Club El Sol

Club El Sol

Playing – Los Guapos (The Handsome Ones) – a tight four piece playing solid, driving rock n’ roll with a touch of indie. El Sol is one of the best known clubs in central Madrid for live bands.

Club El Sol

¡Hola! ¿Qué Tal? A gig at Club El Sol, just off Gran Via, featuring artists from the Madrid music label Pueblo Records, home to local bands ‘Insecto’, ‘Lava’ and ‘Dead Capo’ and a few other Spanish music groups. Pretty good sound system (Bose monitors are noted) and the club is packed – Madrid-Uno can barely get his mobile phone above the heads to record a segment onto the flash card. After the concert the place turns into a northern soul / indie club with DJs but we’re too busy in the ‘green room’ quaffing beers and complimentary nuts etc. Very nice Mexican stylist who impresses Madrid-Uno with her knowledge of Cambridge; apparently she did a language course there so we swap Parkers Piece and punting stories for a while. One of the percussionists from one of the bands is from Cuba and Madrid-Uno makes the mistake of telling him he’s glad that Fidel is on his last legs. Oh dear. Cue impassioned defence of Castro and all he stands for. Note to self: must learn Spanish quicker if I’m gonna hold my end up in this city. Later, outside the entrance, as we get our group together to move on to the after party, we are accosted by some of the ugliest putas Madrid-Uno has ever seen. “Papi Papi” they shout (more of Fidel’s compadres) as Madrid-Uno hold’s his jacket pocket tightly to his chest and feels their hands quickly and expertly frisk him. These ladies should do airport check-in duty not walk the streets. Terrorists wouldn’t get through with so much as a tooth-pick. We escape to Gran Via.