Hope they have an air freshener in Alejandro Escovedo's tour van

Went to see Alejandro Escovedo in Whelans the other night. He puts on a fairly loud show these days and it's been a while since my ears have been ringing quite so loudly after a concert. God bless those old rockers - they might be getting on but they're not going quietly.

Anyway, Escovedo's backing band on Tuesday night, Don Antonio, was also his support band - and very good they were too. A bunch of 40-something chaps that have known each other for 30 years or so who performed a very charming, enjoyable and mostly instrumental set before shuffling off to change clothes (and spectacles, in the bassist's case) and return to rock hard with our Texan legend. 

I suppose what made it all the more remarkable was that the band only met Escovedo for the first time in early March when he flew to Italy with his wife to rehearse for the tour. Turns out Escovedo and Don Antonio share a manager who saw the potential in pairing them for a 5 week European tour. It was pretty clear from the way the interacted on stage that a genuine friendship and closeness has developed as the trekked across the continent. And how couldn't it? As he explained, they rehearsed for a couple of day in Modigliana before driving 10 hours in the keyboard player's van for the first show in Frankfurt that night. Since then, they had driven across the entire continent performing 27 shows in little over a month. Actually it was the keyboard player who did most of the driving. A lot of miles. 6 of them in a van. Across Europe. For 5 weeks. Often wonder does Alejandro Escovedo ever look at his old pal Bruce Springsteen and wish they could trade places for a few weeks. 

And as Escovdeo described the love, respect and camaraderie that had developed during their time together, I could only look at the band in their grubby change of clothes and think about one thing: I wonder what that van smells like?