dsanchez

On november 2007 I had the chance to tape Bjork’s peformance in Lima, Peru. Because taping is not a common thing in my country, I thought it was time to renew my recording equipment (an old Sony tape recording) to capture such a great event. After following crowbi_wan’s advice, I opted for buying a nice iRiver iHP 120, which costed me around US$200. I’ve also got some nice mics on it (Sony), however, recently I’ve bought a better ones, after following the recommendations from losflower4 at the Technical Stuff section from Curefans.com

Well, the thing is that I managed to record the whole Bjork concert and published it in Dimeadozen, a very known site for sharing loseless unofficial recordings. People was very happy because, despite Peru is holding many concerts lately, there are not that many recordings shared on the Internet. As I said before, taping is not a common thing in my country.

Unfortunately, after my recording was shared, despite the clear indication of not converting it to a lossy format (mp3 and similars), and not to re-publish the show in such format, some people decided that they have the right over the recording and converted it to mp3, uploaded it in sites like rapidshare, and even changed my name from David to Daniel!

Actually, I’ve found my recording on a blog (which is not even worth to mention) where the owner decided to cut part of the “info.txt” file we use to put together with the recording. In this file you can find information as the setlist, the equipment used, some notes about the concert and some indications. It looks like he decided that my wishes about “not converting the recording to mp3 or other lossy format” where not important, and thus, deleted that part of the file. How nice!

Of course, he wrote in his post “thank you so much for the recording”, but actually didn’t give a shit about respecting a simple wish. When I wrote a comment complaining of why he did that, he decided not to publish it, but instead send me an e-mail that shows just how people does not give a shit about other’s work and discourage the sharing-spirit of many Tapers in the world. Let’s read his letter:

“….Yes, I actually deleted the fragment of your message, and it was me who posted the mp3 links even when you said that you did not want that. It would have been very easy for me not to even mention your name, but I’ve decided that I should thank you in public and give you the credits…”

This grabber not only decided how he wants to “thanks me”. He also writes like I should be grateful that he’s publishing my name. What a prick! But here’s more:

“Your idea to keep the original recording (…) is not universal and does not apply once you publish the content on the Internet… (…) where, as you know, the idea is to share for free and to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, not everyone has the technical facilities to reproduce FLAC files and even worst, to keep them on their PCs, and because of that, and considering the purpose of my Blog (and all the download-blogs of the Internet), which is to share music (he didn’t mention here that he does not care about sharing copyright material) for everyone, I published the concert as mp3 and I will do it again if given the chance”

Does this guy lives in the 90’s? Not technical facilities? Everyday we have more fast access to the Internet, and everyday we see how we the storage hard-disk are increase. Not even mention the Blu-ray technology, which soon is going to replace the DVD. The Blu-ray is able to hold 50GB, almost 10 times the current DVD.

Problems playing FLAC files? Looks like this guy also does not know that the last version of Winamp, the most popular media player in the world, already support FLAC.

Now, why the tapers want to preserver the original recording?. It’s very simple: they want to preserve the original record for the future. They want other generations to enjoy the recording as it was captured in the moment.

When something is converted to mp3, there’s no return (the audio LOSE quality). But the worst thing here is that maybe some people find the mp3 recording, and make their own “remaster” and upload a second mp3 version, which, as you can imagine, it’s even worse.

Now, the guy goes on my nerves:

“Maybe you think you have certain rights over the files, but not. It’s a bootleg and it will stay like this always. In any case the only one who have an ownership over the recording is Bjork. I really thank you for the effort, but once more, the Internet is for everyone and not just for a group of fanatics. I’m sorry I passed your recording as mp3, but I guess you will understand it if you really wanted to keep something beautiful thinking on the rest of the people and not thinking in a kind of fame or for personal money”

Because of the freedom of the Internet, and the sharing-spirit, many Tapers, unlike in the past, are publishing their recordings. Because of the Tapers we can enjoy that old Cure recording of 1986 in Dax, for example. Or the great Hamburg 2002 gig.

When I put the recording on Dime, It was clear my intenttion to share it with all the world. I wanted to give back a bit of what I took. Now, why is so hard for some people to understand just certain wishes? This guy would have one less post in his Blog if I just decided not to share the Bjork recording. He couldn’t even comment about it. Because of people like this, Tapers who want to be friendly, just have to turn selfish sometimes.

“(…) Nex time, if you want just you or a group of people listen your recording, write it exactly and with password and shared it just among your friend. It does not make sense to publish in public forums. And by the way, I inform you I won’t publish your comment on my blog. There’s enough selfish people in the streets to give them also space in my Blog”

This is the funniest part. Who’s the selfish here? The Taper who share his recording with a simple indication, or the Blogger who decided what to do with that recording, the Blogger who decided to credit or not, to cut some info or not, to publish a reply or not?

Well, what is for sure is that definitely I will have to think twice before sharing something in the future.

For me it was the first show after five years. The first time it was an unforgettable november 9th in 2002 in Hamburg. Now it was Paris. This was a different line-up. There were not longer Perry and Roger, but instead one of the best guitarist ever: Porl Thompson. 20:15 and the lights turned off, and the screams and claps of 20 000 persons asking for The Cure multiplied. Behind the stage, some multimedia proyections. A milky way and you could hear some bells. It’s the beginning of the show. It’s the beginning of the first song of the Disintegration album.

Jason Cooper, black shirt, black trousers, blond hair, walked to his work place: behind the drums. Then, Porl Thompson, bald, with some tatoos on his head; Robert Smith, a bit overweight, but with his nice-scary make-up of a Panda bear and with his clasic haircut, and then Simon Gallup. Someone who does not seem to feel the pass of the time. The man looked younger than ever, despite being almost fifty. A shirt with short sleeves, a black trousers as well, and short black hair. The four guys are in front of thousands of fans who scream their devotion. And Surprise! Professional cameras over our heads, and in the stage, some professional camera-men filming. Perhaps this concert will be released in DVD? That’s what I’ve heard.

Jason Cooper played the drums and the concert started. “Plainsong”, the perfect song from the perfect album. The people is totally mad. Looks like the frenchs never saw The Cure. They screamed and showed a passion that I only knew from the latinamerican audience. Some started to “swim” among the public. You may think “Plainsong” is a “fast” song but not, it’s slow, a song just for listening and enjoying… calm. But the people was insane. The next song, “Prayers for rain”, maked them even more crazy. The people pushed and jumped. Looked like I would fall soon. Am I in a punk concert? The people went on jumping, screaming, pushing. As I said, looked like they never saw The Cure, despite the band probably played at least fifty times in France. I missed my friends in Lima, I’d love them to see what I saw. What a concert!

Photo: japanesebaby

With my friend Eva, we went a bit back because people in front was just too mad. Then it was perfect. From there we could enjoy the concert without problems. And there was long way to the end of the show yet. I screamed to Robert: Please come to southamerica, like three times. I certanly don’t know if he could hear that, but at least I tried. Honestly, that show must be seen in Peru and all the countries around.

With “The Walk” the venue was a total party. A party of thousands of people. The new version was perfect. I didn’t miss the keyboards at all. “Push”, my favourite Cure song, is played in a strange way. It starts with some sequences. That song does not need anything, honestly. I hope Robert considers back to the “original version”. Anyway, I screamed as much as I could the famous line like strawberries and cream, it’s the only way to be. Thousands of people jumping at the same time. And that’s because “Push” is such a powerful song. The Cure also played “Never enough” and in this song I took the chance to show the Curefans.com banner to the band. Andreas, the webmaster of cure-concerts.de (and also a curefans.com member) helped me with the task. Did Robert see it? I’m not sure, but at least we could keep it for 25 to 30 seconds up in the air. But the banner didn’t serve just for the band. A beautiful girl called me from behind and asked me “Are you David from Curefans.com?”. It was Chrystel, a member of the community. The world is so small.

Photo: nevyn

The concert went on for more than two hours. They closed the first part with “One hundred years” and “Disintegration”. The four guys left the stage while the people kept on claping… and they came back. And the four genious played four songs of the legendary “17 seconds”. The dark “At night”, “M” and then “Play for today”. In this song the people started to sing along the part where the band used to have keyboards. It was so noisy and great. Robert looked happy and gave himself totally to the audience with an unbelievable version of “A forest”. For me it was the hightlight of the night. It’s a 1980’s song, but still it sounded fresher than ever. The voice of Robert during the again and again sounded the same like before. And the band left the stage again. And they came back again, now with the “pop” part of the show. “Lovecats”, “Close to me” and a new song, “Freak show” (which is not that good) and they closed with “Why can’t I be you”, that, to be honest, missed the keyboards. But what the hell. The show was still 100%. And they came back. And they played their most famous song, “Boys don’t cry”, and also some songs of their first album, with “Jumping someone else’s train” as the best. And finally they ended with one of the favourite songs of the legendary John Peel: “10:15 Saturday night”, followed by the outstanding “Killing an Arab”

It’s the end of the show. At least, that’s what everyone thought (because with “Killing an Arab” they finished most of their other presentations in Europe). But Smith thanked again to an audience that never stoped screaming, by coming back for the last time to play “Faith”. A dark projection, showing a church, is all what I can remember. The people listened in a silence one of the anthems of the british band. A song that Smith wrote in his hardest moments, when -it’s said- he even thought in commiting suicide. And it’s over. Three and the half hours of concert. What else can I ask?. I’m tired. It has been more than nine hours standing up, but I don’t care.

How to qualify the concert? Perfect? Incredible? More than thirty years of career and The Cure still shows in every perfomance why they’re simply the best band of the planet.

The Cure
Paris - Palais Ominsport de Paris Bercy
March 12th, 2008

Mainset: Plainsong, Prayers For Rain, A Strange Day, alt.end, The Walk, The End of the World, Lovesong, To Wish Impossible Things, Pictures of You, Lullaby, From The Edge Of Deep Green Sea, Kyoto Song, Please Project, Push, How Beautiful You Are, Friday I’m in Love, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Primary, A Boy I Never Knew, Shake Dog Shake, Never Enough, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, Disintegration

Encore 1: At Night, M, Play For Today, A Forest
Encore 2: The Lovecats, Let’s Go to Bed, Freak Show, Close to Me, Why Can’t I Be You?
Encore 3: Three Imaginary Boys, Fire in Cairo, Boys Don’t Cry, Jumping Someone Else’s Train, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab
Encore 4: Faith

How I would love turn back the time. My teacher of chemistry told us once that Albert Einstein was almost to get the “time machine”, but just few time later he passed away. I don’t know wether is truth or not, but there are moments which you would love to live again, or time that you would wish to have back. But it’s not possible.

In these weeks I’m preparing my depature to Europe. Unfortunately, I let the time pass too much and did not to present my thesis timely. In Peru you study five years and then you have to make a thesis in order to get your “title”. Otherwise you’re a bachelor (like I’m). And here most of the times people don’t get to make the thesis because usually after you finnish your studies you go to work and you have less time, and maybe you have a wife or kids, and there’s even less time to make a thesis. I wish it was like in other countries where you MUST have your thesis to finnish your carrier.

But the time I lost these years, when I could already made my thesis are passing me an expensive invoice. I just can’t buy my flight ticket yet untill I know my date of dissertation. Hopefully, in the faculty they told me that my date of dissertation will be probably set for february, which means something between 20-29 february I guess. But anyway, until I don’t know the date, I can’t buy tickets and be calm. We will see.

It has not been easy at all to quit the job right now. As some of you know, I am moving to europe with my slovak wife, which means I had to quit sooner or later my country, leave my friends, family and my nice job.

I’ve got this job back in june 2000. Before I was working part-time in the biggest peruvian Bank (Banco de Crédito) but due the fixed hourly I wasn’t able to study and work in the bank at the same time, and so I had to quit and decided to apply for a job in my University, at the IT (Information Technology) Office.

The IT office (”DIA” is the name here). I probably will never find a place like this. Is not that I’m too pesismistic, but it’s hard to find collegues who you feel so great working, where there’s not jealousy or envy or bad things. Is hard to find a place where you’re free to do research, to propose things, to improve, to grown both personally and professional. I remember very good at the time in the bank when there were collegues who were sometimes talking bad behind.

The place of work I am (until 20th february) is just the perfect place to work. Now I’m going to Europe, with the hope that everything will be fine. It won’t be certanly easy, first I don’t know any of slovak, but I know my wife and her family will be supportive. And of course, I will relax at first watching The Cure and being happy for some weeks. And most important, I hope to meet many Curefans.com members who surely confirm they are so nice persons in the real world, as in the virtual one.

After almonst ten years I went back to the city of Huaraz, eight hours north of Lima, in the peruvian Andes. Huaraz is a lovely city located over 3000 metters of the sea level, and it’s surrounded by beautiful mountains, among them the “Huascarán”, the highest peruvian mountain with 6768 metters. This city is the entry point for those who want to climb, hike, do many other sports and see amazing places.

My wife and me quit Lima on monday 23th at 22.00 in the very reliable and comfortable bus of Cruz del Sur. The ticket was worth 60 soles one way (around 14EU/20US$) and as always, the service was excellent and included a little food (not dinner this time, since we quit already late in the night) and the good movie of Will Smith “In the Pursuit of Happiness”.

We arrived to Huaraz the early morning of tuesday 24th, at around 6.00, then, we took a taxi from the bus station to the Brit’s hotel we’ve booked before (2 soles, which is about 0.40EU /0.75US$) and slept there for some hours. We were very exhausted!

The hotel room was very comfortable, clean, with hot water (not every hostel in this city has this!) , cable and it was 50 soles per night (12EU/17US$), and it was located about 3 minutes walk from the city center.

In the afternoon, we went to book a tour in one agency I tried twice in the past: Kike Tours. Unfortunately, it was not like in the old times. We booked a tour for the beautifuls Llanganuco lakes, for the wednesday at 9.00 and they appeared at 9.30. Then they puted us in a car with a group of school students. Not that we have something against school students, but the problem is that the tour-guide attention was focused in this group of noisy students and not in the rest of the people. And actually, I wonder how the old couple of koreans (besides the students there were three couples of turists) did to understand what the tour-guide was talking, cause I don’t think he spoke any english to them.

In the night we were looking for a good place to eat, and we’ve found this nice Inka Pub, a restaurant run for a swiss guy which serves excellent dishes, and there we tried a couple of spaguetti al pesto and spaguetti a la bolognesa. Very good!

First trip: Yungay-LLanganuco

So next morning (wednesday) we had our first tour: Llanganuco. On the way to the lake, we made a stop in the city of Yungay (2500m.), and visited the cementery of the city. In the 70’s, the city was totally detroyed because of an eartquake, which caused a part of the Huascaran to fall into the city and kill nearly 25 000 persons. After the cementery (which was not destruyed but the earthquake because it was in a higher place) we bought a “raspadilla” and then we walked to the burried city, were only four palms trees survived.

At around 12.00 we went to Llanganuco (3800 m.), an outstanding little lake surounded by the magnificent Huascaran. From Yungay to there, was about ninety minutes going up all the time, but definitely was worth to do it!.

Second Trip: Chavín

The trip to the archaelogical site of Chavin de Huantar (built 900 B.C.) was quite long (around four hours) and very difficult, because of the hard road. But again, it was worth to do it. On the way to that place, we made a stop in the unbelievable nice lake of Querococha (above 4o00 metters) and make some pictures, including one with a nice alpaca, a typical animal of the Andes. It was very cold there, but with a landscape like that, nothing matters.

That’s my first post in this blog. I currently have another one in spanish, but I will use from now this for the articles in english or other languages. The next post I’ll publish will be about the trip me and my girlfriend made in southamerica last year. We went to beautiful places in Chile, Argentina and Paraguay, but hey, before that you must first visit Perú

By the way, if you ask yourself what means “Železničná Stanica”, that’s “Railway Station” in slovak. There’s a story behind it, of course.