This gig was unique for the band. Both in the venue, the time of the day we performed and the content of the music we would be playing?
The year 2009 was special as it had been adopted internationally to be the "International Year of Astronomy" which marked the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope and the year 1609 when Galileo turned his crude telescope skywards and made his amazing discoveries such as craters on the moon, the four major moons of the planet Jupiter and that there were occasionally spots on the sun to name but a few. The year 2009 also being the 40th anniversary when men first landed on the moon on July 20th 1969.
La Palma being the site of one of the world's leading astronomical observatories, it was decided by the local government to put on an exhibition in Santa Cruz, the main town on the island, to commemorate these advents with a special emphasis on the moon. The exhibition named "Mira Que Luna!" (Look at the Moon! ) was set up in one of the town's historic buildings, the "Palacio de Salazar". More information on the exhibit (in Spanish) including many photos can be found at - Mira Que Luna
I mentioned above the gig was unique in the music we would be playing? All our songs this day had to include the "Moon" in their titles! A bit of a challenge. So we spent a few rehearsals learning new songs specifically to play at the gig. Numbers like "Bad Moon Rising" and "Dancing in the Moonlight" we already had in our repertoire, but we hadn't played them for some time and needed to practice them. Songs like REM's "Man on the Moon" and "Walking on the Moon" by Police we had to learn from scratch.
The text box "Mira Que Musica!" (Look at the Music! ) to the left was taken from the exhibition programme. It says that on Saturday 28th November at midday on the terrace of Casa de Salazar, the rock/pop group "Manifold" comprising mainly of personal from the Observatorio de Roque de La Muchachos will be playing songs central to the moon. The titles of the songs we played are shown as well as the names of the band members. It was a short gig and we played for half an hour.
To be honest, it was a good thing this gig was a short one as we were playing in a courtyard within the building and at midday, the sun was high and causing us some grief! Athough we set up under a balcony, it didn't give us much shade and our drummer Edgar had to suffer the full force of the sun upon him for part of the time. This can be seen in some of the photos which came out either with heavy shadows cast or with the band in full sunlight.
At this gig we were also fortunate to have Sanne (from Holland) singing with us again. It was just coincidental that she was over on holiday and as Mayra our resident vocalist couldn't make it that day, it was good that Sanne was available to stand in for her.
