Madman Crosses The Water

The things you find out.

Bite-sized sucking pig with pomegranate sauce; white flowers and Scandinavian air; red roses and roses without petals; Macià Batle wine from Santa Maria del Cami; 23 metres high and 50 metres wide; 25 lorries from the UK and mainland Spain.

Want to hazard a guess?

The answers - in order - are: part of the menu for the VIPs; the design of a VIP area; the star's choice of flowers (forgive me, but what are roses without petals?); the same star's supposed choice of plonk; the size of the stage; the number of lorries transporting kit.

Come on, you must know now.

Over the past weeks we have been able to read interviews with three stars (well, two stars and a starlet). During this week we have been able to see photos of a man with a mobile phone (the promoter), a lorry, some stage being built, some more stage being built, and, yes, even more stage being built.

What we have also found out, we think, is that there will be 34,000 people, or maybe 20,000, or perhaps 25,000, assuming all the seats are sold. As of yesterday afternoon, at least 3,000 were unsold out of whatever the total number actually is. No one seems to quite know, or they do, and the press is just offering a multiple choice.

We have also discovered that the two main stars will bring "synergy". Ah yes, a word beloved by management consultants and by managers brainwashed by the consultants into believing such a state can be achieved. At least the consultants would argue that there should be a certain similarity between entities in order to bring about synergetic benefits. When the two stars are from diverse fields, one does have to wonder. But let's not quibble. Synergy there surely will be. Just don't tell those who may be going only for one or the other and who might have paid less had there not been any synergy.

What we have yet to find out is whether it will be a success. But we can predict that it will be, even if it isn't. As we can predict that we will read gushing editorials, see photos of the occasion and, if we're lucky, yet more photos of stage, but this time being dismantled. The editorial will be along the lines of it just goes to prove that Mallorca can put on a "great", "spectacular", "amazing", "remarkable" (select as you will) concert.

When the media is so in lunatic thrall to the appearance of two stars, then what else can you expect, other than pages devoted, on a daily basis, to the minutiae and drivel surrounding that appearance. This manic fascination does, it must be said, appear to have something to do with sponsors' names. Go to the "Diario de Mallorca", for example, and you will find only the occasional, discreet mention. No prizes for guessing where the pages are being filled.

I've got a lot of time for Elton John. He may have been through his own drug-induced nuclear winter, but he has come out of it articulate and sane: unlike the barely intelligible half human Keefronnieryders from the Planet McGowan of the sort Kirk and Spock might have encountered. It's as well that before tomorrow's concert he will never have previously set foot or piano hands in Mallorca, and that afterwards he'll be swiftly away. Sane? He soon wouldn't be.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.