.... Exclusive HUATA "Marching on Iberia 2012 Tour" REPORT

Marching on Iberia 2012 tour report

We already planed to march on the lands of Torquemada a couple of years ago but the eviction of our previous guitarist made it quite impossible at the moment. So this time the gods of mystery ordered us to do it : marching on Iberia and spread the Doom to the chosen fews who'll come.

To help us in this task, we asked to the pantheons some help. So they organized a meeting with the Stoned Gathering's guy, Mathieu Yassef in Paris to purvey us a mean of transport to Iberia. Then Seba from Boue records (part of De arte Magica part of the Atavist of Mann release, Pyramido, Drone throne, Amarok...) joined our cause to spread the power of the riff through his distro on stand for every gigs we had, and carrying about our merchandising too.

Spain let the opportunity to the bands to invoke the forces of loudness the way they wish to, so we were very welcomed in these warm lands. Passing through Clermont Ferrand for the first night, it was really a good ritual then. It was our first preach in the mountains, surrounded by a cold mist at the Raymond Bar's, a very nice and matched squat. For this ceremony, I churched aside of the stage on a small podium because the principal was not big enough to contain us all. It was a bit special for the crowd to follow the concert focusing more on the instruments than myself as I unusually stepped aside them, dealing with technical problems moreover.

 

The long road we've already done wasn't over, we had now to cross the border to Spain to Erandio, just closed to Bilbao in the Basque country. The road was as long and exhausting than the show was a pure moment of fervor from the audience. At this ceremony, I had the misfortune to find my keyboard out of service, and realized I had to do the whole tour without my dear VK7... Yes, shit like these happens, but I was mentally prepared to it because unpredictable stuff comes out of our will very often... So we just did without, and that was a big surprise that the show was better than ever, maybe because I could care more about my vocals, an so on with the audience.

The Bilbao's disciples were amazingly devoted, chanting our hymns, headbanging and even stage diving... Incredible. This was a pure moment of shared energy and Doomantia. Discovering that we were able to fuck up a "puta madre de concierto" helped us to take confidence into our rituals. Thanks to Ina for these great moments, we hope to share the stage with his band Montaña into this beautiful city again.

Waking up early as hell the next morning and had more than 8 hours of traveling this day to Pontevedra was a big test of physical and mental endurance for all of us. The weather on the road was so rainy and windy that the van was moving all the time.. From then started the bad weather until the very end of our trip in Iberia, which was something good to us in a way, as we hardly support the warmness in our grimmrobes...and the warmness anyway ! Sweet home cold Brittany !

Returning on the road to Pontevedra was a tiring affair, and as I had shouted too much on the previous show my voice was fucked up. In fact, loosing my voice was the worst fear that I had during this tour... And this day was, to me, the hardest to hold because of the fatigue. The Liceo Mutante was a nice place to play, maybe uncomfortable or unusual : the band had to stand in the very middle of the room to play. The other challenge was to deal with a bad start (two guitar strings broken at the first chord), which broke our groove and enjoyment. We held the show still and kept the groove as we could. Hopefully, the day after we had only one hour to drive to Coruña, and we've rest as we wanted to erase this show from our memory and put away the bad luck of the previous evening.

 

There we were, A Coruña in a fantastic 6000m² squat based on an ancient monk college, with its Chapel within an incredible reverberation. The mass we did there in Galicia (the Celtic part of Spain as Britanny is the one of France) was a thunderous one, with a damn good audience, praying the lords of the flame together and feeling a fraternity with our spanish celtic brothers. The opening band, Kill As One thrashed everything up with a good speed and energy, and surprised us with their heavy tunes. These young boys are pretty good and it's just a matter of time to wait for them to become bigger and bigger.

This orgiastic night was just an alcoholic deliberation, and the hangover was quite hard for some of us ! The road led us then to Porto, Portugal. Passing to another country, we felt the audience very different from the Spanish one : more quiet, posed, the Portuguese were enjoying our fuzz masses with more sobriety, but their appreciation was as true as the spanish one. We also had the opportunity to make an interview with a disciple from PK Infektion magazine there. We missed to taste the local plate, the fatter than fat Francescina. The gigs conditions in Porto and Benavente were amazing, thanks to André Mendes who organized the gigs with a special effort to make us comfortable (hotel, food, drinks), and to have a good sound thanks to the patience and understanding of the engineers. So despite of the chosen few that came in Benavente, we had a great moment there.

As we had the chance to get quite closed gigs then, we still had to go from Benavente, close to Lisboa, to Madrid, and again it was a long time under a rainy weather. It was hard to park in Madrid, and we lost many time to look for a safe place there. When we finally loaded the gear inside the bar, we had great times with the owner of this place, a Scottish guy from Edinburgh, holding it since 8 years in Madrid. As they granted us to use their keyboard, unfortunately the scene was not big enough to hold it (neither all the bass gear), and despite of the great gig we did, i know the audience was really awaiting for this organ sound, I hope we will find a solution the next time we'll play in Madrid. Thanks to Edu, from the band Lugar, who organized the show, and the crowd who was so enthusiastic, this means a lot to us !

Valencia, then where we were expecting a lot. Playing with Mentat and Cementerio (which finally canceled because of the drummer's ankle injury) was hell of a plan. All of these bands, counting with us, were released by Seba so it was a good night of promotion for Boue Records ! Moreover, this day was his birthday, but a bunch of issues screwed the organization. There was a fucking rainy storm in Valencia, which happened no more than once a year ; the water was pouring from the roof right into the squat, threatening to deteriorate our gear or making electrical breaks. We finally played very late, and our loudness, for the only time of the tour, feared the squat's owners. But we finally made it up, our set was short, full of fuzz for the chosen few who bravely defied the storm.

The final gig in Barcelona must have been grandiose : opening for the mighty Candlemass doesn't happened very often and we were glad Jon who booked the tour made it possible. The guys from Tort were very pleasant to meet, and their insane sludge shit fits with our dirty atmosphere and sound. But Candlemass and James Rivera's tribute to Dio appeared like they were from another dimension to us, another level that we couldn't reach yet.

And that's all folks ! We hope to come again on Torquemada's land to share the stage with much more bands and a bigger crowd then ! Shall the gods of mystery help us !

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                                                                                                                                                                            Thanx a lot to Ronan for this nice report !
Watch out for new stuff from HUATA (two new songs for a 20 minutes ritual) through a split with BITCHO to be released soon, also a new Tour is in the works crossing UK with DOPETHRONE and THE WOUNDED KINGS + more to be announced...