Mondays of Spanish Rock and PD

A few weeks ago a friend messaged me about going to see a concert. I had not heard of the band before, but really anything that would wake me up on a Monday night after a two and a half hour art history lecture on the Northern Renaissance (there are only so many etchings of the Christ Child you want to see at 7 pm) sounded like a fantastic adventure. Moreover, anything that could pull me away from the hair-pulling-tear-inducing thoughts of post-graduation plans seemed like an excellent plan. Thus, on a Monday in early April I gleefully ran out of my art history classroom--leaving the religious iconography and paintings of men with enormous beard and big bellies in the art center to hop in a cab to go to downtown.

My music-lover friend described the band we were off to see as the Spanish Phoenix. Phoenix, a French band who sing in English happen to be one of my favorites, so really she could have said, three Spanish men are coming to this venue and lipsynching to Phoenix songs and I would have gladly shelled out $10. Luckily, the band, Polock (not Jackson) turned out to be a fantastic act--with their own songs and vibe. The venue we were at was really tiny and intimate--it was actually part of a historic synagogue in downtown--Sixth & I Synagogue. Thus, it was easy to bump into new people and really get to know these bed-headed Spanish rockers. I mention the size of the venue as it was very easy to see the demographics of the crowd. I was very surprised to see that over half the people in the crowd were actually natives of Spain.

Suddenly, I was being treated to a concert and a cultural diplomacy event... Spain: 1, Kristi: 0. As I looked around the room, my eyes fell across a small booklet, the 2011 "Spanish Cultural Program: Spring Season." I turned over the booklet and read that the event was actually being hosted by the embassy of Spain. I nabbed one of the booklets as a token of Spanish public diplomacy and as my music-guru friend went for some sangria (yes, it was basically a Monday night in Barcelona), my PD-brain went into overdrive. I have also believed in the cross-boundary power of music, but here I was witnessing it as a tool of Public Diplomacy. I tried to explain this to my Public Comm-major friend, but my excited yelps of "OMGPDPOLOCKSPANISHMUSICSOGOODBECAUSE,YOUSEECULTURALDIPLOMACYISVITAL..."
were returned with a look of "perhaps, we should focus on the music, young crazed one."

I know have my Spanish Cultural Program Booklet stashed on my dresser--in case I want to dabble in some cultural diplomacy another Monday night...