Hoy yo fui a la Palau de Musica Catalunya para mirar Seu Jorge, una guitarista de brasil. It was an amazing show in an amazing venue...the percussionists in his band really inspired me to learn more about the rhythmic structure of traditional Brazilian music. When Jorge took a break, the percussion line stayed on (there were 3 of them) and improvised for around 10-12 minutes, each starting with a solo, then the others joining in when appropriate...it was a great experience overall. This was my second concert in a Spanish speaking country (though Catalan is probably more prominent here), the first time (and actually my first concert) it was for Los Cafres, an Argentinian reggae band, and I found it a little more awkward this time when cheering, because I didn't hear anyone else in the venue yelling anything, just whistling and clapping...this may be because of the venue (last time was an arena, this time was a music hall with broadway style seating), but it was awesome when the band exited the first time and everyone started chanting "Ole, Ole, Ole"...forcing them through appreciation to come dancing back onto stage.
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THE VENUE (la Palau de Musica Catalunya) - This place must've been constructed in a dreamworld...outside it appeared a golden palace with detailed paint of metallic blue, red, and a few other colors, but the most striking aspect of its outer shell was the glass atrium, which looked like a clear box with multiple sculpted figures hanging inside of it in all colors, one them being an astronaut. Inside there was similar architecture and all of the columns supporting the building were made of little chips of tile arranged in patterns and designs...looking at the staircases and railings, I noticed clear (or yellow-tinted) vertical supports for the rails, with yellow spirals inside them...when entering the main hall (where the music is actually played) one is surrounded by stained glass windows of flowers, which act dually as mirrors that reflect from a beautifully crafted circular stained-glass dome on the ceiling illustrating a sun with various female faces (I couldn't figure out whom they depicted) around it, some of them with decorative leaves in their hair, others without. The rest of the ceiling was similarly designed to the columns, with tiled designs in patterns. When looking at the stage, which was around the size of a normal arena-style stage setup (maybe a tad bit smaller), the first thing I noticed was the concrete sculptures surrounding it. On the left and right sides sat the carved versions of Mozart and Bach, from the torso up...in the top left corner was a carved tree with its leaves amibiguously stretching almost halfway across the stage...opposite to this in the top right corner of the stage "border" was a sculpture of a few horsemen, all in stone except for the reigns, which were brown. Looking straight ahead at the stage from where I was sitting, which was in the last row on the floor (there were two balcony areas as well, offset so that every seat actually had a great view of the stage, I saw a barrage of tile-crafted colors that I initially thought to be more designs, but then realized that they were the flat bodies of people, with their sculpted heads protruding in three dimensions outwards, with the concavity of the wall crafting them to appear to be looking towards the center of the stage...unfortunately cameras and camcorders are not allowed to be used in the venue, or else a film of the concert would be embedded below.
http://www.palaumusica.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau_de_la_M%C3%BAsica_Catalana
On a side note: today I it hit me that this is a completely different world ENTIRELY from the US...the customs (obviously), the streets, the personal space "halo", the acceptance of mullets as a common hairstyle (commonly with dreads also), even the facial gestures and body language is completely unique and separate from the western world. I started to imagine myself growing up here, and thinking about life in EEUU from their point of view...I would share but the intricacies of one's mind should be held within...no one other person can fully understand the wirings of another anyways.
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