vive la france

last weekend we went to france. it was our second time out of the UK with this band and the second occasion that we've had the opportunity to play in paris. needless to say we were all pretty excited about it.

we headed down to london the day before with our driver 'magic' matt spalding. on the way to collect eva from work i realised i didnt have my passport and she probably didn't either. good start. so setting off an hour after we intended we eventually got to holy roar HQ at 11ish. we were up at 6.45am the following day to head off to folkestone. the eurotunnel is a weird experience. we've used the ferry in the past and it ALWAYS make me want to throw up but with eurotunnel we were underground for about 20 minutes, then in france. easy!

we made it from calais to paris pretty easily but couldn't initially find the venue. i used my pigeon french and we got by. it was hidden behind a big hedge. we were fortunate that everyone at the venue spoke pretty good english. i feel incredibly rude expecting everyone to speak english but my french really isn't good enough! so yeah, after soundcheck we headed into the area of paris we were in (bagnolet) and had a mooch around. we saw loads of vans with amazing graffiti on the side and tried to hire bikes but couldnt work out how to use the machine. we tried walking to the eiffel tower but were disappointingly too far away. maybe next time...

from our brief experiences of gigs in europe, its a huge contrast to the UK. the way bands are treated is incredibly different. before the show, all the bands sat down together and were fed hot meals. we were brought out bread and red wine and everytime it ran it, it was replenished. amazing! needless to say we got a little tipsy and then had drinks tokens on top of that. we checked out the other bands and waited for our slot. we were fortunate to play to a good sized crowd who were very receptive. having not played so much recently, it was refreshing to kick it live again and to enjoy ourselves. i accidently punched an amp behind me and cut my thumb pretty bad and had to keep wiping the blood on my shirt to not dirty a borrowed keyboard. nice.

after the set we hung around at the club night for a while, used the drinks tokens and talked to various nice people. everyone was exhausted by the travelling pretty early on so we headed back to our hotel, slept, found food the next day and then made it back to the UK. all in all, a sweet weekend!

james