Argentina DJ Diary - Gaz Whelan
Saturday 18th November 2006

Gig day…

We joined Andy Rourke for a pre-gig salutation in the hotel bar. Me and Andy are ex brothers-in-law. We met back in the Hacienda days, his then wife Maxine introduced me to her sister Venessa whom I'm still with nearly 17 years later. Andy and Max were divorced a few years ago but we have remained good mates, even dj-ing together in the early days. Kav has also worked with Andy booking him when he was a promoter. Me and Kav love Rourkie, he's a true star! He's still doing the same gags he was 17 years ago and they still work! On said session every time any one spoke in an unrecognisable language Rourkie would say, 'that's easy for you to say'….priceless.

About an hour into our reunion we were joined at the bar by a very upper middle class middle aged lady in a ball gown. She ordered her wine in aristocratic Castilian with more than a hint of a beautiful Buenos Aires accent. With this in mind we felt safe to continue our discussion (which had now plummeted to discussing our personnel bowel movements in quite some detail) without offending or causing any embarrassment, I think you can guess what's coming next??? A few moments later we were told the cars were here to take us to the festival, we picked up our record bags and started to leave, with impeccable timing the said lady wished all three of us well and good luck with the gig in perfect Queens Ingles….. disaster! Even more embarrassing than the previous evening.

The gig was good but we missed Ian Brown as our set times crossed. We were joined for the end of our set by Rourkie and we stayed on for his.

After show we met up with Ian and New Order and went back to New Orders hotel which resembled something between the fantastic club in Magnum Force called the Pigeon Toed Orange Peel with a pool like the one in Peters sellers The Party, very sixties psychedelic bohemia.
Me, Kav, Rourkie, Ian and John The Duck (Ian's tour manager) left at about 5am. On our return to the hotel Ian's band were waiting in the hotel lobby, Ian and the lads were flying to Chile in 2 hours. We went to bed.