"Have MERCY,"as Muddy Waters would say...

This last weekend was the Festival of Le Mercé in Barcelona, a festival, apparently in honour of our Lady of Mercy who freed the city from a plague of locusts in the 1600s, but only after the entire town prayed to her. Very apt really, as it is a non-stop party for 3 days and nights, and the whole world decends on Barcelona rather like a plague of locusts.

Luckily for me, I was off this weekend. So the first night I managed to more or less avoid the festival as I went for a meal in a friend´s house (into which I will be moving, come October) . But at about 12 we went out into the madness and made our way up to the club off Rambla Catalunya called "City Hall". We got in for free as the lads knew someone inside, which is just as well as I am flat broke. For those of you in the know, "City Hall" is rather like the club "Spirit" in Dublin. I think it even used to be an old cinema, and is now a raving madhouse (like my pun?) for some several hundred local and international nutters. It has a lovely wee terrace out the back where the barman gives a smoldering look of incomprehension to every lady there and people squash into benches and knock drinks over whilst moving plastic chairs betweens the vines and trellis. It´s a great place if you want to get picked up...

On Saturday night I went to experience the full force of the festival. I went on the hunt for some cheap alcohol (78 cent a bottle m´dears) and came across a rather spectacular set of street drummers who were throwing fireworks around in the middle of the crowd. It is all the more amazing that no-one gets hurt, but fireworks in your face seem to be part of the norm here....anyway, soon afterwards I met with my friend Darren and we went down to Rambla de Ravel and watched a fantastic Senegalese band, followed by some good but not as good band. The only criticism I have of Le Mercé is the lack of programmes floating about: I saw several great acts and have no clue who they were!

We then decended into a tiny club on Ravel called Zentraus. This is one of my favourites despite the fact I´ve probably misspelled it, and is a free-in club which is usually empty before midnight and goes on til about half three. The music ranges from dance to techno, but they mix in the maddest stuff, like metal, jazz, and random samples such as manical laughter. After a drink we decided to make the trek down to Forum, which is slightly outside the city centre along the beach, to the northeast or east. The metro ride was unforgettable. I usually hate crowds, but it was like being on a school-bus, with people shouting songs at the top of their lungs, and thumping the metal roof of the train in time to their hoarse singing. I´d great craic.

Forum was a spectacular riot of lights as a fairground streched its way in front of me. Somehow it all looked more exciting in the black night, with the thumping of various stages in the background. Candyfloss was doing a brisk trade, as were those strange topsy turvy upside rides, of which I had to have a go. I was worried I might get sick as I had drunk quite a bit by then, but instead I dissolved into laughter as I was thrown about and had fountains shot into my face by quite possibly the most fun ride ever...

The music was amazing also. The first two stages were a bit rubbish, although I´d great fun hopping around and taking the piss out of stage number two, with the hip-hop band saying things like: "Hello Ba-Ce-Loona! Yo, whaddup! I oughta slaughta yo´daughta´ wid wate´..." and that kind of cack. But the last stage was great, with my personal favourite, Cycle, doing an amazing show that left everyone talking about them, and also Rhinoceros, from Montpèllier, who were pretty good too. We met our metro-carraige-mates again and had a great reintroduction, and generally hopped around like lunatics til we had to go home.

I highly recommend this festival to everyone, as it has everything from waltzes, to raves, egyptian music, samba, african music, fireworks (I missed the pyrotechnics festival on Sunday due to the rain, alas), and all-night metros. It is incredible how many people there are around, but somehow it´s not so bad when you know it´s not locusts...