Bilbao to Arrasate and back
September 16th 1995
On the Saturday after the weekend when we went to Otxandia, i was in the Pirata with Alasne and Gonzo, who had a couple of friends from Germany with them too. It was coming up towards closing time and they said they were going to Arrasate, which is a town out in the hills somewhere, for a concert at the gaztetxe there and asked me if i wanted to come along. I was a bit tired, but it seemed like a good idea.
Just as we were about to leave, Jon and Ken came in. They'd been at a football match between Bilbao and some other team, which had apparently been a real disaster in some way or other. They decided to come along too and grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and joined us.
The two basque women sat in the front of Gonzo's van and the other six of us, all foreigners, squeezed in the back somehow and off we went. It was a longer drive than i'd expected and Ken was grumbling a bit at the idea of going so far to see a band. So i told him he wouldn't last long in Australia, where people think nothing of driving a thousand kilometres to a party!
Arrasate was in more or less the same direction as we'd gone the previous weekend to get to Otxandia, and was probably about the same distance. Although it wasn't so high up in the hills. When we got there and went into the gaztetxe, there was nothing happening. No band, only a few people playing pool in the big hall on the ground floor, where the gigs took place.
"Gaztetxe" is Euskera for "youth house" and there were a number of gaztetxes around Basque Country. They were squatted buildings which had been made into community centres to give the young people of the town or city somewhere to go and do constructive things and entertain themselves.
The gaztetxe in Arrasate had a big public gathering area on the ground floor, with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. Upstairs, apparently there were workshops and communal facilities which were available to people who wanted to use them. It was a great place and i would have liked to have been there at a better time to check it out properly and talk to some of the people involved in running the place.
The gig had been cancelled apparently because the drummer of one of the bands had broken his arm. I couldn't really understand why that meant none of the bands could play, but there it was. We got some beers and hung around there for a while drinking and chatting. After a couple of beers, of course, it was time to move on and find another place to drink another couple of beers.
In the conversation somewhere, somebody brought up the fact that in the Spain, the 30th of April is national sabotage day. On that day lots of people do acts of sabotage at work and in other places and generally go out of their way to stuff up the system as much as possible. It sounded like a good idea to me!
I enjoyed that night in Arrasate. It didn't matter to me whether the bands were playing or not. It was nice to be out of Bilbao, for a change of scenery and to be somewhere where there was real air for a change. And i really enjoyed the company of the people i was with. We stayed in Arrasate till quite late. I think it was about five in the morning when i got home to bed.