The flamenco show (and lunch) was at a place called Restaurant Quinqué. The lunch was probably the best food I ate in Spain (I can't say a lot about Spanish food; not really great, but then we'd been to Italy the previous October), and the show was terrifically entertaining. I like the way the show seemed almost improvised but clearly wasn't. A guitar player came out and played about ten minutes; again, the piece sounded improvised. Then two people (singers, it turned out) and a woman in flamenco dancer garb came out and sat in chairs alongside the guitarist. All three clapped while the guitarist continued to play, and then each singer took turns singing while seated. At some point in the middle, the dancer suddenly popped up and went into flamenco moves. No warning, set up, nothing. She just popped up and went into it. Impressive. The entire performance was around 40 minutes. But from what I understand, the evening performances are quite a bit longer. Still, this was perfect and a great way to spend the afternoon.
After returning to our hotel for a bit, we headed out to the last festival performance which was in Grazalema, the second longest drive we'd have to make to a festival show....around 35 minutes. When we got to this one, everything was marked better than the first two had been. There was an obvious parking lot, and it was clear where the stage was. And it was equally picturesque to the night before in Ronda.
We were closing out this night, following our new friends' acts. By the time I got to the stage (and had already watched our pals play), I was met with this as a drum setup:
Yes, that is the drummer's view of......well, the drums are sitting on cement, with a rainbow-colored strap lashing everything together. A previous drummer explained to me he put the towel in there between the pedal and the kick drum to minimize clicking noise and perhaps even to help keep everything in place. The hardware was of that twig-thin variety that costs roughly $20 a stand. Cody told me later that when he first saw the drum kit, he thought "jeez, Lance is going to destroy that."
But I played with only mild restraint, and everything went fine. I took the gloves off a bit by the end of the set..."Donkey Lady," etc.....and everything was okay. We didn't have much of a crowd, being Sunday and the end of the festival, but I thought it was a fitting end to everything. We said goodbye to all the folks we'd shared the common stage with over the last few nights (Cives was not on this bill), and headed out....for Michelle and me, back to Benaojàn. We had an early call the next morning, and a lot to do. Hoo boy.
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