gareth bouch :: stuff & things

I was back in Spain at the weekend; the prime purpose of the visit being to see El Canto Del Loco in concert on the Friday night at the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge Palacio de los Deportes, in Madrid.
Awesome gig; amazing lights, amazing atmosphere, superb playlist – and great crowd and band interaction.
Will be writing a review up on www.elcantodelloco.co.uk – but for now here’s some iPhone pics from the concert…

Back from Talavera de la Reina – possibly to be renamed Talavera de la Raina, following some proper Brit-style downpours amidst the baking heat. Nonetheless a brilliant time and a superb fanclub party with lots of friends old and new around to welcome us. Alvaro was of course there, and it was a cracking time.
There’s full reports on the Alvaro sites, and also a decent set of pics in the “Members Only” section of BatiFans.

For this page though, here’s a cool pic of some curiously and yet coolly mismatched tiles on the walls of the Basilica in Talavera.

If you fancy going to somewhere you might not have considered, *DO* go to Talavera; it’s a beautiful, tranquil, and wonderfully friendly place. Not hard to get to from Madrid, and with no shortage of nice food and drink, and of course the Roman archaeology and its famous ceramics. Totally worth visiting. Click here for general information and tourist information…

Can’t wait to go back…

Still somehow seems that I’m barely back from the break on the Costa Dorada (although I’m very aware I’ve still not posted any pics of Tarragona yet, which is a pretty piss-poor state of affairs) – and yet it’s back off to Spain on Friday; this time to Madrid and then on to Talavera de la Reina for the summer fanclub party for Alvaro Bautista.
Last year it was like a big and beautifully landscaped oven in the centre of Spain, with temperatures in the mid thirties – and according to my iPhone’s weather app (always set to Talavera) it’s likely to be little different this weekend.
Extra cold Mahou then… ;-)

In short… Yes. Yes, it is.

I’ve just come back from a short break on the Costa Dorada – see previous post – chilling in the (often fearsome) sunshine, supping ice cold Mahou and generally taking a nice break from the UK.
One day though, I had to go for a meeting in Barcelona, and took the train up along the coast – to my (pleasant) surprise, a short distance to the east of Sitges I looked out of the window and thought “Bugger me! I know that beach!” – it was the really cute one with all the beach huts and the sweet retro-looking hotel that’s the centrepiece of the promo video for El Canto Del Loco’s triffick piece of power-pop, “A Contracorriente”…

It genuinely *does* look fab! I want to holiday there sometime. Badly want to!
Anyway, I checked it out on Google Earth and it turns out it’s called Garraf – and I’ve uploaded a Google Earth placemark here should you want to go look it out for yourself…
And the video can be seen here…

Got some really nice photos of Tarragona, which I’ll aim to post in the coming days.

Okay, I have to admit to not having sorted any updating on here over the last few days, but it’s been busy – trip to Bridgend etc – and now it’s off on hols for a week. Seven days on the (hopefully sunny) Costa Dorada, interrupted only by a short business meeting in Barcelona, should do me the world of good.
I’ll aim to not be 100% lazy and if I catch any nice pics on the iPhone I’ll upload them.
But it’d be foolish to consider it a promise of any kind.

Hasta luego :-)