Back for the long haul

Okay travels are done... until August.

Madrid was good fun. On Sunday I was able to utter one of the more impressive responses to the question "What did you do last night?". That response was: "I saw Arcade Fire perform in Madrid".

It didn't really have the impact it could have, since I was still in Madrid the next day and most everyone else was at the concert (I went to Saturday night of the SummerCase music festival) as well. And also because no one there speaks English. I need to work on hablo'ing Espanol.

Apart from Arcade Fire there were some other fantastic performances. I also caught:

LCD Soundsystem
The Maccabees
Lily Allen
The Flaming Lips
Bloc Party
Scissor Sisters (who headlined the festival and started their set at 3:30am)
Belle & Sebastian (DJing though, not playing an actual show)
Editors

Arcade Fire was easily the best. It was their first show in Madrid and I was a bit confused as to how they were so popular there. Turns out that although the Spanish don't understand the lyrics (and do the whole 'singing the sounds of the words instead of the actual words' that captures my attention whenever I'm traveling), the melodies that the violins and trumpets and accordians produce sound kind of like soccer/football chants. I think even the band was pretty intrigued when the crowd started singing 'ole, ole, ole, ole' -- but to the tune of No Cars Go.