Location: Plaza de Toros, Murcia, Spain
Summary: A personal, vivid account of seeing ZZ Top live in Murcia, from the scorching journey and stormy skies to the electrifying performance and an unexpected medical scare that turned the night into an unforgettable story.
ZZ Top were one of my favourite bands when I was a kid. Who can forget the brilliant videos, the cool cars and the beautiful women? When I saw they were on in Murcia, I couldn't quite believe it was the real group. I spent quite a bit of time making sure it was, but as soon as I realized it was the real group, I booked a VIP ticket and a hotel for the night.
Journey to Murcia
I left home at about 14:00 to get the bus to Murcia. I arrived at the bus stop early, and it was very hot so I popped into ATime4AChange to have a quick chat with the staff and to try to keep cool. I walked back to the bus stop at 14:20 and the bus arrived a short time later. I was glad to get on the bus as temperatures were already soaring, and health warnings had been sent out about the heat and possible storms. The bus and its very cool air conditioning was very pleasant.
On the journey to Murcia I chatted with a friend on messenger and others via Facebook and the journey flew by. When I got off the bus in Murcia the heat was unbearable, and I was glad my hotel was only a short walk. I was glad when I entered the hotel lobby that there were people at the check in desk in front of me. It gave me a while to catch my breath as I sat and waited my turn to check in.
As I sat there a couple with a young boy and a young dog sat down next to me. The dog barked at everyone who went past, and I hoped they would not be in a room near mine. As we sat there a man went to leave and the small dog started barking at him. Although it was not a big dog, he obviously feared it and froze. The owner of the dog, spoke to him in English, but I don't know if he was English, and told him that the dog was just being friendly. I am not a great lover of dogs and hate it when I'm told that by owners who don't control their dogs. The man was frozen still and didn't move for about 5 minutes while the owner just loosely held the dog, and it barked at the frightened man. The scared man eventually slowly walked past the dog and left the hotel, and I was called up to check in.
My check in was easy as I had prepaid for my booking on booking.com. I was offered the hotels breakfast buffet at a discounted price if I paid ahead of time. Because I would rather not walk around in the heat in the morning, I added it to my booking before going up to my room on the sixth floor. As I left the check in desk the people with the dog were trying to get a room and were told the hotel wouldn't let the dog stay because it was barking and hadn't been controlled. Well played hotel staff.
Its strange, I have stayed in the hotel many times and always get a room in the same position but on different floors, I guess that the single rooms are all in the same place on every floor. With everything sorted for the booking I went up to the room to cool down and rest for a while. As I lay on my bed a message arrived on my phone telling me that my ticket included a few free special gifts and that I had to collect them at 19:00 at the main entrance to the bullring. At 18:00 I went out to get something to eat and to walk to the bullring. As I left the hotel lobby I realized that there was a terrific storm all around. I could see rain bouncing off the road, hear the crash of the thunder and see the sky light up from the lightning over the city. I waited for a while, but it didn't let up. I walked to a nearby Irish bar where I could shelter from the rain for a while. I got a pint and sat chatting with a friend on WhatsApp while I waited for the storm to pass. It didn't last to long, and I still had enough time to walk to the bullring and be in time to collect the gifts at the main entrance.
When I arrived I found the correct gate and stood with a few others queuing in the very humid and hot line to collect our gifts. As I stood there, I noticed that the staff were all being given bottles of water to keep cool. After about 40 minutes of standing with no one handing anything out, I was beginning to feel like leaving without the gift, but figured I'd waited that long in the heat another few minutes couldn't hurt. A short time later I was given a ZZ Top bag and a plain poster. It was crap to say the least and I wished I hadn't stood there for nearly an hour waiting for it.
When I left I went to a nearby bar and found a seat next to a couple of English guys. After asking if I could sit down, I joined them, and we sat chatting until around 21:15 when I left and went into the bullring. The warm-up group were already playing but were not brilliant and were singing in Spanish and I didn't understand a word. I got a beer and a bottle of water and found a place in front of the stage to watch the show from. By the time ZZ Top came on at around 22:15 it was packed, and I had got a second bottle of water.
ZZ Top
ZZ Top came on and sounded great, but I wasn't convinced by one of the guys beards. I thought it was fake. All ZZ Top fans are aware of the guys beards, but this one was grey, and he had grey sticky up hair like an upside-down broom handle.
I was enjoying the music, but it was getting uncomfortably hot standing in front of the stage and I moved to get another bottle of water. I started to drink the water, but it wasn't cooling me down. I decided to try to move further away from the stage and towards the back of the bullring where it was more open, and I could breathe more easily. As I walked towards the back of the bullring I kept bumping into what, I thought, were children and I wondered why there were so many children at a ZZ Top concert. By the time I got to the back of the area I was in, my breathing had become harder and my vision had started to fog up. I was having difficulty making things out. I lent against what, I thought, was the sound and lighting stage at the back of the bullring and asked someone there which way the exit was.
Passing Out
I remember someone asking me if I needed help and I went to say yes, but that is when I must have blacked out and collapsed on the floor. The next thing I became aware of was that I was laying on my back on the floor and people had hold of my legs and more people were grabbing me under the arms. Then I blacked out again. When I came to again, I was laying on a gurney and was being carried out by ambulance staff. The ambulance crew were fantastic, they took me to a shaded area under the main seating. One lady stood over me with a fan trying to cool me down. Another had ice and was rubbing it on my head, neck, and chest to cool me down, while a third sprayed cold water from a bottle over me.
A male ambulance guy attached a blood pressure machine to my arm and took my blood pressure. They asked me to stay where I was, but I couldn't have got up if I wanted to. The male took my blood pressure while two ladies continued to rub ice over me and fan my face whilst the third went and got me more bottles of water to drink. I slowly came around a bit more but wasn't clear who was who as a couple of people approached. A man handed one of the emergency crew my reading glasses and my walking stick and a lady then came forward with the case for my glasses. I asked someone about my bag and someone else handed my bag to one of the emergency people. I couldn't make out anyone's faces yet but was slowly feeling a little better.
They continued to monitor my blood pressure as they cooled me down, and then they took a blood sample using a simple pin prick machine in my finger the same as the one they use to check my INR with. My sugar readings were low and one of the medical staff went away and came back with bottles of coke and ice in a cup for me to drink. I finished the drink, and they again insisted I stayed where I was but started asking me my name. I was able to tell them my name and told them that I lived in Los Alcázares but was staying in a nearby hotel. They moved me to the outside of the bullring. I could still hear the music and thought it was ironic that as I was being carried out on the gurney, I could hear ZZ Top playing, She's got legs and knows how to use them. Something I couldn't do at that time.
As I slowly began to cool down I was given more coke to drink and had my blood pressure taken again. When my blood pressure had come back down, and I had cooled off they lowered one end of the gurney to see if I could stand up. I couldn't at first but after a while, with help I was able to and someone else went and found me a seat to sit on.
I was helped to the seat and while I drank more water the female medics continued to rub ice over my head and chest and spray me with cold water to keep me cool. As I sat there an alarm went on one of their vests and all but one of them rushed away. A short time later they came back with someone else on the gurney. Another person had passed out because of the heat. It was going to be a busy night for the ambulance staff.
All the medical staff were great to me, and after a while they decided that I didn't need to go to hospital. For which I was delighted. They asked if I had far to go to my hotel and when I told them where I was staying they even called me a taxi, so I didn't have to try to walk. Something which I know I couldn't have done and if I had tried, I would have collapsed again on the way. One of the ladies stayed with me and when the taxi arrived helped me to it and explained to the driver that I had passed out due to the heat and to turn his air conditioning up. She told the driver where to take me and in a short time I was back at the hotel. I felt a little better and when I went through the hotel lobby I bought some more water and a couple of packets of biscuits to eat.
The room was icy because I had left the air conditioning running when I left. I looked at the time on the bedside clock, and it had just gone midnight, so I can't have missed much of the concert even if some of it were blurry in my memory. Or I had just been listening to it from the gurney. I lay on the bed to try to sleep, but my mind was racing, and it took me about an hour to fall asleep.
Journey Home
When I woke up in the morning, I had a long shower, got dressed and took my Kindle with me to the breakfast buffet. I was starving and had a large plate of bacon, sausages, scrambled egg and two bits of toast, one with tomato on and one with jam. I drank one glass of orange juice straight down and got a refill before sitting down to eat my food.
I ate my breakfast and then got some more toast, a piece of cake, more orange juice and a hot chocolate. My bus home wasn't until 12:45, so I stayed in the restaurant reading my Kindle and drank some coffee to kill time. It made more sense to stay where I was until I had to leave. When I checked out, I had left plenty of time to walk to the bus station but at check out the clerk asked if he could call me a taxi. I asked him to get me one for the station and he did.
I sat inside the hotel until the taxi arrived but when I went out the hot air hit me like I was walking into an oven. I don't think I had fully recovered from the night before, and I was glad to have a taxi and not be walking. The €7 it cost was worth every penny. When I arrived I was the first person at the pillar for my bus and I sat down and read my Kindle. When it arrived, and I went to get on, there were lots of rude ignorant Spanish pushing there way on, so I just stood back and let them. Two Indian men, Sikhs, waved me on in front of them. I was disappointed to see a fat lady who had been pushing people out the way had taken one disabled seat. The other had been taken by a young man, leaving neither available for me nor another lady on crutches. Some people are ignorant, others are helpful kind and fantastic, the two healthy people in the disabled seats were the former, the two Sikhs the latter.
The bus journey was uneventful but when the bus stopped, and I got off I noticed the two Sikh men got off at my stop and walked the same way as me. They must have lived just round the corner from me and I wondered if they had recognized me when they allowed me to get on the bus before them in Murcia. There are many Sikhs where I live, and they are all polite and helpful. On today's bus they showed up the Spanish, and I was grateful to them today.
Add comment