On how Music changed the Grumpy Scotsman into the Weeping Scotsman.

Chamaco hates to get lost. He hates to drive and take the wrong turn and find himself lost in Neasden or some place like that. So I had to become the perfect navigator. He also hates his new mobile (or any new gadget for that matter), he doesn't know how to get to change the silly tone or to send texts. Same thing. He hates to feel lost.

So last night when I dragged him to the Barbican to hear Michael Nyman's band he started slowly to build the same kind of mumbling disapproval of the situation, having to pay £20 to hear something he's not sure he would like, we would be better at home watching the Grand Prix highlights or something else. Even though we've seen The Piano, The Hairdressers Husband, many Greenaway films, Man on Wire and the music in the Lloyds tsb adverts, also I tried to hum The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover but he just didn't get it.

Anyway, the music started without much ceremony and I thought of a time in 1996 when my best friend and I suddenly remembered that Michael Nyman was playing that evening in the Sala Nezahualcoyotl and we jumped to the car and got to the doors exactly when they closed them. We just sat outside and hear the beginning of the concert.

I had to wait all these years to finally see him in the flesh directing this bundle of energy that is his band plus a crazy accordion trio from Poland. I was about to have a heart attack. I can just make a list of the adjectives I know in English like great, wonderful, superb, sublime. I didn't care about Chamaco until the first part finished and remember that he was there. And he was there weeping. He couldn't believe his ears. He didn't expect his spirit to be sent to the highest musical heaven and back.

After that, just joy, pure joy, with a bonus. I want to find out who the technician was to give him a prize because he had troubles with the films he had to screen while the band played so Mr. Nyman took charge (he wouldn't leave us in a gap of silence) so he played the score of The Piano. Beautiful. Sublime. More weeping.

There are not enough claps for him, I don't think. His music has been part of the soundtrack of my life for years and now I have catched a little glimpse of him and I believe he is as beautiful as his music. At least what I, a mortal can see. I can see a wonderful, gentle, kind man who can open his cyber persona and have 4,000 friends in facebook (me one of those) and who offers a piece of music in his website so anyone can use it for a film or something with the condition of sending him a copy!

Yesterday, while I was waiting for Chamaco in the cafe, out in the sun I saw Michael Nyman in the table next to me chatting to people, some wouldn't believe it was him, next to us. There are not enough claps for him, really.