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June 29, 2000
Written by Robert Fripp
01.19
Hotel Acceptable With A Sea View, San Sebastian. We flew here on Air Iberia. Never ever fly Air Iberia. The last series of interviews I gave at EG (p'tah) was in March/April 1991 at their (then) second set of offices on the King's Road, at Blenheim House. The continuing collapse of their affairs lead them to abandon those offices shortly afterwards & return the music group back to share the core offices at 63a. These had become the centre for their property & ancilliary (non-musical) interests during the blossoming of that Decade of Greed. One of those last interviews was with Tony Bacon, a very experienced and well informed writer, for Making Music. Towards the end of the interview, he asked: TB: What advice would you give a young musician?
RF: Never fly Air Iberia. TB: No, seriously.
RF: Seriously. Never fly Air Iberia. Tonight's performance was in an open square in this beautiful town. One part of the square, near the mixing desk, was a gorgeous timber frame brick building A supportive audience with a wide age spread. We had constant small mistakes: pedals pressed when they shouldn't be, or not pressed when they should have been; a monitor man looking away as he was needed so notes got dropped; effect programmes out of sequence or dumped. And the feeblest improv of this tour, in the third slot. All this contributed to the show's poor developing form. Adrian felt we had a solid show. I felt the centre managed to escape us, for no easily apparent reason. But the onstage sound was good. And then, during "Heroes", a flash from right at the back just to remind anyone still in doubt. 17.15
Hotel Quite Acceptable But With Neil Sedaka On The In-House Muzak. We flew Air Iberia again this morning. A mature man, who was also on our flight, approached me for an autograph as we were checking in. I declined several times. He was inclined to persist. He later gave Adrian an enquiring time asking why thees Freep, thees Freep, might not sign his piece of card; and moved the same enquiry onto Pat. On board, as I was leaving the Chamber of Evacuation & Easement of our Air Iberia regional, he poked his cardboard out into the aisle to once more pursue his burning quest of the morning.
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