Another week on the road. Still going strong. Other related entries:
On the road (Part 1) | On the road (Part 2)
Bordeaux, 6th of October
A not so early train from Paris to Bordeaux. Feeling rested. It's kind of a long ride. Long enough to watch a couple of movies. I watched the crazy Korean film Sympathy For Lady Vengeance by Chan-Wook Park. We're playing at Le Rocher de Palmer, a brand new super concert hall and we're inaugurating it! The French Slam and Hip-Hop duo Milk, Coffee and Sugar are sharing the bill with us. These guys are the best! The record is great and they've adapted it really well when performing live. It helps that they're touring with two very skilled instrumentalists to help them out on stage.
Here's a little guilty pleasure of mine, taken from the latest Lil' Wayne album, I Am Not A Human Being. Don't know why but I couldn't stop listening to the sexual sleaziness of this song.
Boulogne, 8th of October
A very long train to get to Boulogne. On the way there we got a call from our agents telling us that our show in Karlsruhe got canceled because the promoter didn't manage to sell enough tickets. Hahaha… I guess we're not that famous in Karlsomething. Nice, we get to stay an extra day in Berlin!
Boulogne is by the sea and right now it's incredibly sunny and warm. We're staying in a disgusting little Hotel, and we're playing at a festival called Festival Poulpaphone. We were surprised that our name was the biggest on the poster. It made it seem like we were the headlining act of the whole festival. We laughed and realized this was our first time headlining print on a Festival T-Shirt. We had a really nice show for an even nicer festival crowd.
Got to watch a wonderful one man show by a musician from Marseille called Mekanik Kantatik. The entire shows revolves around his Piano, and all the sounds he creates live come from that same Piano. Even the Drum beats! I shot a video of his performance with a little digital stills camera. (Watch below)
Berlin, 9th of October
We've all been dying to do a show in Berlin. It's one of those cities I've been wanting to visit for as long as I can remember. Now I'm here and the expectation didn't spoil anything. This place is amazing. There's a sense that here you can be anything you like, hence the weirdos lurking around the city. For a European city, It's pretty lawless place. We went to a club late at night and everyone was puffing their cigarettes away. Inside the club! The DJ played like he was high on 15 different types of drugs!
Our show was one of the best of the tour, so far. People were explosively dancing to our songs. As if we weren't even there, only our music.
The following day I planned a full schedule of "out and abouting". Because it was Sunday I went and did what most Berliners do on a Sunday. I went to Mauerpark, a park in Prenzlauer Berg, occupying an area formerly enclosed by the Berlin Wall. The place was packed! Even though the park hosts the biggest second-hand market I've ever seen in my life, the most popular thing was by far an outdoor Karaoke session some Canadian guy started awhile back. This was also the biggest Karaoke crowd I've ever experienced! I got to see one of the regulars, an eighty something year old local who always does a German interpretation of Sinatra's My Way. (Watch below)
Köln, 12th of October
What a great show we had in Köln! I don't know why but the crowd just ate it up. We had to do two encores, and they wanted a third one. We even improvised Story Behind The Paint, one of those forgotten songs.
Our backstage room had an old Piano and we played it like hell. We even made up a German Electro/Folk song with the one the few German words we all know, Scheiße (Shit).
Got the new Wild Nothing EP called Golden Haze. I Wrote about his album awhile back. Still jovially good, here's the last song on this new EP.
Strasbourg, 14th of October
We're playing at a venue called La Laiterie, alongside SMOD from Bamako, Mali. SMOD is 3 MC's, one of them the son of famous stage couple Amadou and Mariam. The line-up of upcoming artists in this place is amazing. I'm trying out a different Amp, a Vox Amp. It's shit!
The worst show of the tour. The crowd was nice and the place was pretty full but I had a terrible show, sound wise. Nothing worked and this is one to forget!
Nyon, 15th of October
Four trains later and we finally get to Nyon, in Switzerland. It was the toughest trip thus far! All those train changes nearly killed us! I've been in this city a couple of times before, with 340ml and Tumi and the volume. We're playing a small venue called Usine à Gaz, and sharing the stage with a local band called Japrazz. We had a cool show and cool crowd, even though it wasn't full. After the show we decided to mingle with some friends we had made during one of our previous trips to Nyon. It was fun.
Zurich, 16th of October
An easy trip to get here. This is our first show in Zurich, the biggest city in Switzerland. It's quite cold, rainy and miserable, but it's comforting being in a four start Hotel. My room is beyond cozy! We're playing at an ultra legendary place by the name of Moods. I'm also doing a DJ set.
The show was very nice and it was fun to DJ afterwards. People we're getting down but I couldn't wait to get back to my room, specially because we have an übber early flight back to Paris tomorrow. Sleep is the word!
Ris Orangis, 17th of October
We get picked up at ungodly hours from our Hotel in Zurich and we get shuttled to the airport. We get on a small plane that lands in Paris not long after taking off. Tumi's 80's business suitcase with all his clothes doesn't arrive with us. Still inside the terminal, while we wait for his bag, me and him shoot a little "Rap Video" using the motion of the conveyor belt. I'll post it soon. His suitcase does not surface so Air France kindly follows procedure and gives him a little combo sac with basic toiletries and two white T-Shirts with the Air France logo. We leave by van to Ris Orangis, a bit outside Paris, with the Airline's promise that the missing bag would be hunted down.
We're opening for a Hip-Hop four piece from Florida called Solillaquists of Sound (SOS) at a place called Le Plan.
Contrary to the norm, the food at this venue was great. We had an OK show and the band that followed us also had a really nice set. Their Producer slash crazy MPC guy was amazing to watch, and probably is one of the best MPC jugglers out there.
The next day I had breakfast with the lead singer of SOS. We had a very long chat about music, touring, etc. I discovered that the band is made up of two married couples. An interesting way of touring.
Later Dave told us that his wife Heather is expecting. Mazel Tov! By the way, she has a pretty cool Blog.
Clermont-Ferrand, 19th of October
We get news of another canceled show. This time it's upsetting because I was looking forward to going to the beautiful city of Nice, in the South of France. Oh well…
Once again we're splitting the bill with SMOD, this time at a place called Coopérative de Mai, on Serge Gainsbourg road. I'm a sucker for Gainsbourg, that's why I'm going to end this post with one of his classics.
Jonathan Richman is playing here tomorrow. I didn't know he was touring. Would really like to watch him but we're jetting out first thing tomorrow morning.
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