Tonight we played in Porto, our first hometown show, and that means a lot of familiar faces in the crowd – it’s the people we have got to know over the three years of living here. So thank you for your friendship and for coming to see us play along with those we didn’t know, fans and the curious. Castro who put the show on was running around with a video camera, so there might be some footage at some time in the future. Such a great night although we hadn’t had any time to go through the set since the last show in Spain a week ago, but it’s in our blood, what makes the difference on the night is the performance, the vibe, the relationship between you, the songs and the audience. The sound is out of your hands, you just hope for good people in the crew and we had that tonight with Sarah and Rafa and Pedro and Filipe, thank you.
We started the day with a last-minute decision, which was, do we get dehumidifiers for the winter months? We decided yes, the dampness needs to be fought, especially if we will be having books and records in here. It’s not a problem for most of the year, but it’s been raining a lot and it’s beginning to penetrate the inside. It’s coming through those large windows at the front and through the walls at the back. It’s a no-brainer, I’m just hoping it doesn’t mean massive electricity bills. We decided to buy two and I carried one back from the shop (with breaks) and returned to the shop with a trolley for the other one. We put them on before we went to the show and when we came back, they were full, they are essential.
After that, we had to go to the record store because Jorge had told us he would wrap a record I was sending in plastic to stop it getting wet on its journey. Rui did it for us as Jorge wasn’t there. We bought some records too, Sarah bought two Morphine records and I bought Ancient Astronauts (2022) by Motorpsycho and picked up Wednesday – Rat Saw God (2023), possibly worth it for the title alone.
At the post office, there was a very nice lady who dealt with everything we had to send calmly. It’s so different at this post office than it was at the post office close to where we used to live. It shows that there’s a culture of pain in some places and a happy environment in others. We were back in time to get in a taxi sent by Castro to pick us up. Filipe, the world’s greatest plumber, had been around earlier to fix a cistern that had kept breaking with no mercy. We are getting things done so we can concentrate on the music, although it will be our last show for a good while.
Music today has been the other Maa Ilmasta album, Iso Yö (2021), instrumental Finnish rock music, really great. You have to hear both their records (see the blog from two days ago for the other one).