First of all, today August 3rd it is my mom’s birthday and I want to say happy birthday and how happy I am to be off, at home, to be able to spend some time with her! Mothers are important and if I didn’t have her with me until this day I don’t think I would have managed doing much on my own!
After all this hip-hop thing that has turned into a very unpleasant topic due to the fact of much misunderstanding, lots of presumptions and assumptions, I would like to speak a little about my last trip in Europe..
As usual Europe is totally rocking! I started with a gig in Thessaloniki where I had such a blast! Greece is growing on me and I think I am growing on Greeks as I had so many great fans there on that night, of which some had driven all the way from Athens to come and hear me play in Thessaloniki! That’s so nice! Props to them! (They didn’t sign their name on the piece of paper they gave me).
Of course what made the night magical is that I had the fantastic privilege to spend the night with birthday girl Malissa, my very good friend from Sydney, Australia, who’s originally Greek and was there on holiday. So I had the chance to play records for her as well as for the whole club that was filled with beautiful men and women all well dressed, very stylish and – I found – who danced very well! I like to see people dancing well, it’s so sexy! In fact, towards the end of my set, in the morning when the sun was up, I had the pleasure of seeing a dancing competition right in front of me, between Mal & Brian..!! Very interesting that was..! I wonder who the winner will be (Sambuca is the grand price) when next opportunity comes up……
So that night was fantastic!! (See pictures on my site: www.misstressbarbara.com) I had a very good time and it couldn’t have been better!
Coincidences are the most fun because so unexpected!
Then after Thessa we were on our way to Spain, for Monegros festival! (See more pictures on misstressbarbara.com site)How wicked that was! Oh-My-God. In fact that’s all I found to say after my set, nothing else. I was so impressed!
The nice thing about Monegros is that I had the nicest full night sleep ever before a gig. I woke up at 7am, had a nice shower, great breakfast and then we were on our way to the desert of Monegros. I was very rested, and very happy as the day was hot, sunny and beautiful and I was looking forward to play my set for the spanish people as they love the music so much and they dance so hard! When I arrived there I was overly excited to see that at 11am there were still thousands of people dancing under the sun, all ready to be beaten up by my beats! I was very excited, but not nervous whatsoever…………. strangely though, as soon as I started my set I couldn’t grab the needle at all. I was jammed there, with hands shaking so much that I couldn’t put the record on the table, put the needle on the record, rewind the record, cue the record, take off the needle off the record, nothing! I was literally jammed!! I couldn’t understand why, as I didn’t have one single redbull (redbull makes me shake) and not more than one very small espresso! This lasted about 15 minutes, I had the hardest time playing. I was doing it though, and people didn’t notice the difficulty I had, but MAN was I having a hard time! It was pretty funny, and I was laughing at myself! After 15 minutes though I was fine, and the set I played will stay one of my favourites for a long time! It was very hard, just like they wanted it, but always with an edge of pure funk that made people smile instead of scratching their teeths together…. if you know what I mean!
After Monegros I went to Mallorca and had the most wonderful time and catch up with my very best friend Christian, on the beach! A couple of days of relax, lots of sun-sleep-good food-good champagne and good wine, and then it’s a go again!
Next gig was in Ibiza… Let’s say that the most fun thing about that gig was to be able to play again together with Ben Sims, and having a catch up with him.. For the rest, I will pass this time.. no comment.
By the way, this guy James wrote a post in my messageboard on misstressbarbara.com about the water situation in Ibiza.. If James reads this I want him to know that I did read the post, but I will not reply simply because I don’t think I am important enough to do anything about all this over there. Besides, I didn’t know about this water situation at all, but it’s good to know. So all I can say is that I understand this sucks, and I do hope it gets fixed somehow very soon!
After Ibiza, or should I say it all started in Ibiza, it was pure nightmare! I know that if I said to GO airlines to go to hell I should say the same now to Iberia… but I am realizing now that if I keep on sending every airline to hell I will soon have to buy myself a private jet to be able to get to my gigs!
At the airport, in Ibiza, of course I get a typical smiler who asks me to pay extras because my luggage are too heavy! Even though I told him that I hoped my luggage would make it now that he made me pay extras and even though he said yes of course, well this was out of his control. The losing bag situation is due to all the stupid people who don’t enjoy their work and who don’t pay enough attention to where they send the bags, and because of them thousands of people everyday suffer from that! As I am very lucky with luggage, on that morning before leaving Ibiza I thought that something was going to happen.. Usually when I need my records because I am playing it’s my records that don’t show up. But on that night in London I had a very important photo shoot, as well as for the next morning.. So I though that in that case, my clothes were evidently not going to show up! Well…….. call me a witch, or call it tempting faith………. but my fuckin’ clothes (excuse my language!) didn’t show up indeed! On top of that, what happened with the bag was very ironic… Iberia told me my bag was in Toulouse! (To Lose… the BAG!!) Yes, Toulouse, France!! Have I been in France on that trip at all? Of course not! Via France maybe? Not at all!! But my bags were in Toulouse……! Fun. Very fun! I was very happy…..!
But as I said, since I kinda knew that this was going to happen, I dressed up well to travel to London and I brought extra pair of shoes in my hand luggage, so I managed doing both shoots quite well. But how frustrating that was anyway?!! And how discouraged was I?!! On that night the only highlight I had really was to be able to do a proper catch up with my wicked friend Clare, who knows exactly how I felt and how bad I needed a drink, because she has the same life and she’s seen them all as well! It is so nice to have such a similar mind to listen to you and to be there for you when you are in the worst mood, AND also when you are in the best mood. The connection we have is of the rarest and it’s pretty relaxing to be able to explain things without speaking and speak without talking most of the times, especially when you really don’t feel like doing either, except maybe just open your mouth to say… CHEERS! 🙂
The next day Brian and I went to Heathrow to welcome my clothes which had just arrived freshly from Losetown, so we could finally leave for the train station and feel like anchovies for the next 3 and a half hours, on our way to Manchester! Arrived in Manchester I didn’t have much sympathy for train rides anymore! The gig on that night was fun even though there weren’t many people in the club. I don’t know whether it was because Derrick May was playing at another club, or because of summer time, or because of the Commonwealth Games (even though I thought those would bring more tourists into town and more into clubs!), but nevertheless the club was not super busy.. But I had a very good time, even though at one point I almost committed murder (only joking of course!)… there was this one guy that was grabbing my head all the time while I was playing as he wanted to talk to me but I was like… ehem… busy?! I mean, I couldn’t have had a chat the way he wanted it right at that point, and besides he was very pissed drunk so he obviously didn’t realize what he was doing! Anyhow, thanks to Brian for keeping him away, although I feel sorry for him to have had to deal with that alien!
Finally, the last step was Finland! Now that was a different experience for me! The Finnish are very, VERY calm people. They are very kind and they know the meaning of respect. But they are so calm and quiet! Nothing wrong with that, but do you see a little Misstressssssss arriving there to make some noise, fitting perfectly among the Finnish crowd? Not. Sometimes I can be overwhelming to British people or Dutch people, so imagine Finnish??! Ha ha, it was quite funny… I felt like in another world and this is what’s fun about travelling really!
It was strange though, because I would have never thought to play the HARDEST SET OF MY LIFE in Finland, but I did! I don’t think I’ve ever played so hard and, mainly, funkless! But they wanted it, and I think they loved it! The party was massive (8-9000 people!) and the sound system was great. Everything was perfect! Promoters very nice, very respectful as I said, but I was just far north and the life there is calm and … different. It’s no south Italy where everyone screams at each other because they didn’t stop at a red light! Hehehe..
Can I say how sad I was though to be so near St. Petersburg? Prague and St. Petersburg are my two number one cities that I want to visit the most in the whole world, and when I arrived in Helsinki I realized that I was just 2 and a half hours drive away from St. Petersburg! I was nearly crying to know I was so close to there and to not have the time to go and check it out!
Oh and one more thing I want to add… Finnair airplanes are wicked! I couldn’t believe it and I had never seen it before, but they have a camera under the plane that makes you see everything on the TV screen inside the plane! First you see the taxiing on the runway so you can check out the take off, then the camera switches to below the plane and you can see the land under you during the first minutes of flight, and then when it’s time to land you can see under you until it switches to the front of the plane and then you see the whole landing procedure, until you’re landed and the plane taxies on the runway until it arrives to the gate! I felt like a kid again and I was watching the screen with my mouth wide open! I was very WOWed and I wouldn’t have been very surprised to see some playstation game controllers popping down from above!
So that’s it for now.. more to come soon as I leave back to Europe again in 3 days, until the end of August.
Hope everyone’s on the North Hemisphere is enjoying summertime!
All the best until next time.
Barbara x