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around the plaza's plateau, followed by more people, clapping their
hands in approval and encouragement. In its enthusiasm, the crowd
cheers:
*"Viva el cantator!"*
Watt and Krikksen begin to appreciate it, too.
"Do you hear that? Heavy stuff, man!"
"Far out. Down in the dumps to the n th degree."
"He makes the blues sound like the wailings of a lovesick
puppy."
"And listen how he interacts with the crowd's clapping, the guy
can improvise as well."
"I wanna chip in. Hey hombre," Krikksen says to a bystander
carrying a guitar on his back, "Can I borrow your guitarra for a
moment?"
"Aye, Los Flamandos locos." the spectator says, "Be my guest."
Strapping the guitar on, Krikksen walks up the rise and strikes a
sustained chord. He tries several others until he finds one that
complements the sad singer's cantations. The enthusiastic crowd
applauds their jam session. Krikksen plays on, calling up every inch
of restraint not to drift off into Jerry Garcia territory. Instead, he
focuses on the rhythm clapped by the audience and adapts his riff
churning around that. The crowd goes crazy:
"Lo Flamando poco-loco."
*"Viva el guitarrero!"*
In the meantime, the Moorish party delegation has gathered near
this happening. Breath-taking belly dancers, fakirs performing
freakish acts like laying on a bed of nails, eating fire and spitting
flames, expert jugglers keeping up an amazing amount of multihued
balls, acrobats forming human pyramids, the lot. While the Spanish
clap their rhythm with their hands, the Moors appear to have a special
instrument for that: two handheld, hollowed-out pieces of hardwood.
They are tied together with a chord; the chord is secured to the thumb
while the fingers clap the pieces together, creating a rapid drumming
sound, dry and penetrating. These pear-shaped clappers closely
resemble big chestnuts so the crowd, going bonkers and bananas,
shouts:
*"Viva los castaños!"*
Then Watt cannot refrain himself anymore and he storms the
temporary stage with three great strides and a big jump. A fanatical
free-time tap dancer, he raps out a rhythm of his own with his heavy
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