
Instead, I headed back to Trafalgar Square and stepped into the church Saint Martin-in-the-Fields. This ancient church was rebuilt in the 1720s by James Gibbs – though it was originally “in the fields”, in the outskirts, by this time it was already part of the city. It is a simple rectangular nave with Corinthian columns and a vaulted ceiling. The church holds choir concerts every Sunday afternoon, and I sat there listening to the music for a bit. I then I headed off to Charing Cross to take the underground towards the venue and the surprise of my life.
I arrived at The Garage for Kamijo’s Europa Tour 2024 “The Anthem” at 16:00 sharp thinking the queue would be assembling, but no. Apparently there was some “secret parallel queue” going on somewhere – there were between 40 and 50 people there already, so I only got the 18th place due to my type of ticket. I was a bit disappointed, but oh well, what can you do? Nothing any more, so I did not dwell on it. The promoter had actually sent a schedule in advance, saying that doors would be at 19:00 for the VVIPs and showtime at 20:30. Of course, it would not be followed, but it was good having an approximate timetable.
Queuing was okay, not extremely long since we actually went in around 18:30. There was a lady organising the line and giving out the numbers, and the venue staff were willing to go along that, so even if there was a “secondary queue”, there were no issues that I know of. The venue was a bit weird. There were a couple of stairs and a small hall before the actual concert hall. In that tiny hall, all painted black and stuck between the two fire doors, and under horrible lighting, stood Kamijo and his dazzling smile, ready for the meet and greets and pictures for the VVIPs and handshakes for the VIPs.
I walked in, he gave me a warm smile, and said ‘bonjour’. I smiled back. I don’t know whether I’m getting old, or that sitting on the floor with Yoshiki was a game changer for my brain. And despite the fact that I’ve been neglecting my Japanese, I was able to convey my message. He was adorable. I said something like “There is no ‘I’ve missed you’ in Japanese, but it’s really been a long time.” A staff took our picture, he said thank you again, I said thank you back, then walked into the venue. I received my signed poster – a grey A4 signed in black. Apparently, gold or silver markers were out of the budget…
The barrier was almost completely full, but I was able to squeeze on the left, amongst the people I had queued with, closer to the centre of the stage than I had even hoped. Truth is that Kamijo tends to go to the right more often than to the left than the right, but since he holds his microphone with the left hand, you don’t see his face, so I was happy with my place. However, the hour and a half until concert started felt pretty long, since I was quite squeezed in. Maybe I should have sat, I don’t know. The concert started around 20:00, and it was no pictures of videos allowed.
The supporting musicians were Hiro on guitar – Hiro was also the guitar in La’cryma Christi, one of the most important V-kei bands in the 90s. Also on guitar came Yohio, a Swedish artist who managed to break into the Japanese scene a few years back – he actually got a lot of hate at the beginning, so good that he received some love. On bass came Ikuo (Bykk Zeichen 88, Rayflower), and on drums Ushi (Vorchaos). I’m not sure who the sound tech was, but he or she deserves to be yelled at – for about the first third of the concert Kamijo’s microphone was powerless, to the point that his voices was inaudible at times. There were a few songs I did not know (or was unable to identify due to the noise), amongst them the song that gives the tour its name: The Anthem.
Sound was so bad that at times I could not hear what Kamijo was saying, much less understand it. However, he sang two of my favourite songs, Moulin Rouge and Eye of Providence, and I was lucky enough that he repeated my favourite line twice. Despite my being amused by his idealisation of Napoleon, there is a line in Sang I (it took me stupidly long to realise that sang is French for ‘blood’) that resonates a lot with me: ‘Just like flying with the wind: no pain, only gain’. He started the song and interrupted himself halfway to make the musicians greet the audience in English. He either forgot he was going to do an emcee, or since he said it was his favourite song, he wanted to sing it twice.
He had fun, and unlike other times I’ve seen him, he indulged in a lot of “fan service” with the musicians, which sent the crowd screaming. Aside from the sound issue, there was one other hiccup during the concert. At one point Kamijo tripped over a wire, stumbled and ended up almost sitting down on the drums, but he did not fall, which was good.
Setlist:
1. 闇夜のライオン (Yamiyo no lion)
2. Conspiracy
emcee, with Kamijo saying he was glad to be back in London, and inviting the audience to go to Paris with him.
3. Moulin Rouge
4. The Anthem
5. Louis 〜艶血のラヴィアンローズ〜 (Louis ~Enketsu no la vie en rose)
6. 運命 (Unmei)
7. Eye of Providence
8. Habsburg
9. mademoiselle
10. CRIMSON FAMILY
11. Castrato
12. Beautiful Rock’n Roll
13. 薔薇は美しく散る (Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru; song by Lareine, Kamijo’s first band)
14. Sang I & emcee, where the musicians said what the tour had meant for them
15. Sang II
16. Nosferatu
emcee
17. Avec toi〜君と共に〜
18. NOBLESS OBLIGE part 1
19. Throne
20. NOBLESS OBLIGE part 2
21. Vampire Rock Star
During the emcees Kamijo said that he was glad to be back to Europe / the UK, and that he was especially happy to be in London. He talked about how great the tour had been, and how amazing an audience we were – though he tells that to everyone anyway. All in all, I had a lot of fun, enjoyed myself, clapped during mademoiselle and even jumped (once, I’m not that crazy) during Vampire Rockstar. Whenever his musicians or himself sing / yell the chorus, the words ‘vampire rockstar’ come out as ‘vampire lobster’. This time, he made the audience yell them all, so considering this was London, it sounded correctly for once.
After the concert, which lasted a bit over two hours, I bought a sandwich at the open-late supermarket next to The Garage, and headed to the hotel for a shower and sleep. I kind of… forgot to go to bed though. God, I love concert highs, as short as they are. It is always hard to come back to reality, but there was still half a day before that.
I had a good day planned, but it turns out that life sometimes does not go as one wants, so in the end the fun part of it was reduced to attending a concert in the theatre Auditorio Buero Vallejo in Guadalajara. The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra was touring Spain with a repertoire of film soundtracks by Hans Zimmer and John Williams.
The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra (HSO), from Los Angeles, comprises some musicians who record original soundtracks for films. Originally just a recording orchestra with works dating back to 1953, from 2006 they hold concerts and radio broadcasts. Today it is dedicated to perform “live to picture” concerts, playing live music in synch with the original material from the film. I think it would be really cool to watch a whole film with them playing the score!
However, this is not what they brought this time. It was more “snippets” of films with a remix of the main themes. The “Best Cinema Music” La mejor música de cine comprised several pieces by probably two of the most famous composers ever.
John Williams was born in 1932 and is still considered “an active composer and conductor”. Since his career started in 1954, he has been nominated for an Oscar 54 times, and he won five times – Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler’s List. Hans Zimmer, a German film score composer and music producer, has been “only” nominated twelve times, with two wins – one for The Lion King and another for Dune. But he is more than 30 years younger than Williams, so I guess there is still time. Both of them have written film music I enjoy a lot (along with Howard Shore and Jerry Goldsmith), so I really wanted to go. I was even ready to brave the awful Guadalajara crowds and head to the theatre there.
The whole concert lasted about two hours, in two parts with one interlude, and two pieces of encore – a total of 15 songs. The director was not introduced, but he looked nothing like the main director that the HSO webpage introduces. As set up, the orchestra was on stage and behind them, a screen showed scenes from the films whose soundtracks they were playing. They were not too well planned, though, because most of them had to run a time and a half before the music piece ended. I like this set up though, because it gives me something visual to look at while the music plays. For me, it is perfect – it is the same thing they’ve done before at the Final Fantasy live concerts.
Setlist:
Part 1
1. Main Title from Star Wars (Williams, 1977)
2. The Lion King soundtrack medley (Zimmer, 1994)
3. Superman Main Title Theme (Williams, 1978)
4. Schindler’s List Theme (Williams, 1993)
5. Pearl Harbor Suite (Zimmer, 2001)
6. Now We Are Free, Gladiator main theme (Zimmer, 2000)
7. The Raiders March, Main theme of the Indiana Jones films (Williams, 1982)
Part 2
8. E.T. the Extra-terrestrial main theme (Williams, 1982)
9. Main Theme from Jurassic Park (Williams, 1993)
10. Molossus, Batman Begins main theme (Zimmer, 2005)
11. Hymn to the Fallen, Saving Private Ryan main theme (Williams, 1998)
12. Harry Potter Main Theme (Williams, 2001)
13. He’s a Pirate, Pirates of the Caribbean main theme (Zimmer, 2003)
Encore
14. Imperial March from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (Williams, 1980)
15. The Raiders March, Main theme of the Indiana Jones films (Williams, 1982).
All in all, the day did not pan out as I had planned it, but it did have a bit of an epic ending, and I was glad that I managed to squeeze the outing. I did miss hearing the theme of Jaws, but I got Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. I have to admit that The Lion King was way intense (hello, inner child!). And I did not like the Gladiator film, but the rendition was epic. Most of it was. Except for E.T., which felt a bit too long, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. A great way to end a not-so-good day.
Edit in January 2025. It seems this was not the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra at all, but a group of musicians impersonating them. During the 24/25 tour, the performance so bad that there were complaints and musicians got sacked and quit left and right. This rendition was good, to be honest, but I feel ripped off. Isn’t this fraud, technically? The reports of what happened in 2025 are surreal, with the ensemble impersonating two different orchestras for different repertories. Note to self: never trust promotor NK Prodarte.
This was a short-enough trip that I could just fit in within half a day. Not that Guadalajara has many things that interest me, but it is close enough to Madrid that now and then there is a good show or artist coming. This time around, the South Korea Cultural Centre Centro Cultural Coreano, sponsored a small tour by the Korean percussion group Groove&, as part of its Korea Sound Festival. One of the stops was the Centro Ibercaja Guadalajara.
Based in Seoul, Groove& defines itself as a female percussion ensemble team based on traditional music. It is formed by three women: Sang-kyung Lee [이상경], Min-ju Sohn [손민주] and Ha-gyeong Kim [김하경]. All of them play the janggu [장구], which is the most traditional Korean drum – it has two heads (each with a different pitch) made from animal skin and the body is hourglass-shaped.
Sang-kyung Lee also plays the yanggeum [양금], a percussion instrument similar to a hammered dulcimer, but with metal strings which are hit with a bamboo stick to produce the music. Min-ju Sohn plays the ulla [운라], a set of ten small gongs hanging vertically from a wooden frame, the gongs are struck with a small beater. Finally, Ha-gyeong Kim plays the kkwaenggwari [꽹과리] a small brass gong which is held from a string with one hand and struck with a hard stick with the other. There were also cymbals and gongs.
I arrived at the cultural centre about half an hour before the show. There were a few people waiting, and it was a very weird crowd. Entry was free, and the act was sponsored by a local cultural association, which attracted a number of people who had absolutely no idea about what they were going to see. When doors opened, I found a seat on the third row, behind the authorities and the associates, but rather in the centre. The introduction was a little bit embarrassing though. The person introducing the band could not pronounce their name, and she sneered that “Korea is more than we know from the films and series that are a fad”. Well, of course. I’ve never been to Seoul, but I am rather sure people do not squid-game through life.
The concert lasted for about an hour and it was very interesting. Unfortunately, the venue was extremely small and the metal instruments reverberated a lot. For the first song, Kim walked out dressed in a folk costume and played around the audience, I think in a bit of a recreation of a pungmul [풍물] – a Korean folk music tradition that includes drumming, dancing, and singing, with performers wearing bright colours. Lee did all the talking, and she tried some Spanish along with English. The Korean she spoke was translated into Spanish by someone from the Korean Embassy I think. There were eight songs, a few emcees, during one of which Lee introduced the instruments. This was extremely funny, especially the ulla, as Sohn offered us a rendition of Under the sea from The Little Mermaid.
Setlist:
1. Groove&
2. Get!
3. Wave
4. Chaser
5. Dodang-gut [도당굿]. Dodang-gut is a shamanic festival / ritual to call the spirits so they bring welfare, and well-being to the village, with a special importance given to female shamans.
6. Pray
7. Dusk
8. Matt-Jang-Gu [맞장구]. This is a word that means agreement or listening to the other person, and also the position of two people playing the janggu drum face-to-face.
The show was extremely energetic considering these three women barely even move from their siting points on the floor. I had a lot of fun, despite the weird public – and the fact that apparently people in Guadalajara just love talking during shows, providing commentary.
Despite the metallic sounds being extremely high and echoing, the drumming was fantastic, you could feel it in your belly, and I really enjoyed it. I had never thought I would end up in a traditional Korean drumming show, but the opportunity presented itself and I took it up. A while back I participated in a Japanese drumming (taiko) workshop, and had a blast. I did not expect this to be similar – different countries and all – but I’m starting to suspect I like folk percussion in general.
After the concert, the three drummers met with attendees. They took pictures with people and had some merchandising on sale. I bought a signed CD for 10€, said “thank you” in Korean (literally the only thing I can say that is not a food… and I don’t even like Korean food) and we took a picture together.
I headed off after that, just in time to get caught in the rain, because what is a concert without a little adventure?
When planning thisLondon trip, I booked two hotels – a bed and breakfast for a lower price for the first night, and a more expensive one next to the venue for the night after the concert – I like staying as close to venues as possible, and the second hotel was literally next building over. I woke up on Monday around 7:00, and it took me 20 to 30 minutes to pack all my things. Since breakfast was included, I accepted the challenge of a full English breakfast. I drew my line at tea though. I love tea but I’m a caffeine addict anyway. I need my boost in the morning.
Though London’s public transport was going through a strike period, I was very lucky with both trains and underground – actions and closures were planned for both the day before I arrived, and the day after I left. I took the Northern Line, and headed off to the O2 Academy Islington to wait for the start of the concert. The venue is part of a shopping arcade, so there were readily available toilets and even better, we could wait under cover. This was great as , as there was a forecast of thunderstorms – which ended up breaking around 17:00. The queue was nothing out of the ordinary, I was the fourth VIP to arrive, and the fifth person overall when I reached the area around 9:15.
Miyavi [雅] was born Ishihara Takamasa [石原 崇雅] is, above all, a guitarist. He was born in 1981 and debuted in 1999, going solo in 2002, aside from doing collaborations with some of the musicians I follow – Yoshiki and Hyde. Miyavi’s concerts are extremely fun, he is full of energy and he sometimes greets fans one by one when he arrives at venues. He is in general a good person, and a volunteer at UNHCR. He has had small roles in American blockbusters such as Kong: Skull Island and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken. He is really kind during M&Gs too, and one of the few Japanese artists who actually means “world tour” when he announces a world tour. This time he toured Europe and China tour, a continuation of his 2022 North America tour – this leg was called Return of the Samurai Guitarist: 20th & Beyond European Tour 2023.
After around 500 bus manoeuvres and 90 minutes of waiting, we saw him come into the venue around 13:30. The staff filmed, and he waved and said “thanks for coming.” Other times he has shaken hands and stayed for a chat, but I guess he was tired. He was coming directly from Paris after the concert there the evening before. I’m getting too old for queuing all day though, because even if it did not feel extremely long, I was a bit queasy and headachy all day – there would be a full-blown migraine coming at night but, oh well.
Around 15:00, the venue’s crowd management staff decided to rearrange the queue. I had a VIP ticket with included a picture, a pass and a “special present” – which turned out to be a wristband. When buying the ticket, the 25 first purchases had an extra autographed picture, but my Ticketmaster decided to freak out and I did not get that one. Oh well. Anyway, security decided to break the queue into two – one for VIP and Early Entry, the other one for General Audience. This caused a bit of a problem when the VIP tickets had to be read, but at that point I was already safely checked in. The worst was the way the placed the barriers, so sitting down on their supporting structure was awkward. Better that than standing though, as that would have to happen later, once in the venue.
Once the queue was rearranged, around 16:00, I snuck out to go to the hotel and check in. They gave me a “superior” room which was nice and had pretty views, but the bathroom smelled of sewer – as bathrooms near tidal areas sometimes do. I ate a snack and went back to the queue.
VIPs were admitted a bit after 18:00, with disabled VIP ticket-holders coming in first. There was a lot of trouble with the merch shop as they would not take card and they had no change. I did not want to buy anything, so I went straight to the M&G. After the people around me realised that if they stayed back, they would lose their spot, they quickly rearranged themselves back in the queue. I was happy to let the people who had waited in front of me pass – all three of them.
When it was my turn to see Miyavi, I told him a secret – that he reminds me that good things exist in the world. He said thank you. I am horrible at selfies, so I handed my phone to the staff, and they were happy to take two of them. Afterwards, I went into the venue and found my spot at the barrier, centre but a bit to the right – which was apparently an amazing place for pictures, considering that I had the photographers in front of me through most of the concert. Early Entry came in after all the M&Gs were done, and GA were let in at 19:00. The concert started at 20:00 sharp.
Setlist:
1. Selfish Love
2. WHAT’S MY NAME?
3. SURVIVE
4. Ahead of the Light
5. So On It
6. In Crowd
7. Secret
8. Cry Like This
9. Tears on Fire
10. Long Nights
11. Under the Same Sky (Unplugged)
12. 君に願いを [Kimi ni Negai wo] (Unplugged)
13. Girls, be ambitious
14. 陽の光さえ届かないこの場所で [Hi no Hikari Sae Todokanai Kono Basho de]
15. 咲き誇る華のように -Neo Visualizm- [Sakihokoru Hana no You Ni -Neo Visualizm-]
16. Fire Bird
17. New Gravity
18. Bang!
19. No Sleep Till Tokyo
20. Horizon
Encore:
21. 愛しい人 [Itoshii Hito]
22. Under the Same Sky
23. The Others
24. DAY 1
The concert was extremely fun, as it usually is with Miyavi. As the tour is a bit of an anniversary celebration, he sang a lot of his older songs, along with newer ones. He jumped and twirled and rolled on the floor. He also had moments to sit down and a give us acoustics. At some point, one of his guitars malfunctioned and he went “I guess we’re chilling now.” He spoke about his work with refugees and how he does not understand the British accent to save his life – despite having lived in the US for years. He said that he enjoys being in the country where rock was born. He also said that he had played the venue before – his phone remembered the Wi-Fi password.
We had an improvised song at the beginning of the encore, since the audience requested Itoshii Hito. He remembered it, unlike when he was forced to google Señor Señora Señorita in Barcelona (2019). Despite being visibly tired when he arrived – and according to the Instagram story getting lost in the venue – he gave his all in the concert, and I am grateful for that. He indeed reminds me that there are good things in the world. At the end of the concert, he was given a Union Jack that he wrapped around his shoulders.
Exit was chaotic due to the problems with merchandising continuing. I would have liked to stay to stay and say goodbye, but I crashed after the concert was over – my headache got worse, and I was really nauseous. I bought some food to take to the room and headed back to the hotel to eat it, take my medication, have a shower, and get rid of the contact lenses. I went to bed as soon as I had finished and, and slept from midnight to around 5:00, when I woke up, vomited dinner – I hope not too much of the medication – and tried to get some more rest. I think I did sleep a bit further, but I’m not sure.
I was lucky enough to be able to combine my 2022 birthday with a holiday that happens around the end of May / beginning of June, so I took off to Tenerife. I could not do that this year, but the stars aligned for a half-day in Madrid – actually, what aligned was a lot of website-hopping, to be honest. It all started when we were booking tickets for the visit to the Royal Palace of La Granja. At that time, I discovered that the collection of Stradivarius instruments in the Madrid Royal Palace are brought out so they can be played every now and then. I had to work on the dates of all the upcoming 2023 concerts where they were used, but I managed to secure tickets for a side gig, which also gave access to a usually closed-off area of the Palace anyway.
Conversely, I have been obsessed with a London experience in which you get to have afternoon tea on a 60’s double-decker bus – but unfortunately, it does not take reservations for one. I was browsing the Internet , looking at similar experiences, and I stumbled upn the fact that the Mandarin Oriental Ritz runs afternoon tea in Madrid. They actually claim that their tea is the same as the London Hyde Park Ritz. I signed up for the Fan of M.O program – not that I’m ever going to be able to afford a stay there, but oh well – before making the reservation, and the system asked if there was a special occasion going on. I ticked “birthday”.
Plans thus built, we arrived in Madrid for the 16:00 booking of afternoon tea at the Palm Court restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid hotel.
The Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid opened in 1910, after King Alfonso XIII decided that Madrid needed a luxury hotel to host European nobility. The king himself became an investor, wanting the city to have lodgings comparable to Paris or London. The building was commissioned to French architect Charles Frédéric Mewes and the construction was directed by Luis de Landecho y Lorenzo Gallego. Surrounded by a metalwork wall, it has 153 rooms and suites, and a wide variety of dining options with different levels of formality.
Through the 20th century, the original Ritz became a piece of history. Its rooms and bars hosted a wide range of personalities – WWI spy Mata Hari, artist Salvador Dalí, writer Ernest Hemingway, scientist Alexander Fleming, and more recent celebrities such as Ava Gardner, Michelle Pfeiffer or Madonna. In 2015, the hotel was acquired by Mandarin Oriental, and in 2018 renovation was tackled. The Covid pandemic delayed its reopening until 2021. Part of the restoration focused on the inner court, with an iron-and-glass ceiling. This is the area where the restaurant Palm Court is located.
When we arrived, they confused my reservation with someone else’s with the same first name – I had to correct the lady, it was a reservation for three not for two. Then they asked if we were celebrating something, to which I replied that it was my birthday – again. As we sat down, the pianist was playing the OST of Aquaman. Cognitive dissonance? Check.
A nice gentleman brought out the tea menu – while the food is fixed, you can choose from a wide variety of tea. I had of course studied the options beforehand, and ordered sencha meicha, because it is one of my favourite teas, even if it is Japanese. I mean, I can get Earl Grey more easily – and affordably.
The booking confusion continued when we got our food – once more they brought out a three-tier tray for two, and when they brought out the third one, they had mistakenly brought out one of the dietary-restriction trays – easy to spot because the sandwiches had different colours. When the correct tray was brought out, the order of the different tiers was incorrect.
The tea itself was delicious. The food included has been designed to Quique Dacosta, mixing the “best afternoon tea tradition” with Spanish confectioneries. The classic mini sandwiches included a cucumber and cheese cream, Spanish ham, potato omelette, seafood and mayonnaise, and a salmon cracker, shaped as a rose. The sweets included chocolate mousses, lilac sponges and citrus pastries.
Afterwards came the scones, which were a bit too small and I was slightly disappointed that the promised clotted cream was merely butter. But the scones – two types of them – were warm and well done. Afterwards, as we were finished, the pianist played the notes to the traditional happy birthday song and I was brought a small mousse with “congrats” written on the plate – though they served it to someone else in the party!
I loved the tea party. However, even if all the staff was extremely nice, it gave me the feeling that they were overwhelmed and nervous – almost improvising – as they made a few mistakes. Afterwards, we walked to the Royal Palace Palacio Real de Madrid. Even if it was an hour to the recital, we were allowed into the courtyard, and not much later into the royal chapel Real Capilla. The recital was called Afectos Amantes (Loving affections), and it mostly comprised music by José de Torres. Torres was the main composer of religious music for the Spanish 17th-century court, though the majority of his music was lost when the original Madrid alcazar burnt down – however, a few pieces were preserved in El Escorial, Salamanca, and Guatemala. There were also a couple of pieces by Händel.
The music was performed by Al Ayre Español, a classically-trained ensemble that focuses on Spanish Baroque Music. Its members are Eduardo López Banzo, (harpsichord, and director); Jacobo Díaz Giráldez (oboe); Alexis Aguado (violin); Kepa Arteche (violin); Aldo Mata (cello); Xisco Aguiló (double bass); Juan Carlos de Mulder (archilaúd and guitar); and finally Maite Beaumont (mezzo-soprano singer).
The program included:
Pasacalles I & II (Passacaglia), Anonymous
Divino Hijo de Adán (Divine Son of Adam), José de Torres
Sonata Op.5 No.4 in G Major, Georg Friedrich Händel
¡Oh, quien pudiera alcanzar! (Whomever could reach), José de Torres
Sonata Op.5 No.5 in G Minor, Georg Friedrich Händel
Afectos amantes (Loving affections), José de Torres
Grave (Low), José de Torres
The recital lasted a bit over an hour and a half. It was something really interesting to do once in your lifetime, and surprisingly not pricey at all. Even if Baroque music is not usually my thing, the event felt very appropriate in the chapel. We did not feel like any more food, so we just headed home, braving the thunderstom on the highway.
As my companion D****e was caught in the French air controllers’ strike, she did not make it to our hotel until the wee hours of the morning. I let her sleep, and headed out to explore another area of Brussels. My first stop was again Mont des Arts, because it was on the way to Anneessenstoren, remains of the old city walls – which were being renovated, so I could not see a thing.
I had decided not to take the umbrella because the wind made it useless anyway, so I had to take cover a couple of times. I continued off to the Romanesque-evolved-into-Gothic Church of Our Lady of the Chapel Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Chapelle | Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ter-Kapellekerk. It was closed, but I hung out around the area for a bit. There is a skate park, a Memorial to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (who is buried in the church) and an obelisk Obelisk Kapellekerk sculpture.
I decided to come back when the church was open, and continued walking towards another church in the area, the Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Sablon Église Notre-Dame du Sablon | Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Zavelkerk. It was built in the 15th century, in late Brabantine Gothic. It does not have towers, but a deep portal in the main façade. It is richly decorated inside and out, in light coloured stone from the nearby Gobertange quarry. In the beginning, the church was a parish for the noble and wealthy citizens of the city, but it slowly lost lustre over the centuries. In the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, it was “restored” according to the principle of unity of style. The whole building is laden with ogival windows, and the light inside is very beautiful. When I was there, the choir was rehearsing, and there was a “do not visit beyond this point” notice which I abided by.
I went out again, and crossed the street to the garden Square du Petit Sablon | Kleine Zavelsquare , which features statues depicting some of the great humanists of the Belgian 16th centuries, and a fountain in the honour of two noblemen who were executed by the Spanish regime in the same century. The fences are decorated with sculptures that depict the different guilds of the city. It was designed by romantic architect Henri Beyaert in the Flemish no-renaissance style in the 19th century as a flower garden.
I saw the Palace of Justice of Brussels Palais de Justice de Bruxelles, a massive building built between 1866 and 1883 in an eclectic Greco-Roman-inspired style, designed by architect Joseph Poelaert. When it was erected, it was the largest building in the world, and it is currently… being renovated, as part of the ceiling collapsed in 2018.
I had to take cover again as another shower hit, but it went away eventually. I walked further until I reached a former medieval city gate Porte de Hal | Hallepoort, which looks like a tiny French château – it was transformed into a a Neogothic castle in the 19th century, by Henri Beyaert. Today it is a museum, but I decided not to go in and head back towards the city centre.
I backtracked towards the Church of Our Lady of the Chapel Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Chapelle | Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ter-Kapellekerk which had been closed in the morning, and it had fortunately opened. I walked in. The church has an early 13th century Romanesque base, and the building was erected or reconstructed later in Brabantine gothic in the late 13th century. The nave was reconstructed in the 16th century and is Flamboyant Gothic. It leads to a dark-wood painted altar which contrasts with the wide, light nave. All in all, I guess I can say I was a fan of the gothic style in Brussels.
When I was in the church, I received a text from D****e, who had finally woken up. I walked back to meet her and we decided to take the train to Antwerp [Anvers | Antwerpen], where we had plans for the evening. We got off at the central station Antwerpen-Centraal railway station Gare d’Anvers-Central | Station Antwerpen-Centraal. Designed by architect Louis Delacenserie, it was built in eclectic style at the turn of the 20th century. It has two underground levels in modern tunnels, and the original station stands at level +1 (a total of four levels), with an extended train hall in iron and glass designed by the engineer Clément Van Bogaert. The station is sometimes called a “railroad cathedral” with domes, glass windows, an ornate clock, and marble floors.
The idea was to look for a place to have lunch near the main square, but the weather did not agree. We ate at a Wagamama chain restaurant instead, to wait out the storm, then headed to see the Bourse of Antwerp Handelsbeurs. It was the first building ever erected with the idea of being a commodity exchange place, but burnt down and was reconstructed in the 19th century by architect Joseph Schadde, who mixed Neogothic and iron architecture elements. The building was abandoned in 1997, but it was later recovered as a cultural and event centre. I absolutely loved it.
We had a look at the Cathedral of Our Lady Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, but we were pressed for time and did not want to pay to have to rush through the building (a future visit, maybe), so we just peered inside. The cathedral is included in the Unesco World Heritage Site of “Belfries of Belgium and France”.
Outside the cathedral there’s a sculpture of a boy and his dog, from a sad novella about an orphan boy who wants to be a painter, and although written by an English author (Marie Louise de la Ramée) it sounds like the Belgian version of “The Little Match-Seller” tale. It’s called the Nello & Patrasche Statue Nello & Patrasche beeld and it was created by Batist Vermeulen.
Eyeing the weather, we decided to head out to our destination for the evening, the Trix concert hall – though this meant sacrificing seeing the main square, we were happy that we were under cover when it started hailing at around 16:15. On the way, we saw a mouse happily hopping the main streets, some sculptures, including the Monument to Rubens and the entrance to Chinatown. We had purchased VIP tickets to see the American band Starset, who toured with Japanese singer Hyde in 2018.
Starset is an American alternative rock band formed in 2013 by vocalist Dustin Bates. Aside from Bates (lead vocals, keyboards, soundboard, guitar), the core of the band is formed by Ron DeChant (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), Brock Richards (guitars, backing vocals) and Adam Gilbert (drums, percussion). Touring members currently are Siobhán Richards (violin, keyboards), Zuzana Engererova (cello) and Cory Juba (guitar, synth), and I guess they’ve got an honorary member in Ernie (Dustin’s French bulldog, who apparently attends pizza parties with VIPs when the band tours the US). One could say that Starset is a “concept band” revolving around sci-fi – the band’s fictional backstory refers to The Starset Society, who aims to alert the public about a “Message” they obtained from an outer-space signal. The fact that Bates holds a Master’s in electrical engineering and worked for the US Air Force and the International Space University might have something to do with the theme.
Starset released their fourth album, Horizons, in 2021. After Covid, cancellations and rescheduling, the Horizons Tour finally took place. Since we had a VIP ticket, we had early access and we had to be at the venue at 17:00. We got there a bit after 16:00 – and it was a good place with a hall, so we were under cover when it started hailing. In the end, we were not admitted till 17:20-ish, when a nice lady came and took our names to let us in. The first part of the experience was a short acoustic concert with some games and Q&A. For the games, you were given a raffle number, and if it was picked, you got to spin a wheel and maybe get a price – or a hug.
During the acoustic, we stood next to violinist Siobhán, who is not only beautiful, she is also super elegant. Dustin looked a bit like a hobo, to be honest, and he’s taller than I remembered him. We noticed that Ron’s arm was on a sling – apparently he had hurt himself and was unable to play during the tour, but he still tagged along. Afterwards, we had the chance to take a picture with the band, pick up the free goods that we had a right to – a CD and a signed poster. As we did, we moved into the actual concert hall, where we got the last available spot on the first row barrier.
The supporting artist was Smash into Pieces, a Swedish rock band composed by Chris Adam Hedman Sörbye (vocals), Benjmain Jennebo (guitar), The Apocalypse DJ (drums) and Per Bergquist (guitar). They were very good, and they fit really well with Starset, I thought. They started playing when the hall was full – it has a capacity of about 1100 people, and maybe they started around 19:30.
Setlist:
Wake Up
Glow in the Dark
Big Bang
Let Me Be Your Superhero
Sleepwalking
Running Away from Home
Vanguard
Boomerang
This made the event run faster than expected. Starset were scheduled for 21:00 but came out at around 20:20, and the whole thing started with a bang – almost literally. A big curtain was pulled up and then let down when the band was on stage.
Setlist:
Unveiling The Architecture (recording)
Carnivore
Manifest
Echo
Trials
Icarus
Unbecoming
Monster
It Has Begun
Interlude. BMI ad (video recording)
Satellite
Ricochet
Infected
The Breach
Die For You
Devolution
For Whom The Bell Tolls (Metallica Cover)
Earthrise
My Demons
Boomerang
My mind was blown because somewhat this setlist comprises all my favourite songs from the band: Carnivore, Monster, Ricochet and My Demons. The concert was full of little visuals and cool ambience tricks – I mean, Brock actually plays in astronaut suit. There was a lot of smoke and the lights were not good, but the concert itself was amazing. I was very grateful for the barrier, I would not have made it standing for the whole event – probably not even half of it. All in all, I had a lot of fun. I love that Dustin sings with his geek glasses, too.
After the concert, we managed to take the 23:09 train back to Brussels and even get a snack on the way – the one previous to the train I had wanted. That was lucky, because the last train was delayed over an hour and a half, and was a slow one.
The year 2020 was going to be so amazing that I actually would have had to choose the things I wanted to do and sacrifice others. It didn’t turn out that great in the end, with lots of rescheduling and cancellations. I was eventually able to budget time and money for one of those rescheduled events – the joint concert by the metal bands Epica and Apocalyptica in their Epic Apocalypse Tour. For a while, however, there was a bit of uncertainty with dates, as they bounced between Sunday 12th and Monday 13th of February, so I needed to juggle work dates in order to make sure I’d be free on Monday. In the end, I was all clear, all the concert-related activities were set for Sunday evening, and I decided to make a two-day trip out of it – I needed to take a hotel for Sunday anyway.
I arrived in Madrid around 9:30 in the morning. I had some time before my first appointment so I walked into one of the large parks of the city Parque del Buen Retiro, which is part of the Unesco World Heritage Site Paisaje de la Luz (Light Landscape), officially called Paseo del Prado y el Buen Retiro, paisaje de las artes y las ciencias, declared in 2021.
Parque del Buen Retiro was built in the 17th century for one of Felipe IV’s palaces, and it was opened in the late 18th century as public park. The park was almost destroyed during the war against Napoleon’s troops in the early 19th century, so most of it has been rebuilt. Aside from the obvious flora, it features sculptures, fountains, buildings… It is home to a lot of birds, and unfortunately a large number of invasive and fearless monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), whose culling has been controversial in recent years. I got to see common blackbirds (Turdus merula), a European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) and a European robin (Erithacus rubecula).
One of the most important features of the park is the sculpture Monumento al Ángel Caído, which represents an angel falling from grace. It was originally designed by Ricardo Bellber, who made it in plaster in 1877. It was later cast in bronze and the original plaster destroyed, and eventually the sculpture was made into a part of a fountain in 1885. Around the area, there is also an ancient water mill, and to my surprise, the almond trees (Prunus amygdalus) had started blossoming.
At 10:15 I had a guided visit to the Real Observatorio de Madrid (ROM), commissioned around 1785 by Carlos III, as an centre to develop and study astronomy, geodesy, geophysics and cartography. The main building is the astronomical observatory, built by Juan de Villanueva in what then was the outskirts of the city. Today, ROM belongs to the National Geographical Institute (IGN), and it is home to the National Astronomical Observatory, the Central Geophysics Observatory, and the data gathering division of the National Volcanic Service, though no measurements are taken there. The main astronomy measurements are carried out in the Centro Astronómico de Yebes, in a town around 80 km north-west of Madrid. The observatory is also part of the Unesco World Heritage Site.
The visit comprises three stops. The first one is the main building, called Edificio Villanueva, which has three rooms – the main rotunda with a Foucault pendulum, the library, with the spot where gravity was first measured in Spain, and the “Time room”, where the sun used to be traced to determine the hour.
The second stop is the Great Telescope, a replica of one that William Herschel built in the 18th century – Hershchel was one of the greatest telescope makers of the time, and is credited with discovering the planet Uranus, two of its moons, and two moons of Saturn. The telescope was destroyed during the war against the French, but later rebuilt thanks to the number of laminates that had been preserved – the original had a focal distance of 7.6 m and a 61-cm diameter mirror (which is displayed in the main building), and Herschel himself considered it the best he ever built.
The final stop, the little museum of “Earth and Universe Sciences” has a small collection of ancient instruments used for astronomy, navigation, and geophysics. There are also a couple of seismographs – one of them new, which is up and running – and material retrieved from the volcanic eruptions of El Hierro in 2011 and La Palma in 2021.
I had planned for a typical sandwich at an iconic bar afterwards, but I ran into a political demonstration. Thus, I scratched that idea and took the underground westwards. When I was in Egypt, one of the places I visited was Lake Nasser, created by the Aswan High dam. The lake swallowed a lot of villages and monuments, but a few of them, such as Abu Simbel and the Temple of Philae were saved by Unesco. Between 1960 and 1980, a total of 24 monuments were saved, and five out of these were presented as “grants-in-return” to five countries which had offered exceptional technical and financial assistance to the campaign – Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the United States and Spain, the latter being impressive as Spain was in the middle of the dictatorship, and pretty shunned by the international community at the time.
The monument was a small and ruined temple in the now-flooded town of Debod, to which it owns its name Templo de Debod (Temple of Debod). Dedicated to the god Amun, it was built around the location of the First Cataract of the Nile, some 15 km south of Aswan, about 2200 years ago, though the core of the building may have been older. The monument was actually affected by the original dam at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was covered in water for most of the year, which destroyed its colours and damaged the reliefs.
During the Unesco salvage mission, it was dismantled, and eventually granted and taken to Spain, and “freely” reconstructed – a lot of information had been lost, and there were missing blocks. National stone was used to fill in the gaps, and the gates (remains of the pylons) were built in the wrong order, according to some old pictures. The restorers built an air-conditioning system, a wooden roof, and the main hall was closed off with a glass door and window panes. Today, the temple is open to the public at weekends, but unprotected from the Spanish weather – rather different from the Egyptian one – and pollution, it is rapidly deteriorating.
I went inside the temple once when I was a child, and I had a clear memory of it that kept surfacing when I was in Egypt – so I wanted to go back. The entry is free, but capacity is reduced, so I had to queue for almost an hour to enter. I finally matched my memory to reality. The interior of the sanctuary has a small chapel and some carved stones had been taken to a makeshift second floor to display them as a little museum.
After the temple, I got lunch on the go, then walked towards the hotel to check in and change clothes. Around 16:15, I set off to La Riviera for the concert. I had a Meet and Greet ticket and had to be there before 17:00. Personnel from the venue were extremely nice, and there was no chaos at all, even if things had been a little disorganised and some fans were lacking M&G confirmation emails. Everything was well-handed and everyone who had paid for an upgrade got through. There were about 30 people to meet and greet Epica and we were ten for Apocalyptica.
Apocalyptica is a Finnish four-man band – Eicca Toppinen, Perttu Kivilaakso, Paavo Lötjönen and Mikko Sirén – founded in 1993. They are “semi-officially” a symphonic metal band, but they’ve ventured into everything from Metallica covers (which was their origin) to pure classical works. They have a very specific style heavily using classical cellos and combining them with modern drums. They currently collaborate with American – self-identified as Cuban in the concert – singer Franky Perez for vocals.
Meeting the four of them was really fun. I got autographs and took the most epic picture I’ve ever taken with a band or artist before. As we were only ten, after it was over, I had time to buy some merchandising and still be the second person to settle on first row – despite having decided that I was going to sit back and relax.
General admission started at 18:00, and the crowd was surprisingly tame throughout the whole thing. The venue filled up and the supporting band, Wheel, came up at 18:30. Wheel is a Finnish progressive metal band that consists of James Lascelles (Vocals/Guitar), Santeri Saksala (Drums), Aki ‘Conan’ Virta (Bass) and Jussi Turunen (Lead Guitar).
Wheel Setlist
Hyperion
Blood drinker
Movement
Vultures
Wheel
The second band was Epica, which I remember having listening to back when the world was young. They are a Dutch symphonic metal band currently composed by Simone Simons (lead vocals), Mark Jansen (rhythm guitar, vocals), Coen Janssen (keyboards, synthesizer), Ariën van Weesenbeek (drums), Isaac Delahaye (lead guitar) and Rob van der Loo (bass). Simone can go insanely high with her voice, and she has an amazing presence on stage, and the whole band has an immense amount of energy – she also reminded me of a comic character. The keyboardist had a lot of personality too, and he was extremely fun.
Epica Setlist
Abyss of Time – Countdown to Singularity (recording)
The essence of silence
Victims of contingency
Unleashed
The final lullaby
The obsessive devotion
The skeleton key
Rivers
Code of life
Cry for the moon
Beyond the Matrix
Consign to oblivion
Finally Apocalyptica came on stage, and it was extremely fun. The things those guys do to their classical cellos would make some classical musicians cry, but the sound is super-powerful. We had Franky Perez for vocals, and a very fun moment regarding “listen to our classical music album at home, because we still feel like death metal”. They interacted a lot with the public, and it felt somehow very friendly / warm – yes, I’m talking about metal here. It was really that fantastically weird.
Apocalyptica Setlist
Ashes of the Modern World
Grace
I’m not Jesus
Not strong enough
Rise
En route to mayhem
Shadowmaker
I don’t care
Nothing else matters
Inquisition Symphony
Seek & Destroy
Farewell
In the Hall of the Mountain King
We finished off just short of 23:00, I bought off some fast food for dinner, and headed back to the hotel to have a shower and get some sleep. I was woken up early in the morning due to the cleaning crew and the garbage mini-vans noises, but I did not leave bed until 9:00, then set off at 9:30. I bought some cold coffee on the way and walked into the former royal palace gardens, now public park Jardines del Campo del Moro.
Though I’d seen the gardens a few times before, this was the first time I actually walked into them. Despite the frost covering everything, I got a nice view of the palace and different fountains and buildings sprinkled throughout the green – Chalet de Corcho, is a small hut with coloured windows; and Chalecito de la Reina a wooden house that is currently closed. I was insanely amused by a little grass-cutting robot.
I wandered around for an hour or so, then headed off via underground to the National library of Spain Biblioteca Nacional de España for the absolutely worst guided visit of my life. Like… it’s true that it’s free, but tickets run out within hours of coming out – on the 20th of the month, for the following month. I’d actually been trying to do this since Covid lockdowns ended… It turns out, we did not see any real books, we could not even peer into the reading area, the book and reading museum is closed and the only information we got was… that the guide did not like the Library. We did not get to see anything interesting or that we could not see on our own, and we did not get to learn anything, so this was a huge blunder. Live and learn – but it was one of the few things that was open on a Monday. The library is a huge Neoclassical building with a fantastic marble staircase inside. The doors and gates are protected by intrincate ironwork fences.
I met with family for a quick lunch and then we went for a walk. We had thought about going to one of the terraces to see the cityscape, but it was closed because it was a Monday. We ended up at the Parque del Retiro park again to make some time and walk. We sat in the sun for a while, then went to see the Palacio de Velázquez there. Currently, it’s part of the modern art museum Museo de Arte Reina Sofía, and I did not really care much about the exhibits, but I like the building. Architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco built it in brick (with ceramic tiles by Daniel Zuloaga) for the Mining Exhibit in 1883, inspired by London’s Crystal Palace, now gone. The interior is pristine white with hints of iron architecture, but the building’s official style is “neorenaissance historicism” whatever that means.
Velázquez Bosco and Zuloaga also came together when they designed another building I really like, the glass-and-iron greenhousePalacio de Cristal, which was built to home tropical flora and fauna from the Philippines in an exhibit in 1887. In front of the palace, there’s a small pond home to some cheeky ducks and geese.
Then, we went to have a snack. Trying to find something on the map before the trip, I’d come across a place called La Mejor Tarta de Chocolate del Mundo, which translates to “The best chocolate cake in the world” and that had to be tried! It was really nice, even if the place was pretty small and felt a bit cramped.
We finally took a stroll down towards the sunset, and I took the train back without much of a hitch, then drove home
Though I would not have minded to become a gamer back in the day, my joint issues discouraged this. Thus, my relation with the Final Fantasy saga is tangential. However, my sibling is a big fan of one of the instalments, and last year I accompanied them to Final Fantasy VII Remake Orchestra World Tour in Barcelona in 2021. Having had more time to prepare for this one, we got VIP tickets, and I planned a two-day outing.
Our arrival in Barcelona happened right on schedule, and we walked from the station to Caixa Forum Barcelona to see the exhibit Momias de Egipto. Redescubriendo seis vidas – Egyptian mummies; Rediscovering six lives, in collaboration with the British Museum. I am not sure whether the items are part of the actual collection over there or are in the archives, because I don’t really remember seeing any of the mummies. The Barcelona exhibits focus around six mummies and how they lives could have been before their deaths. Aside from the actual mummies and their sarcophagi or coffins, there are objects that they may have used in life, and images of what the bodies look like inside the wrappings.
It was at the very same time interesting and creepy, everything we can get to know through technology about these poor souls who passed away millennia ago. There was information about their age, illnesses, and objects they had been buried with – god statuettes, jewellery, funerary miniatures… One of the mummies in display was that of a small child with his face painted on the wrapping, that was more than a bit creepy, to be honest.
We took the underground towards the waterfront to visit L’Aquàrium de Barcelona, located in the harbour. With more than 11,000 animals and 450 species, it is the largest aquarium dedicated to the Mediterranean Sea. It was inaugurated in 1995 and it holds 35 aquariums, including an oceanarium with capacity for almost four million litres of water (36 metres diameter, five metres high) with two tunnels at the bottom. Species-wise, the aquarium does not have anything out of the ordinary, but the size of the tiger sand sharks is impressive. There are a few sharks, some tropical fish, axolotls, frogs… and a very fun sperm-whale room to keep the jellyfish in darkness.
We grabbed an expensive-but-convenient bite to eat at the aquarium itself during some of the feeding events to make sure the cafeteria was empty. AFter we had finished viewing all the exhibits, we went on towards the hotel, which was well-placed between the auditorium and the shopping centre. Since check in had been so bad when we went to the previous Final Fantasy concert, this time we had booked different accommodation, and it was a total 180 – everyone in the hotel was super friendly, and we had zero issues. We procured some sandwiches for dinner, then got ready for the concert.
The Final Fantasy Distant Worlds 35th Anniversary – Coral – directed by Arnie Roth is a compilation of the background pieces from all the Final Fantasy games, from the first (1987) to the latest to date not counting the remakes (Final Fantasy XV, 2016). The concert was held at the CCIB – Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona. We had no idea what time doors would open, but I calculated that an hour should be good for queuing for merch and then get to our seats.
By the time we got to the queue, the concert booklet had already been sold out. When we reached the front, my favourite plush toys were also gone. I decided to get the previous year’s CD in order to get it signed later at the meet & greet event that was included in the ticket we had bought. Looking back, maybe I should have asked for the autographs on the tote bag we got for the spending.
The concert had two halves and an encore, and was… strangely not very coral, for something called so. The choir was placed over to one side, and only did three or four songs – they actually did not show up for the whole first half. The set list was accompanied by projected images on the screen and it was super-impessive to see the first 8-bit games at first compared to what the technology of the latest Advent Children (movie from Final Fantasy VII) managed to create.
First half
Final Fantasy I~III: Medley 2002
Final Fantasy III: Eternal Wind
Final Fantasy IV: The Red Wings ~ Kingdom of Baron
Final Fantasy IV: Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy V: Home, Sweet Home ~ Music Box
Final Fantasy V: A New World
Final Fantasy VI: Phantom Forest ~ Phantom Train ~ The Veldt
Final Fantasy VI: Kids Run Through the City
Final Fantasy I~VI: Battle Medley 2022
Second half
Final Fantasy VIII: Liberi Fatali
Final Fantasy XI: Ragnarok
Final Fantasy XII: Flash of Steel
Final Fantasy VII: Aerith’s Theme
Final Fantasy XIV: Torn from the Heavens
Final Fantasy XV: Apocalypsis Noctis
Final Fantasy IX: Not Alone
Final Fantasy X: 素敵だね [Suteki da ne] (Isn’t it wonderful?)
Final Fantasy Main Theme with Choir ~ The Definitive Orchestral Arrangement ~
Encore
Final Fantasy X: Zanarkand
Final Fantasy VII: One-Winged Angel
The concert was all right. I did not feel the general chill I had through the previous one. I really liked Liberi Fatali and One-Winged Angel, but I guess I don’t have enough of an emotional connection with most of the games. Aside from the conductor Arnie Roth, we had composer Yoko Shimomura present, and vocalist RIKKI, who is the original singer of 素敵だね in Japanese, and did the live version.
The M&G was fun, and I got to tell Roth that when I grow up I want to have as much fun as he does at work. They signed autographs and took pictures with people – it was much less stiff than the usual, too. We headed off afterwards for a sandwich, a shower and a good night’s sleep. In general though, not much value for money considering how much more expensive the VIP tickets were, even though the seats were good. Also, the fact that most merchandising sold out showed poor planning.
4th February 2023: Ramen with Friends
We had bed and breakfast at the hotel, and the latter was fantastic. The buffet had both a juice bar and a milk bar – both of which I sampled, of course. I overdid it with the fried egg, I fear, but they were just cooked and it looked just too appetizing not to fall for one. After breakfast, we packed up, vacated the room, and asked the hotel to keep our bags for a couple of hours. We went to the science museum Museu de Ciències Naturals NAT, where we spent a couple of hours. This is the only place where they refused to speak Spanish to us.
The museum is divided in several areas. The first one is “history of the Earth”, where you can see a few interactive exhibits, fossils and reproductions. The second one is the collection of living animals, most of the stuffed, some of them just skeletons. There was another one about fungi – with the edible ones exhibited in tins. Then there was one on plants, and finally rocks and minerals. Not a bad place to spend a couple of hours, but it is just one of those places that takes itself much more seriously than it should, to the point that it felt pretentious. Some items were exhibited over and over again, as if they just wanted to use up the room – I counted at least eight elbaite specimens in different locations, and there were a bunch of reproductions taking up important spaces, you would believe they were originals if not paying lots of attention to the writing, and the blue light made for horrid photographs.
We transited to Sants train station to drop off my sibling’s bag at the cloakroom there and went on to meet my Barcelona friends E**** and P***o who had offered to take us to eat really-real Japanese ramen. Since I had a feeling that the restaurant would be on the small-ish side, and my sibling’s luggage was a bit oversized since they had cosplayed for the concert, I decided on the Sants detour for convenience.
The restaurant is called KOBUTA ramen i més (Kobuta Ramen and More) and I was amused when all of us made the same choice – tonkotsu miso ramen with an extra of half an egg, and water; then we shared some gyoza (dumplings) and karaage (fried chicken). The restaurant is not cheap, but the food makes up for that, it is very authentic Japanese food.
Though P***o had to leave early, the rest of us headed off towards the bullfighting-ring-turned shopping centre Arenas de Barcelona. There, we climbed up the terrace for views, then sat down for drinks and a long chat. We also popped into the local comic store, since it was convenient, and eventually we headed off to the station.
The train ride home was surreal. People playing music on their phones, yelling, talking loudly and making the footrests squeak – apparently there had been some kind of sporting event for kids and a lot of families were coming back home. All in all, not a bad couple of days, lots of laughs, I got to see dear friends and eat nice food, and listen to cool music – in the CCIB, not on the train.
