Day 3 - Reims to Nancy

Day 3 Reims to Nancy

We woke up at around 11 with slightly sore heads from the night before and had breakfast with everyone. We loaded our gear and headed of to Nancy.  It was our first day without having anyone French with us, I think that we know enough french to get by and almost everyone speaks pretty good English anyway, it pays to be lazy Brits!

We had loads of time to make the 2 and a half hour trip so we stopped of for lunch in a small town, of which I can't remember the name.  We bought some lunch from the supermarket and had a walk around the town.  We walked passed a fair and decided to have a look. The only thing that took our fancy was thaw air hockey, so we had a game. Sam won quite easily with a score of 7-2, I'm hoping to have the opportunity to try and win back my self respect during the tour should we find another air hockey table. (I'll still win but Mike won't read this extra bit so it's ok to brag!)

We eventually got back in the car and made our way to Nancy and arrived at the venue in good time, I tend to get a bit stressed if we arrive at the show late, even though I know we'll be hanging around for at least an hour before anything happens.  The venue was an cavernous wine cellar on an estate which used to belong to this guy, but he had no heirs so the whole compound was turned into a place for community activities.  The people who put on the show were called Polo and Edith, we were playing with two German noise rock bands, guy on his own with a computer from leeds and a really cool French band called The Forks.  I think that there were meant to be two shows happening in town on the same night and they decided to put them both together.  I would hazard a guess that it was meant to be just us and The Forks playing at this venue and the other three bands playing at another venue.  Polo, Edith and their friends laid on a lot of food and beer for the show including homemade apple crumble, I was so excited because I love eating. We set up the equipment in the room with eat band having their own area to play in, similar to how they do it on the Jools Holland show.

Sam and I were both extremely tired and quite mindful that we had a minimum 6 and a half drive the next day to Montpellier, neither of us drank too much. The shows in Europe tend not to start until quite late but the first act didn't go on until around 10, which is late for a 5 band line-up.  We didn't end up playing until around 12.30, and played quite well, better than the previous 2 nights. We actually tend to play quite well when we're tired or hung over, I guess it's because we don't rush through the songs.  The Forks played after us and they were really, really good just drums and guitar.  I think that we will definitely play with them again either in France or England, they are hella nice guys as well.

We were anxious to get to bed as we knew that we had to be on the road the next day.  Despite this we didn't get back to Polo's house until around 3.30 and didn't go to bed until around 4, the next day was going to be difficult.

The Forks