Day 8 - Caen to Paris

Day 8 Caen to Paris

Morning exercises in Caen

We woke up around 11am, showered and had coffee. Sam woke up with a pretty sore throat and said that he felt an illness coming on.  We'd been invited by a friend of Pascal's to his for lunch at 12pm, so we got in our car and drove across town to his place.  He had the most incredible house, he was an artist and a filmmaker.  There were some very strange works of art on the wall including various action figures being crucified on lego crosses and a few of his abstract paintings.  We sat and had lunch a lovely pasta meal with Pascal and Eric until it was time for us to leave. Pascal was putting a show on in Eric's house in the evening, he puts on loads of shows, what a bad dude!  We said our goodbyes and started our journey to Paris.

We were being watched at breakfast.

Morning breakfast with Pascal and Eric

The weather was still quite rubbish and the drive was very misty.  We were all set to be on time but didn't factor in the paris traffic. Driving anywhere near Paris is a nightmare it's so congested and the drivers are mental, like super crazy.

La Cantine du Belleville

We eventually found or way to the venue, a basement of a restaurant in south-east Paris called 'La Cantine Du Belleville'.  The show was being organised by two lovely Parisians called Eric and Camille.  We apologised for being late and started with the sound checks.  Tonight we were playing with two bands from Paris, one called Polar, Polar, Polar, Polar and another called Careful.  Neither of the bands had bought a bass amp so muggins here had to lend his.  I normally don't mind lending equipment, especially to bands that I know, but both bass players cranked the crap out of it.  It's not a particularly great amp for bass, but it works really well for my set up and I can play quite loud without smashing it all the way up to 11.  Polar x 4 played first and they were a really tight prog rock band, I enjoyed their set but about 2 songs from the end the bass amp stopped working.  it eventually came back on by itself, but I shat myself because i thought that a fuse had blown.  This band also had a keyboard player, watching him I've come to realise that keyboard players are not sexy, or certainly not as sexy as I think are.

 

The next band played and I didn't particularly enjoy them that much, but they were young and you can't knock a young band for giving it some welly and smashing it, good luck to them.  The bass amp was still cranked pretty high and it cut out two or three times during their set.  I felt kind of bad for the guy but there was nothing I could do!  After they finished I went over to check the amp and it was roasting, I turned it off to let it cool down for a bit and hoped that it wold hold out during our set.

Sam and I set up our gear to close the show, it was quite late and I was afraid that our set would be cut short, but luckily it wasn't.  We played the best that we have all tour, I think that after 8 shows in a row (the most we've done consecutively) we've gotten to a stage where we can play well consistently even if we are tired or hungover.

Camille's small but awesome apartment!

 Most people left quite soon after we finished, but a few hung around to chat and buy records and CDs. A few people bought us both beers and shots but Sam wasn't able to drink them as it was his turn to drive after the show, luckily I was on hand to see them all away, I ended up becoming quite drunk rather quickly, which was excellent.  We drove back to Camille's, which was not far away, for a capital city, Paris really isn't that big.  When we got to Camille's place we had a beer and he showed us his amazing recording set up in his room. We chatted, spoke about his Brian Eno Nike trainers he bought online when he was drunk one night, then went to bed quite soon after. We were very tired after another long day and were looking forward to having a day off from playing the next day.

Brian Eno Nike trainers