Taking It To The Streets

Today has been a strange day. We're in Mexico City and have today off. We played our first of 2 shows here last night and have the other tomorrow. Apparently the reason we have a day off in between is because today is a pretty serious day in Mexican politics. They had a presidential election here on July 2 and it was a very close race in which the candidate from the right-wing incumbent party, Felipe Calderon was declared the winner over leftist Democratic Revolution Party Candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador amidst widespread accusations of fraud and conspiracy. They even had a vote by vote recount stopped before it could be finished. What a strangely familiar story. Anyway, unlike the pathetic lack of response to similar election undermining in the cushy old USA, the good people of Mexico said "Fuck that" and took to the streets. They've been camped out in the city center and along the main boulevards ever since. Of course our hotel is along this main boulevard. We were warned not to venture out into it and I didn't, which I regret now. Today Vicente Fox, the outgoing president from Calderon's party, was supposed to give his final 'state of the nation' type address to congress and the protesters were planning on marching on the congress to stop him from giving the speech. So the whole area was locked down with riot police, dogs, water cannons, the works. While all this was happening outside my door I sat here, locked away at the Four Seasons, eating pan-fried sea-bass, drinking iced tea and watching West Wing episodes on my laptop while listening to some sort of explosions outside. Shameful.



I did feel compelled to go out to try and soak up the experience and show some solidarity, but I somehow felt that it was inappropriate to treat their politics as a tourist attraction. Still, it felt wrong to be hiding out in a posh hotel getting excited because the iced tea came with ice cubes that were made out of iced tea.



I did spend part of my day scouring the interweb and reading up on what this is all about, so I guess in the end I learned something. Tomorrow I'm going to venture out and see the protest camps before I'm wisked off to the sports arena to attend to the crucial task of bringing the rock to the good people of Mexico.
And so, back to my rock and roll bubble.
Mexico's been pretty great so far. The people here are genuine and welcoming. I have an ever increasing respect for Mexicans. The crowds here are the best in the world. Not only are they big shows but every one of them goes nuts the whole show. Last night I had to cover my ears they were so loud, and the next show there'll be 6000 more of them. It's shows like that that makes this job feel fulfilling once in a while.

The Mexican kids give the love...


As I mentioned I'm enjoying a day off at the Four Seasons. I have my big windows open looking out on the courtyard and I can hear the sound of the fountain and the rain. The room service lady said "Certainly sir" to everything I asked for and the bed is soft. I must say it's nice living. I just wish I could remember when it was that I became so bourgeois.