Road Report: Maximo Park Survive Fire and High Winds in Barcelona

U.K. rockers Maximo Park are hitting festivals around the world this summer and are keeping a diary for Spinner. In the third entry, singer Paul Smith does his best DiCaprio impression before the band falls victim to Mother Nature's fury at the Benicassim festival.

It feels like we're weekenders at the moment with a few days in midweek to gather our thoughts and launder clothes. Flying into Barcelona on Thursday allowed me the opportunity to visit the excellent modern art galleries of the MACBA and browse my way through the book shop. I saw a beautiful little book of found photography by Luciano Rigolini and a slick collection of images by Doug Aitken called '99 Cent Dreams;' two compendiums of miniature spectacles. In the gallery I came across Dutch architectural drawings by a Situationist called Constant who promised a 'New Babylon' -- a "world in which man no longer toils, but plays; poetry as a way of life for the masses". I like a man with ambition! Our latest album sleeve for 'Quicken the Heart' was typographically inspired by the work of Ed Ruscha, so it was nice to see his plain, methodical booklet showing every building on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, especially since we drove down it a few times whilst recording the album. There was even a Newcastle connection with two pictures by Richard Hamilton who used to teach at my old university. His work contains many shining examples of the British strand of Pop Art and he was associated with a collective called the Independent Group. Now that I think of it, that's a pretty good band name ... After the gallery closed at midnight, our keyboardist Lukas and I witnessed a dogfight that ended in an upended table and smashed wine glasses.

We arrived at Benecassim with high hopes, having bagged a Friday night slot on the main stage after Kings of Leon. We were supposed to play in Finland on Sunday after a few early morning flights to join the dots. All of this was not to be...

Friday began portentously with a bizarre acoustic slot on a small ship docked in the next port. We were promised 300 people but saw only about 20 "guests," including national TV cameras who captured the blustery performance. I fancied myself as a lesser DiCaprio in 'Titanic' and attempted a few leans from the mast, microphone in one hand with the other clinging on for dear life! Naughty! After this flimsy excuse for self-promotion, we cursed our way back to the festival site as the wind began to pick up. Post-dinner, signs that all was not right began to present themselves, the most prominent being a nearby fire that was setting about the desert fauna at an alarming rate. The moment I'd been waiting for arrived as the evening sky became consumed by black plumes of smoke. Magazine, reformed and still dangerous, strode onto the second stage with great purpose, led by Howard Devoto in a salmon dinner jacket, moving with the air of a knowing lecturer. By now, the wind had become a real issue and halfway through a commanding display, the stage manager interrupted Devoto as he perched on the edge of the stage singing the line, "Sometimes I forget my position." The performance was prematurely over and the festival was suspended. Everyone was asked to move away from the stage because the high winds were now slowly but surely dismantling the whole festival site. The backstage tent began to shudder and shake and a giant metallic clang convinced me to grab my suitcase and suits in order to vacate the temporary premises.

We waited anxiously on the tour bus, the large coach barely suppressing its own wobble. Looking out of the window, we used the blue netting attached to a nearby fence as a wind meter, watching it kick out and coil in the air, snapping back on itself, violently. Meanwhile, a whirlwind of dust and debris was spinning about in the middle of catering as people tried to finish their meals. Everywhere, tents threatened to come away from their moorings and officials hurried to stretch out cordons of blue tape to prevent people from entering the backstage, which had become a danger zone. Spectacular as all this was, we were hugely disappointed to be missing out on our biggest ever Spanish crowd after coming all that way. This was coupled with the creeping realisation that because our equipment was trapped on the hazardous main stage, we would miss our flight to Helsinki, triggering a domino effect on the internal Finnish flights, thus causing the unwanted cancellation of our next festival appearance.

After a troubled sleep, we awoke to find ourselves in exactly the same place, parked on the brink of the festival site, surrounded by the jagged Spanish hills. I spoke to fellow Brits abroad, Elbow, who'd pulled alongside us in their tour bus, describing the elemental carnage of the night before. The main stage was totally bare, having been gradually denuded by nature, leaving it tarpaulin-less. The gigantic PA system which had been swaying precariously in the night sky, was now calm in the morning light. All around the site, it looked very much like the morning after a particularly hedonistic party, with toilet doors ripped in half like bits of cardboard, potted plants spilled everywhere, and plastic bags dangling like strange fruit from the trees. Our crew stood around in the shadows as Neil, our tour manager, tried to work everything out, finally brokering a deal with the festival organisers to squeeze us back on the bill. In a fortuitous turn of events, Lily Allen pulled out, leaving us with a prime slot on the main stage, playing to an audience eager for music and fun after the previous night's blowout. I have rarely felt so good onstage as I did that night. Even new album tracks like 'Tanned' received a rapturous response and the sun setting halfway through certainly didn't harm the sense of spectacle either. We came off and hugged each other before running the gauntlet past the waiting photographers and, wait for it, a gaggle of screaming girls! I almost felt like a pop star for a minute there...