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.I was bitterly disappointed but I kept my own counsel, not wanting to rock the boat too much.Gerry and I would take more of a leading role in subsequent recordings, and we progressively got closer to the sound of the band at its best.Our live show is getting better and better, and soon we will be rewarded for our improvement.Andy Hudson manages to get us a spot at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival on the Basque coast of Spain.The Big Band had played there successfully two years before and Andy had kept in touch with the organizers.The festival would take place over a week and begin toward the end of July.This is exciting news for us, our first date abroad.Our new roadies, Paul and Jim, are excited too.Now they can take their own fantasy a stage further.They estimate that it will take three days and nights to get the van and our equipment across the Spanish border.We don’t have anything as sophisticated as an export carnet, so the band gear will have to be loosely disguised as camping equipment.Paul and Jim will have to suspend their macho roles while going through customs.I suggest they wear knotted handkerchiefs on their heads and learn the words to the holiday anthem “Viva España.” This suggestion does not go down well, particularly as I’m going to have to miss this journey and travel to San Sebastian by air.The three days of travel coincide with the last three days of the school term, and as I’ve already gotten away with murder in the amount of time I’ve taken off school with all the theater work, I don’t want to push the good Sister any further.The others of course think that I’m being grand, and even though I’m paying the fare out of my own pocket, there is an atmosphere.Gerry will rough it in the van with the roadies and the “camping equipment,” and Ronnie and John will drive down in Ronnie’s car.My first year as a schoolmaster has turned out to be a relative success.I haven’t been fired; I’ve managed to sustain my career as a working musician, developed as a performer, and kept the Last Exit dream afloat.I’ve arranged to meet Frances in London after the festival so I can spend the rest of the summer with her.As the plane takes off from Newcastle Airport on the way to Spain I imagine that my career too is on its way.Tyneside recedes beneath its covering of clouds as we head toward the sun.Viva España!While my itinerary via London and Paris has been relatively painless, the journey south for my compadres has turned out to be a hellish odyssey of breakdowns, non-air-conditioned traffic jams, and absurd mishaps worthy of Don Quixote.When we finally meet up, I find myself even more persona non grata than I was already.A night of Cuba Libres and sangria lubricates me back into the fold, though, and after the sagas of the last three days have been recounted, we drunkenly help each other mount the four-story climb to the two attic rooms at the top of the pensione as if we were summitting the Pyrenees.There are three of us to a room, and I don’t get much sleep: one, because I’m exhilarated, and two, because of a horrendous symphony of snoring punctuated by farts.When the Spanish sun pours through the window, I am visited by la madre of a hangover, but though I know we’re still only tilting at windmills, I’m very happy to be here.The big acts in the festival are Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie.They will play at the weekend in the huge velodrome on the outskirts of town.We will perform along with several other little bands from all over Europe in the town square in the old city, a picturesque jumble of alleyways, street cafés, and bars.There is a buzz of anticipation in the streets.We will complete a brief sound check that night along with all the other bands and then it’s back to the serious business of reveling.The citizens of San Sebastian take their music very seriously, and all the bands that play in the town square play to a packed, attentive audience.There is a bright sliver of a moon making its way over the rooftops as we launch into our opening number, Horace Silver’s “The Tokyo Blues,” which is Gerry’s chance to shine on the electric piano, reminding all of us what an asset he is to the band.He is still our leader and all of us begin to relax when he shows himself in such form.Ronnie is all slick and flash, and John starts wailing and rocking like the blues giant he always was.With such a platform I have no choice but to give the performance of my life.After all those weeks upstairs at the Gosforth, straining my vocal chords into a flexible, resilient instrument that owes more to bloody-minded commitment than it does to any trace of finesse, I stare into the white nothingness of the spotlight and know that even if some people may find the result unlovely, it is my voice and the unique song of my life soaring on the night air all the way to the moon and back.The Spanish papers next morning are very kind to us and there’s a good shot of us on the front page.On the strength of this we are offered another week in nearby Bilbao.I am so thrilled that I attempt in my jubilation to pick up the promoter, who must weigh close to three hundred pounds.Seconds later I’m in excruciating pain.Something in my lower back has clicked into spasm.I spend the four-hour drive to the Basque capital bracing myself against every bump in the road and cursing my own stupidity.Gerry is his usual sympathetic self, reminding me that we have a gig tonight in the city and we have to be as good as we were in San Sebastian.I try to concentrate on the rolling blue of the mountains in the distance as our little convoy heads west [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]