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Published: October 18th 2010
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Train Concert
They are incredible live! One of the best live bands I have heard. One of the great things about Europe is the music scene, especially for Americans. Many big American bands that would generally sell out theaters and concert halls, will do smaller European tours through smaller bars to promote themselves in Europe as they might not be that big over here yet (except for big pop stars like Lady Gaga, who everybody loves in Europe). But this means that we can often go to see really good concerts for pretty cheap. This was the case for the band Train. I guarantee you that you know their music from the late 90's and early 2000's and especially their huge song from their new album, "Hey Soul Sister". Anyways, they were playing in a smaller club in Madrid for 25 euros, so me and a couple people went. They put on an incredible concert with a solid two hours of music (until they were kicked off the stage at 11) and were probably the best live band I have heard. Every song was exactly like you here on the radio, but they also changed up the set a lot with different renditions, songs sung without any amps or mics, and lots of crowd interaction with
Real close to the stage
The small club meant a great intimate concert bringing people on stage and roaming through the audience. I loved the smaller feel of the concert (there was maybe only 300 people there) and can still not believe how great the music was! It was a great way to spend a Monday night.
Another fun experience I had recently was the Columbus Day parade. This day was a national holiday in Spain, which meant a four day weekend for a lot of people who decided to take Monday off as well. I had known about this parade for about a week because we could hear jets practicing their formations over the city in the days leading up to the parade. The first time we heard them fly over, was a couple days after the news first broke about the terrorist plots in Europe and we all had a slight panic attack as plane after plane thundered over our school building (which is two streets from the parade route) and rattled the windows. Luckily our professor knew what was going on and told us not to worry...
Anyways, the parade was not quite like any parade I had seen before. It was strictly a military parade. There weren't
any floats, candy, or clowns. Only a very impressive show case of the Spanish military, the royal family, and the ruling party. The military really brought out all their best, with tons of special vehicles, tanks, at least a 3,000 soldiers (I counted 60 or so buses each carrying 50 soldiers after the parade), hundreds of horses, etc. I swear they must have had half their military there (even though I know this was not the case) as the Spanish already have a pretty smaller military. It was interesting because they would have a bunch of military go passing by really quick and then long gaps for the next quick bunch to go whizzing by. They also had fly overs of maybe 20 or 25 jets and other planes and para gliders fly in with the Spanish flag to start the parade. The amount of people there too was really overwhelming. Everywhere you looked was just throngs of people! Luckily I am pretty tall compared to the average Spaniard and I had no problem seeing the action from a distance over the peoples heads.
The end of the parade featured the royal family (introduced by a royal fanfare from
men on horses with trumpets of course) whom the crowd loved! Then behind them, were a series of 50 or so black sedans all with their tinted windows rolled up so you had no idea who was inside, and they went speeding really fast through the end of the parade. This motorcade held the Prime Minister Zapatero whom everybody there greatly disliked. As the went flying by, there were deafening whistles (the Spanish whistle to boo) and uproars to show their dislike for the current party in power. For me, it was really interesting to see the Spanish vocalize their frustration about the government and it reminded me that these people are indeed aware of how dire state their country is in right now. They are doing terribly economically, and have the highest unemployment rate in Europe and these people think Zapatero is not helping the situation.
INTERESTING FACT: Spain is set up very much like England with a constitutional monarchy. They have the monarchy (royal family) which acts as the head of state, but does not have any real power, and then they have the governing party who people elect to represent them and make the laws and
Paragliders over parade
Look for the Spanish flag behind of the guys policies, etc. Spain is the only country to have actually expelled the monarchy twice and then asked them to come back. People particularly really like the current king because he greatly democratized the nation and brought about many reforms after Franco died in the 1975.
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Tim Hogan
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Mark Twain
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.."-Mark Twain I am proud and envious of all your adventures, and enjoying your blogs. Thanks for sharing! Uncle Tim