Hipping it up in Sidecar

Sidecar (see-day-car) is a low down place low down in the bowels of a building on the Plaça Reial.

Folk with odd hairstyles or no hairstyle hang about there in the hope of hearing music that no one else has heard. Something that might become something or was something or is something somewhere else. Just not here, on the place Reial where everybody else is on holiday sipping down beers in large quantities from bulbous glasses that could hold fruit enough to feed a family.

Nobody in Sidecar cares about the man in the yellow waistcoat hosing down the square outside, nobody passes a remark on the homeless fauna wining dining and at times courting al fresco, for life. For this is Sidecar the temple of nonchalance, where it is essential not to care about anything or anyone, except music that is.

I caught a gig there last night by a band called Scarlet's Well. It was unexpected but enjoyable. The place was not packed, but then it never is. The “in crowd” is a small population.

On the less than generous stage a rag bag of eight musicians belted it out in the most inimitable fashion. The bowler-hatted lead singer looked down into a lectern while the female lead jigged on high heels to his right. Her gladiator metal-clad mini dress reflected light enough to excuse one for staring a little too long in her direction.

From the suited accordion player to the cowboy-shirted Canadian Mountie guitar player the band members proved at least as eclectic as their set.

The flyer described the band as “Pop-Cabaret”, a description which prior to the gig meant nothing to me. As the night drew to a close I understood that booking this band for a wedding set would thrill the waltzers, the moshers and the eastern-European-gypsy-music fans alike.

The audience swayed to the slow ones and threatened a mosh on the fast ones. Alas the lack of numbers meant that the safety necessary to make a fool of oneself was not at hand.

I stood back, mid-crowd and tried my best to block out the futile genre-auto-categorisation that was grinding gears inside my head. This band seemed to go with whatever their song writing jams threw up. Most bands kill the stuff that’s not "their sound". These guys bravely wrestle with it, incorporating it untamed into a musical adventure that doesn’t stop until suddenly there’s no sound left.

That’s when we cheer, and clap our hands and answer “Yes” to our mates, “Yes, I’ll have another one…if it is that you’re going to the bar”.