Ian's International Trip Comes to an End with a Performance at the SGAE

Jul 25, 2012

My trip in Spain is coming to an end and I'll be back in Memphis (and back working on band stuff) on Saturday. But before I talk about that, here's a few things about what I did since the last update.

First of all, I celebrated my birthday on the 21st of July. Thanks to everyone for their happy birthday wishes on Facebook and elsewhere. Needless to say, being in Spain was a great opportunity to make this birthday memorable. I took advantage of it by eating dinner in the restaurant at the bottom of the aquarium here in Valencia. Talk about a view...I had fish swimming by as I ate their family.

Anyway, back to the musical stuff you guys care about. Last Tuesday, I performed in a Spanish talent show that I organized with my fellow Americans and held at the SGAE building I mentioned in the last post. We performed 2 ancient Valencian folklore songs called "Nana" and "El Carrer De L'ermita". The lyrics aren't even in Spanish (which I've been gradually learning during my time here)—they're actually in the old Valencian language. We ended the set by picking up the pace and going into an outro of ¨"La Bamba", which I'm sure everyone is familiar with because it's one the most well-known Spanish songs in America. I played guitar (naturally) giving me a chance to practice my Spanish guitar technique and sing/harmonize in different languages. We recorded the performance and we might try to get it registered with the SGAE so we can get some royalties and become world-famous billionaires. Or we might just put it on our humble YouTube channel. That would be equally impressive, right?

But that's pretty much it. Despite the scattered updates, I feel like I did a good job keeping you guys updated on all the important stuff. Hopefully you found some of it relavant, and hopefully it was a refreshing change-of-pace from the usual AMS stuff. This was definitely one of the most interesting and exciting trips I've taken so far in my life, and I definitely plan on coming back some day because there's still much more to see—both in Spain and the rest of Europe. The last of the pictures and videos will be uploaded to Facebook as soon as possible, and, if you guys are really lucky, you might hear a little hint of Spanish music on our next album based on everything I learned.

I'm leaving Spain on Friday, stopping back in London for one more night to catch my connecting flight back to the States on Saturday, and then it's back to Memphis. I've been keeping in touch with the rest of the band during my trip, and AMS has some stuff planned as soon as I get back, so watch for updates about that next week. Until then, hasta luego, España! Muchas gracias por mi visita buena!

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