Pedro Delgado - a.k.a. Perico - was maybe one of the unluckiest men who made of their bicycles their work tools. Not only, in fact, was he famous for taking over the Pyrenees, at the Tour de France, in 1983, but also, and most of all, for his "food crisis", at Morzine, which led him to waste all that he had laboriously done the days before, losing twenty-five minutes on his way to the finishing line. The following year, trying to take revenge for his own bad luck, he desperately wanted to win the Morzine stage, but he broke his right clavicle, crashing onto a fence after the burst of his bike's front wheel. Despite this, and despite being famous for his defeats, rather than for his several victories, Pedro Delgado was Spain's top cyclist and succeeded in carrying away a Tour de France, before Miguel Indurain set the new rules. Should you ever wonder where the name "Delgados" comes from, the above essential compendium provides a good (good?) answer. Who the Delgados are, well, this is another question. Hailing from Glasgow, the guys bear the names of Emma Pollock and Alun Woowdard on vocals and guitars, of Stewart Henderson on bass and of Paul Savage on drums. And you know, a few good songs can make somebody want to hail a band as a miracle, or something of the kind. And, indeed, the Delgados have made a few good songs for a good label. Chemikal Underground, should you wonder again, is also home of good acts such as The Arab Strap (Belle and Sebastian's boy owns a copy of their new album) Magoo and Mogwai. Since cycling seems to be The Delgados' biggest passion, not only they decided to name their second (third, if you consider the BBC Sessions) album "Peloton" (the pack), but to set out on an European tour and to make a break into small, small venues across the continent. Turin, Italy, was one of the stages. The "Barrumba" is one of the places where good music comes before anywhere else, and this seemed to be the case too. You know the expression "packed audience"? Forget about it. Completely. No more than one hundred people witnessed one of the most amoebic shows of the year. Despite very little radio airplaying (and we like euphemisms, don't we) and skimpy paragraphs on a couple of daring local newspapers, a few dozen people thought it was worth spending fifteen thousand lira (six pounds, more or less) to see the guys the aforementioned daring newspapers named as the Scottish Velvets. I don't know who the band's… er… sound engineer for the tour was (is?), but certainly someone who takes from twenty to twenty-five minutes to realise whether Emma and Alun's voices can be heard or not, and from thirty to thirty-five minutes whether the cello's mike is plugged in or not. Those hundred people became seventy, then sixty, and fifty, as they wondered whether the show was just a drum and guitar one (as the bass had problems too), and the new Velvets looked rather disappointed and slack, hurriedly whispering "thank you" at the end of each so-called song. The show went on for some fifty minutes, maybe fifty-five, which the audience used to "sense" the songs, rather than to hear (or, better still, listen to) them. At 1 a.m., the band decided it was enough, and left the puzzled audience without even a banal "goodnight", a simple moaning which even the most jinxed losers would articulate in desperate times. Now, to cut this long story short, let me just make a couple of comments. First, The Delgados are a good band, not an excellent band. Their songs are nice, not unforgettable. Comparing them with the Velvet Underground is a bit blasphemous, let me say. Second, if even only ten people buy a ticket to hear your songs, under no circumstances carelessness and inaccuracy are accepted. Third (weren't those comments supposed to be just two?), a tour must be prepared. To win a cycling race, you need to have a good team or, to quote the band themselves, good domestiques. Unlike Pedro Delgado, The Delgados did all but their best and simply ignored the people. For this, I only have one word: disrespect.