Breakfast In Spain - Roger Hodgson and Supertramp website

THE SCHEDULE - THE TRIP

TUESDAY, MAY, 30TH, 2000 .....the day's history with a little sense of humour!!

(BARCELONA). BIS team was beginning to be reunited. JORDI, from Barcelona and webmaster of this page, went to pick up JORGE, from Almería (Feelings page webmaster) at Barcelona's central railway station. It was 9:00 am

We had known some days before Roger was stoping at Barcelona.
There is a TV program, called CRONICAS MARCIANAS (Martian Chronicles) who was planning to have Roger playing there.
We did not know a lot more. As the concert was scheduled for next day, it was logical to suppose Roger was going to be at TV the day before.

What a BIG INTELLECTUAL effort....

Around 12:00 am. European arrivals gate (I'm not sure about this...Barcelona's airport is a mess!!). ROGER HODGSON was there. He did look tired. We just said Hello and let them go. He was a bit surprised....
Nothing else, except eating something.

5:00 pm. BIS team went to Plató Sant Just (TV facility). It was near to Barcelona. You should know Martian Chronicles is a very well known program in Spain. You can see it every day around 11:00 pm at TELECINCO, a private channel. Although its contents are sometimes very simple, around 3 million people watch it every day...

We did meet there Miguel Angel Candela and Juan Carlos Izquierdo, who were ready to go to Madrid too. We were already wearing our t-shirts.

Around 6:00 pm Roger arrived. He looked tired and he told us how busy his schedule was going to be during next 4 days. After talking for a while with him and Daniella, he went inside.

We were only 25 people, and only us did know what is going to be done. The others were people who was invited everyday to fill places in these cases. When the artist can not fit his schedule with a "live"
program, they use to record it before and then the song is "inserted" as a live part of the program. This is why they need people.

Roger did record "Hungry". Only 3 times were needed. We were dancing all the time and the others were looking at us....some of them asked about who was the artist. We told them if they did remember Supertramp....

It was 7:15 pm when Roger did come out. We say goodbye. He was going directly to the airport to take a flight to Madrid.

We went to Jordi's house to leave the car, took the subway and went to central station. Our train was
waiting for us.

WEDNESDAY, MAY, 31TH, 2000 .....the "RH" day always with a little sense of humour!!
(MADRID). BIS team was arriving to Madrid at 7:00 a.m. We were not tired. The train beds were small but we were tired, so it was no problem....

We went to Jorge's house to leave our luggage...we had recieved a phone call from José Antonio. He was
arriving to Madrid by car (he had left his home at 5:00 am) so we decided to meet him in the center of the city, near a big multimedia group headquarters where we knew Roger had an interview.

Madrid is a big city, but is also a chaos. The center is full of offical buildings, politics, bodyguards and
police, so it is not strange to see police cars driving like Schumacher to make "space" for official cars.

This multimedia group is the main one in the country and one of his radio stations is placed in his
headquarters....can you imagine?

We were three, normally dressed (no tie....) asking the police to get in to see if there was an interview
with someone. They asked us Who?...of course they did not know Roger. What about calling ? They gave us a paper with a phone number...we tried several times...no answer. Should we believe there is nobody in the Spain main radio staion ?

José Antonio did arrive at 11:00 am.

We decided to try to see Roger at his Hotel's door. It was not really far away so we went there by walking 20 minutes. And we can assure you traffic chaos was unbelievable.

At 01:00 p.m. we were fortunate and Roger did arrive after 1 HOUR being inside the car. We say him Hello. He talked to us about 1 minute and he went to rest before the concert.

2:30 pm FANS MEETING We had scheduled a spanish fans meeting in Madrid. We did not know at all how many people was going to be there...but we were confident.
Around fixed time, in a very sunny day (35º Celsius), we met Juan Carlos Izquierdo, Miguel Angel Candela,
Kenneth Suarez, Raquel Hernández....and others ....we were 10 people.

As we were hungry we decided to eat something in a restaurant. We talked about politics, specialising in the spanish territory but also chatting about the future of Nigeria and forthcoming elections in Peru. Then, our interest in a wide variety of subjects drove us to speak a lot about Amazon forest, Yellowstone National Park and Australian food....very interesting. Only 5 minutes were devoted to a guy named Roger Hodgson :-)

After paying, everyone went away and decided to meet in front of the venue at 9:00 p.m.

We, Jordi, Jorge, José Antonio and Guille decided to go to Jorge's house...but after arriving there we were
so nervous we decided to go to the venue to see if it was possible to say hello to Roger again.... (the
THIRD time in 2 days....What was Roger thinking about 4 guys who can only say Hi Roger...see you later...?)

After 2 hours of wait, we could come in. The sound check had just started and we decided to wait there in the back. It was around 8:30 pm and the sound check did finish. We wanted to be there so we did not went out.

At 9:00 p.m. doors opened and the "Sala Arena" was full of people in some minutes. I would not say thousands of thousands, or even more, but it was full.

AND DO YOU KNOW ONE THING? The only 3 concert posters we saw in Madrid walls were in the same venue's road, just in front of the entrance. There had not been promotion at all. All the people there were trully fans, trully Roger fans who had known there was THAT concert. We don't know if our website has helped, but we are quite optimistic about this....a lot of people came to us asking for the t-shirts and the web address, etc...

At 9:15 pm lights went off and Roger's guitar began.....

THE CONCERT: SORRY, WE WERE REALLY FOCUSED ON THE SHOW....

Around 11:00 pm the show finished...no words.

More than 100 people were waiting outside to see Roger and to get an autograph. Security people from ARENA did begin to "ask" people to go out. It's a DISCOTHEQUE so it seems they wanted to open...but nobody came in. Only us...waiting outside.
Someone told Roger was signing in the back door, so we went there. Another 100 people....one by one were going inside...and some of them were fortunate enough to get a picture and an autograph.

The big limousine arrived...so it was clear Roger was going to get out. But suddenly the car went to the
front door. Everyone began to run fast....it's around 300 meters.

At the front door, Roger was protected by 3 security people and was trying to reach his car....no way.

Everyone wanted a picture and an autograph...and the more incredible, Roger was smiling all the
time...signing autographs, talking with everyone .... HE WAS HAPPY.

After some long minutes they went away....and the ones who were there began to realize all was already
over.....what a magical night!!!

Jordi S.