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Two
Stars To Ricky Ross Diario
Alcala 9/10 Nov 2002-11-12 LIFE IS BEAUTY. - not only the bad news are the
news - The Deacon
Blue song for two alcalaineans. Do you remember Deacon
Blue? Ricky Ross, the singer of this band that shined in early 90´s, has
included on his latest album a song called “Angel and Mercedes”, a
title which was inspired by the names of an alcalainean couple, which
came about through a friendship. This could be the story of any of those teenagers
who dream of meeting their
musical idol one day, and while this moment comes, they conform hanging
in their bedroom a real-size photograph with a thousand-times-printed
autograph to be distributed by one of those magazines bought by young
people. However, those whom we are talking about here are not teenagers anymore,
they are in their twenties; a poster with a mass-produced signature is
not on their bedrooms walls, the autograph of his idol is autographed by
hand; they have no need to dream about knowing their idol, because they
already do. Their names are Angel and Mercedes. He is 28, Pharmacy
student, from Madrid; she is 25, physiotherapist and she lives in Alcala.
Now, both have, in their friends list, a famous friend, because they
have got, not only the autograph of the singer Ricky
Ross, better known for being the leader in Deacon
Blue, one of the most celebrated pop-rock bands in Scotland in the
beginning of 90´s, but he dedicated them a song entitled by their own
names and even more, it is in his last work, now on shops, called “This
is the life” (for those curious it is the fourth track). The story of this meeting, with a background that could be a chapter for
a possible book of memoirs by this artist and almost of the life that
exist behind the stage of any musical star begun in 1997. The origin was
in Ireland. Mercedes and Angel went on there on holidays. They were on a
bus when they saw a poster announcing a Ricky Ross concert in Dublin.
“Ricky Ross is the singer
of Deacon Blue, a very famous
band in 89 and Nº1 in 40 Principales. I have always been his fan and
even after the group´s split in 94, I tried to follow them”,
Angel explains. He was the one who got his girlfriend to admire the
singer too. That poster stated that concert would be held in a small Dublin venue
called "Mean Fiddler" and, of course, the couple did not miss
the appointment. They arrived early enough to drink some beers before
the show when they realized that Ricky
Ross was there in the same bar. They went to him asking for an
autograph but the signature was placed in the part of the ticket to be
removed in the entrance. “Bad luck, we thought. We went later to the gig that, accustomed to big
crowds when he travelled with his band, this one was very quiet. But we
enjoyed it.”. Angel says.
The moment they first met
was getting near. After the show, the artist went out to talk with the
audience and they approached to him asking “please,
would you mind to sign again as we had such a problem with the tickets.
We stayed there chatting for a while, because he found our names very
funny, as in England Angel is a boy with wings and Mercedes is a name of
a car; but they're not common
names in the English language”
she says. And that was all for that night. Next year, at Eastertime, Angel travelled to London, this time with his
brother. The singer of Deacon
Blue with songs such as Real
Gone Kid, Dignity and Queen of the New Year, played two more gigs in
London. However they only had enough money for one of the shows. After
the concert, Angel went to the toilet but told his brother that they
should wait to see if the same thing would happen as it did in Dublin,
where the artist would go out and talk to the fans. And it happened. “coming back from the toilet , I
saw my brother talking to him. The most surprising thing was that as I
approached, Ricky said to me: Hello Angel, how's Mercedes? I
remember you from Dublin.”.
says the young man with almost the same surprised face that he should
have seeing that his idol remembered him and his name. “It
was then that he told us that he had written a song for us. Something
that I could not believe.” THE WHY OF THEIR SONG That year, in September 1998, they travelled again. This time, Scotland
was the destination, because near Glasgow, the band met again. “From
time to time Deacon Blue play together again. He invited us to backstage and
there where I asked him if it was true that he had a song for us and
what the reason was for doing it. Ricky only told me that the Dublin
night was very special for him”, Angel remembers. Few weeks later, in
November, Ricky Ross travelled to Spain, “we
knew that because since that we shared some emails with him”. Of
course, they went to the couple of shows in Spain, in Valencia and
Madrid. “Spain is not like
England, as there is much more security. They almost didn't let us enter
the backstage area, even though the artist had invited us. Finally we
shared some beers with him and he took out a folder full of song lyrics
and papers, and gave us the lyrics to our song.”. To the surprise of the young couple, the lyrics were not the only
surprise because although the song was written, it hadn't yet been
recorded. However, Ricky Ross recently released a new album in Britain,
which isn't out yet in Spain, and on that CD, after the first three
songs, you'll hear one entitled 'Angel and Mercedes'. This is the one
that's related to this story: “Cause
Angel and Mercedes took me where heaven is”, the song says. “That
first concert, the one of the first autographs in Dublin, was the 3rd of
his first ever solo tour. The previous night he played in Manchester and
he told us it was horrible. There were only a few people there and that
most were drunk… He was not accustomed to something like that, so he
phoned his wife –Lorraine
McIntosh, also singer in Deacon
Blue- to say that he was giving it all up., But
she encouraged him to finish the tour”,
they explained. So he did. He was up on the Mean Fiddler stage and knew
the couple, he found the gig to be one of his best and that he
rediscovered this thanks to help of his Madrilenian and Alcalainean
talismen. SONG NUMBER FOUR
In the upper image, Angel and Mercedes show proudly the CD in which Ricky Ross included the song he dedicated to them and appears in the
fourth track of the album. Up this lines, the couple is with the artist and his wife Lorraine
McIntosh. On the left, the lyrics of the song “Angel
and Mercedes”, that he gave them in a concert in Valencia. Ricky Ross wrote with Deacon
Blue songs like Dignity or
Real Gone Kid. |
