High costa living

"'Fuck’ and ‘Rock’ – those two words are like, the international touring vocabulary for bands,” chuckles A frontman Jason Perry. He’s not half wrong either. At the foot of the giant outdoor stage, the Spanish crowd break from their bemused silence with a deafening roar and a sea of devil signs in response. Perry smiles, knowingly.

hotpress is on location in beautiful Seville for Nokia Totally Board, an event scheduled to tie in with the launch of Nokia’s latest technological advancement, the N Gage mobile phone, which, happily, incorporates an MP3 player. The twelve and a half thousand capacity free gig in Plaza De Espana comprises a music stage, skating half pipe and a ginormous snowboarding ramp, complete with snow, despite the sweltering 40 degree heat.
The event, which lasts until the wee hours of the morning, has attracted some of the hardest hitters in mainstream rock as well as a selection of over 60 of the world’s top athletes hailing from 15 countries. Staind and the aforementioned A are in town, along with BMX legend Matt Hoffman. An array of punters ranging from toddlers atop their parents’ shoulders, teenage rawk fans to boarding devotees and the mildly curious are in attendance, each craning their necks in wide-eyed glee at the sight of gravity-defying inline skaters, boarders and BMXers, not to mention the seemingly-suicidal snowboarders.
For Perry, this kind of gig is more fun than hard work. “I’m a big skating fan,” he explains. “I was really into it for quite a while. Once I got to interview Tony Hawk. He’s one of my biggest heroes of all time, it was awesome. We’re big snowboarding fans in the band as well. We’ve got a song, ‘Lake Taho’, which is all about that. I won’t be giving it a shot here though. Have you seen the size of that jump? That terrifies me. I’m not that good, mate!”
But the band need not fear an on stage wipe-out. Their accessible pop punk formula catches the crowd’s attention with ease, and singles ‘Nothing’ and ‘Starbucks’ are greeted with a rapturous response.
Following A onto the main stage are Spanish rockers M Clan – a somewhat dodgy rock (in the crap sense of the word) band with a singer sporting an afro to rival that of Hot Hot Heat’s Steve Bays, or even the bloke from Toploader (perish the thought). Whilst churning out a set of inoffensive but easily forgettable rock-by-numbers tracks, hotpress was slightly perturbed to note the inclusion of what appeared to be a Rod Stewart cover amid their set. Nuff said, eh? Still, the crowd’s reaction surprisingly proved them a hit.
Next up were headliners Staind, assuming position on the stage at the ungodly hour of 1am. This is the last gig of the band’s five week European tour (which, to the dismay of fans, did not include an Irish date: “For some reason it just wasn’t routable,” Aaron Lewis explains, dolefully. “I was really bummed because it was one of the best shows we had on the last tour.”)
hotpress has bumped into the frontman just before the show, approximately 200ft in the air at the snowboarding ramp. A succession of boarders are launching themselves into the air ten feet above us. “I always wanted to try snowboarding, but by the time I got round to it I was really too old,” he laughs. “I wasn’t willing to give my body up to learn how to do it ’cos you really do kill yourself at the start. I skateboarded a lot in high school, though these days I’m more into golf.” Very rock ’n’ roll.
This is something of a bittersweet gig for the band, who have in the past been quite vocal in their opposition to the downloading of music from the Internet. However tonight sees them on top of the bill for a gig to promote such endeavours
“I’m not necessarily here to promote the new Nokia music phone, I’m here to play in front of the people who came to see the show,” Lewis explains. “To be honest with you, I might’ve even questioned that if I had known.”
If they are concerned, the quartet don’t voice it on stage. ‘Price To Play’ kicks off the proceedings with a loud, distorted bang, followed up by a slew of similarly hard-hitting grungey numbers. Lighters, however, are withdrawn en masse as Lewis adopts his acoustic guitar for both ‘Outside’ and ‘It’s Been A While’, the latter sung back by the crowd: “End all ze theengs I can’t remember….der der der…” – a smile-inducing end to a very entertaining day.