Lima, Four Shows in Ten Days (Part 1)

7 min readMar 26, 2020

After having spent six months and played 13 shows in Mexico, I decided to go to Lima, Peru. My career as a street musician actually started in Lima last year. It was the very first time I got to play the Black Sea Storm acoustic set in front of people. On that first visit, I had rented a small room in Miraflores from a local family. I would pretty much only go home to sleep and shower. The rest of the time, I was out playing.

On this second visit, I wanted to get legitimate shows. Before arrival, while I was still in Mexico, I posted on Black Sea Storm social media accounts that I was looking for shows in Lima. I even put an online paid advertisement. I was only able to book one show before arrival into the Peruvian capital.

My approach for Lima consisted of playing the maximum amount of shows in a minimum amount of time. I believe that if I get the idea across with the venues that I am only going to be for a limited time in town, it tends to help me get shows more rapidly.

I rented a room in the Barranco neighborhood. For the second time on this Latin American adventure with Black Sea Storm, I got fortunate to find a great host. Not only the living situation and the location were near perfect, my host Karla went out of her way to help me book shows in Lima. This is the second time during this rock n’ roll journey that my host turns herself into a concert booking agent.

The Lima Rock Club

This is where I was about to play the very first Black Sea Storm official show in Peru. The show lineup was designed as a sort of a battle of the bands in mid-week. A bunch of bands that did not have much in common musically was going to share the stage.

The club was located in the city center. With the constant heavy traffic in Lima, this resulted in a one-hour car ride to get to the club from Barrancos. To avoid rush hour traffic madness, I decided to go downtown four hours before showtime. That way, I was able to run my set on a bench at the Plaza de Armas, which was conveniently located a few blocks from The Lima Rock Club. The booking people at the club had put a draft system to decide what band was going on stage at what time. Black Sea Storm somehow got the best spot in my views. I was scheduled to go on stage as the second act around 10:30PM. Not too late, not too early. For me, this was a perfect slot for a Wednesday night show.

At The Club

Once I entered, the first band was doing soundcheck. Besides band members and the working staff, there were very few other people present. As the group started to play their actual show, more people began to show up. People were actually smoking inside. I had not experienced this since the 90s while still living in Europe. One of my biggest dreams in life is that all smokers will quit smoking, and city centers will get rid of cars.

The first band went on. I found each band member pretty good on their respective instruments. That said, I wasn’t really able to get into the show. After they were done with their set, It was my turn to briefly soundcheck and play mine. There was actually a little crowd that had formed between various band members, their friends, and regular show-goers. This situation gave me some extra motivation to go on stage. Another motivating factor was that this was a real rock club with an actual stage, a backline, and a backstage. Up to this point, with the Black Sea Storm acoustic set, I had mostly played theatres, restaurants, cafés, and cultural centers.

The lighting on stage was the worst I had seen in a while. An aggressive subtly stroboscopic white, slightly purplish light hitting me from the back and above. My fourth, fifth, and sixth strings were under the spotlights and overly visible. Still, the remaining ones were just invisible. Despite this massive contrast in vision, I was still able to play seeing only half of my strings. Even with the strip club lights and smoke situation. It was actually fun to play a real stage with the rock setup.

Jhon, Not John

I think I represented myself reasonably well for this first show in Lima. People weren’t going crazy about my performance, but they were still very supportive. As I walked away from the stage, a young man saluted me. He invited me for a beer, but since I don’t drink alcohol anymore, I had to turn down the beer invitation. I still had my bottled stage water with me, so I sat down at his table to chat with him. His name was Jhon. I am not misspelling it. His name is really spelled Jhon. He told me that he found out about me through the online advertisement I had put on. I am always hesitant in investing in online ads, thinking that it’s probably money thrown out of the window. Still, on occasions like these, it makes me feel that it is actually worth it. For my last show in Mexico, 16 people had shown up solely through online ads. Without this investment, I would have played to an empty room. In my situation as an unknown foreign act with a limited local social network in Latin America, I think online ads to promote live performance have worked pretty well so far.

Jhon had listened to Black Sea Storm before the show, and he was already familiar with some of the songs. Moments like these motivate me to keep on touring. Jhon would have never heard my music if I wasn’t in a touring situation in Lima. While we were chatting, the third band started to play. They also knew how to play their instruments reasonably well. I wasn’t sure if they were doing covers or not. For the second time that night, I wasn’t able to get into the band’s performance. I also have to admit that the conversation with Jhon was far more interesting than what I was passively hearing as music coming through my ears.

Living Without a Phone Plan

I decided to call it and try to make my way back to the apartment. The challenge I had ahead of me was to make it back to Barranco from downtown Lima at a relatively late hour. Since I don’t have a cell phone plan, I could not use the online transportation app I am usually using to call a ride. The club was in a pedestrian area far from car traffic, so it wasn’t going to be much help to use their WIFI to order a ride. Being previously sort of kidnapped, robbed and beaten up by regular cab drivers in Latin America, I tend to think twice before jumping in a taxi late at night a day after arrival in a new city.

I actually had anticipated the situation. Before the show, after the practice session in Plaza de Armas, I went to the famous internationally known coffee shop with a green logo. I bought an overpriced, overly sugary pastry for my taste so they would give me the password for WIFI. I was hoping that the password would still be valid after my show, even if the coffee shop were to be closed by that time.

Although closer to roads with car traffic, the coffee shop was also located in a wide pedestrian area. I needed to meet with my ride at a different location. Of course, in between the spot where I could potentially have access to WIFI and the place where my ride would arrive to pick me up, I would not have access to WIFI. I missed quite a few trips in similar situations and had pay ride cancelation fees. Especially when living in high rise buildings. By the time I would make it downstairs, the ride would be gone. By now, I learned to anticipate and eventually communicate my situation with the driver before the trip.

Luckily I had left the club with Jhon, and we were still walking and talking to eachother. I was a bit embarrassed to explain to him my situation with logistics. From an outside person’s point of view who has a regular cellphone plan, my actual situation would just seem ridiculous. It has now been over three years that I am living this way, and I was able to pretty much figure out all the challenging circumstances. The wide pedestrian area was a first, though. Jhon was extremely helpful and offered me to share his hotspot password with me so I could order my ride through his connection. We walked about 10 minutes together up to the Plaza San Martin, where cars had road access.

Overall it was definitely quite some effort and investment to make this very first show happen in Lima. I am glad that I put in the work. In a touring situation, I often come to the conclusion that playing the actual show is actually the most natural part of the job for me. The logistics, safety, social skills in a foreign country are far more challenging than playing an hour of Turkish Rock on stage in front of people. This first show allowed me to get my feet wet into the local scene, and play a legit show on my second day in town.

More writing on Black Sea Storm shows in Lima will be published soon…

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