Day two. I awake after a few hrs kip to a chilly room- the impressive air conditioning at the accom belies the near 40 degree heat outside. I tidy myself up (slightly) and go for a mooch. Aravaca is a quiet and pretty town and looks a fairly wealthy part of Madrid, which is confirmed by two remaining students I get chatting to on the roof garden (one is studying business, the other international banking🤪). If I required additional proof of the wealth of the area, I stroll over to the chiq shopping centre across the road to meet Phil for a tiny coffee and spend a fortune in the glamorous supermarche (you couldn't even handle your own fruit...they have a man called Brayan to do that for you...Brayan the fruit tester). All in all though, Im enjoying the area, away from the hustle but with fantastic views of Madrid centre.

Most of the day was spent relaxing- an intention I aim to continue. You can't do too much in the heat and this is definitely going to be a 'by night' blog. Phil's expensive cheeses should maybe get a mention- they were delicious but as he is very much the expert, I'll let him write a blog about that😊. After a leisurely day spent poolside and beating Phil at table tennis (I couldn't resist😉), we got fed and beautified and hopped a taxi to the festival, with two very nice fellow Brits we got chatting to (they were brummys but we won't hold that against them).

Even smoother entry to the fest today- (we getting this nailed now) and since we had some time before anyone we wanted to see was on, we spent time exploring the grounds some more. As previously mentioned, it's a nice size, geographically quite small for the capacity (up to 80000 apparently), but they pack quite a bit in the space, and again, even though it was supposed to be busier, it never particularly felt over crowded and you can move around it easily and quickly. And that we did, having great fun on all the little fun stalls- basically these are mainly an opportunity to collect your details for marketing purposes for the return of some free stuff (Phil's QR reader took a battering). Within the space of an hour we had won a tall cocktail (courtesy of my musical knowledge prowess 😉), cut our first record and filmed the music video in front of a live audience (of at least a 6 strong crowd)- if anyone wants this, I'll have to send it you separately as my agent won't allow it to go on here 🤣-we even got a professionally produced album cover made up (see below).

After all that silliness, we barely needed to see a gig, but as music is the name of the game here, we trundled into one of the tents (air-conditioned and sound- proofed- well thought out this place!!) to see a Spanish band called 'La Paloma' (which translates into 'the dove')- I believe in some inflections it can also mean 'the pigeon' which may have been a better name as they were far from peaceful! A raucous 5 piece indie rock effort- they sounded pretty tight and if I'd have known what they were singing about, I could have been watching The Courteeners. Do you need to understand the lyrics to enjoy music?....I dunno....discuss....but it probably would have helped.

Like some kind of foreign exchange, the next band we saw were from a little closer to home....very close in fact...Florentenes from Bolton. We were keen to see them, partly because we had heard good things but mostly because we had heard they might have Carrs pastys on their rider and thought they might do us a solid and giv us a meat n potato. After a short wait, we shuffled our way to the front as the tent filled up behind us. If you'll pardon the footballing vernacular, from the off, they showed quality- a standard rock indie quartet with some good set pieces and a great winger (bassist deserves special mention- some people say you can overplay but not for me- I enjoyed every nuanced lick). Overall, they were solid- in truth, they weren't mind-blowingly original but that didnt seem to matter a jot as the Spanish strong crowd appeared to lap it up- it seems they have got a serious burgeoning international following- local lads done good- well done boys👍x

If La Paloma were a tapas style aperitif and Florentenes were a black pudding based starter, we were ready for our main course...Florence and the Machine! The main stage had filled up nicely when we got there but once again we bagged a decent spot on the flanks as the crowd screamed out 'Shake it Off'. What can you say about Florence and the Machine?... Well, Phil makes a very good point that it's great to see a female headliner at a festival- there are far too few in the UK (he's such a good feminist, is Phil 😊) but and it's only a lowercase but..., I'll get it out the way early on...Florence is VERY messianic in her delivery these days...it hasn't always been so and I do feel slightly uncomfortable when it gets to this level of false idolry...ok I get that it's part of the performance (and largely symbolic of her recent musical output) but where you start to play into it too much, it begins to seem contrived and if I'm honest...a bit silly. That slight criticism out of the way, musically it was on point, the performance was almost too polished and vocally...well...she is another level of good!!! I thoroughly enjoyed shaking my tush and singing along with the 80000 strong 'choir' to all of the popular hits and by the end I was entirely won over and felt quite 'Free'.❤️xxx