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Courtesy of the insanely talented Isaac Gale

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Not to take anything away from the unique experience of playing on a floating boat, but the location of last night's show managed (somehow) to top the spectacle of our show in Lille. Pulling up to the venue yesterday after a relatively long 7 hour drive that had us traversing the northern border between France and Germany, the first thing that stuck out was, without question, the MASSIVE lion that had been carved out of the cliff overlooking the venue. The building that we loaded into was nestled against a small mountain that was situated in the center of Belfort. Surrounded by re-enforced stone walls, ramparts, and centuries-old military look-out points, it quickly became clear that tonight's Rhymesayers presentation was going to take place within the confines of a real, honest-to-God, French Fort. Yep!

Side note: Grieves and I weren't scheduled to play at all yesterday, as we joined the French leg of tour after several of the dates had been booked and filled. One of the French acts pulled out of their slot, however, so we had the unexpected opportunity to play.  A lucky break for us, and we were grateful for the chance to play a bit of music!

After a 6 pm load-in and sound check courtesy of Pierre, the exceptionally helpful and competent sound man, we had a couple of free hours before the show. I was pretty excited to explore the town a bit, so I took the time to take a bit of a night run through the fort and a bit into the town. There are so many aspects of this trip that have left me a bit overwhelmed at the breadth of opportunity and experience that I've been so lucky to have a chance to take part in but, for some reason, running through that French Fort last night took the cake. Snow in the air, ground lights illuminating the tunnels and ramparts, not a single person around, and a panoramic view of the town of Belfort from several hundred feet above. Fucking incredible!

A quick wash in the second strangest shower I've seen in the past two weeks, and I headed back to the venue, which happened to be a short two blocks from the front door of our hotel. A local restaurant had been contracted to cater the event, and a veritable banquet of cheese, salad, and jugs of wine awaited when I walked in the door. 

The opening act took the stage around 9. I couldn't understand a goddamn word out of their mouths, but the crowd seemed pretty excited, so I'm guessing them to be local personalities of some stature…I think? The highlight of their show was a 4 Emcee-deep unison performance of a Snoop Dogg tribute medley…in French.

Grieves and I took the stage shortly after 10pm. As excited as I was to be there, this was the first time that we really, truly, encountered a significant language barrier in the presentation of our set. The crowd was receptive and open, but clearly had trouble understanding a goddamn thing we said. We put on a good show, and the sound was exceptional, but I left the stage frustrated at our attempts to get through to the audience, frustration that was compounded by the fact that I broke two guitar strings during the opening song of our set…and I'm pretty sure the 1/4" jack on my guitar is starting to fail. Everything always breaks!! The interesting thing is that, despite my personal reservations about the success of our show, the warmth in reception from folks out in the venue after we got off stage seemed to indicate that we were received much better than I thought we would be. Go figure! Whatever the case, the highlight of the evening was, without question, the chance to meet a local Gigolo/Hash Dealer by the name of Said'. Whoa.

Grieves and I had grand plans to explore the town's nightlife after the show, but after several nights of very minimal sleep, coupled with an increasingly thick blanket of snow that was beginning to make navigating the streets a bit of a challenge, we decided to retire to the Hotel Cristophe to get some shut-eye. Thank God.

I woke up relatively early this morning and, after another run through town, decided to head back up into the Fort to take some daytime pictures. While I wasn't able to get as close to that fucking lion as I would have liked to, I'm glad I got the chance to experience the arial view of the town before I left. 

On today's docket is a super short 1 1/2 drive to Strasborg, where we're rocking at a venue called La Laiterie! 

Until tomorrow....

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Yesterday was dope!

After the Steak Tartar debacle, I was a bit hesitant to declare victory here in Lille, but last night's show compensated for any seeds of doubt that lunch may have planted.

We left the hotel around 5, walked the mile or so to Ali's spot, and hopped in the van with the French promoter who had graciously offered to meet us at the hotel and show us to the venue. As we neared the club, I began to recognize our surroundings, noting that we were drawing close to the canal next to which I had taken my morning run. Tour manager Mat made an offhand comment as we passed a stationary river boat, but I take much note…nor did I think it particularly odd when Ali started reminiscing about a boat that he, Slug, and Ant had played on in Paris several years ago. Nothing more than your average tall of days gone by, right? Ha.

Last night, we played rap music. On a boat. In Lille, France.

Mat parked the van in a parking lot adjacent to the canal, which happened to be right next to a traveling circus that was setting up shop for its first night, and we began loading our gear into the rear of the boat. Crossing a small ramp that led us into the back of the floating venue, I've never had to worry about dropping a keyboard into a body of water as acutely as I did yesterday. 

Dropping-gear-in-water concerns aside, set-up went very smoothly, and I was pleasantly surprised at the power and clarity of the physically diminutive sound system. Apparently France, along with a number of other European Union countries, imposes a decibel limit on live venues in an attempt to limit the amount of damage inflicted on patron's sensitive ears. Noble, and probably a very, very wise regulatory act, but I was a bit concerned that our live show would suffer due to the decrease in volume. Thankfully, the combination of a tightly enclosed boat cabin that was partially under water and a sound system that had been tuned specifically for the room, created an almost ideal environment for both playing and listening. Oh, and did I mention ha the green room was housed in the captain's quarters? Nothing like drinking a beer backstage…next to a giant steering wheel.

Shortly after soundcheck, the promoter led us across the street to a local restaurant that had closed off a small portion of the restaurant in anticipation of our arrival. So unbelievably unexpected. The reverence for art and music that we first experienced last week in Scandinavia is, quite apparently, not limited to the Northern countries. Acknowledging the danger in making sweeping, generalized statements like this, it's pretty clear that the general European attitude towards the fine arts is VASTLY different than that of the United States. The level of respect and hospitality that we've experienced as underground hip-hop artists  is truly eye opening. Top-tier artists in the states are certainly treated well (above and beyond anything we've ever experienced, at home or abroad), but it often seems as if that treatment is sourced from a desire for spectacle more so than it is from true love and appreciation for music and art as a fundamental aspect of a well rounded society. I digress!

Dinner was incredible, with perfectly cooked salmon on a bed of roasted potatoes, local wine, and an incredibly elaborate marble slab of creme brulee to top it off. The promoter and club folks left us halfway through dinner to head back to the venue and get ready to open doors…I was a little concerned that they were planning on sticking us with the bill and floating the boat down the river with all of our equipment and belongings on board, some kind of massive French joke on the ignorant foreigners…thankfully the boat was still there when we returned, and was damn near packed with folks ready for the show.

At 8:40 sharp, Grieves and I took the stage. I walked up to the computer that houses the software that acts as the main foundation of our live show, woke it from sleep, and was treated to a system crash. Great. It would have been more than salvageable had the sound engineer not taken our presence on stage as a sign to cut the house music and turn on a couple of spotlights that were directed right at our shining faces. Great. What followed was, without question, the most awkward beginning to a set we've ever stewarded. Grieves did his best to maintain keep the crowd's attention, but had a bit of a hard time with his trademark whale joke…something about the language barrier made it tough to translate the lengthy whale calls that function as the core instrument of humor, I suppose. In his defense, I wasn't giving him much to work with, scrambling around trying to get my computer back online, re-attaching USB cables, and trying to get a stubborn MIDI controller to get back in line. It was not our finest moment.

Technical problems aside, we managed to get everything back online, and proceeded to knock out a damn good set. The crowd was incredible, and a couple of folks seemed to know who we were, calling out for Smile For the Blade halfway through the set. Whoa!

Side note: One of the biggest problems with playing a show on a small boat? The smell. Sure, there's inevitable funk that comes part and parcel with a bunch of people dancing together in a small enclosed space, but the boat and dirty river added an element of ocean funk to the already pungent human funk…it was not pleasant at all.

Ali and BK delivered yet another incredibly energetic and professional set. Ali has such incredible command of the audience, it's 

The show over and done with, Grieves and I ventured out with a couple of folks from the audience who offered to show us around town. Good idea? Sort of. Terrible idea? Definitely.

After 45 minutes of confused navigation through the vacant streets of Lille, we found ourselves at "OZ", Lille's only Australian bar. Great. The company was good, save for a uncomfortably friendly Irish fellow by named Collum who insisted on buying drink after drink after drink for us, leaving the original 4 of us at the table in a rather sorry state of awareness by the time the shuffled us out of the bar at 2:30am. Aside from Collum's unsolicited presence, however, the night was a good one…with a lot of broken french-english-portuguese spoken, mis-interpreted, and explained in pictures. It's really amazing to be in a place where English is not freely spoken, and where making yourself understand and, in turn, understanding people that are trying their best to communicate with you, is not a foregone conclusion.

After last call, we made our way back into the streets of Lille, walked ourselves home to the Suitehotel! and climbed into bed for a couple hours of sleep before this morning's van call to Belfort. Due to the festival restrictions, Grieves and I weren't supposed to have a set tonight, but thanks to a last minute cancellation we have 45 minutes to rock in front of a festival crowd!

More tomorrow!!

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Yesterday was another travel day, spent heading Southwest from Hamburg to Lille. The drive took us through 4 countries, originating in Germany, briefly crossing through Belgium and Holland, finally arriving at our French destination relatively late in the evening. Save for a brief, and somewhat bizarre, stop at a Dutch gas station, I didn't get the opportunity to see any significant part of Holland or Belgium. A shame, as those are two countries that I'm certainly curious to explore a bit. Next time, next time.

The drive itself was about as uneventful as it could have been. We left Hamburg at noon. Drove for about 9 hours. Arrived in Lille. We did have a chance to spend the lunch hour at a German travel stop, which provided a bit of entertainment as we noted that the bathrooms required a .50 Euro deposit, the lunch buffet provided more than ample amounts of both red wine and Jagermeister (two ingredients not normally suggested for those taking a quick break from a long drive), and the gift shop had a wide selection of Che Guevara-adorned apparel…Nothing like a "Viva La Revolucion!" cap to give purpose to that long haul from Berlin to Dresden….

Grieves and I are staying at a different hotel than the rest of the folks, and while we had grand plans to venture out into the town after checking-in, we quickly realized that the night was more appropriately suited to hotel beat-making and, in my case, a cup of weird pureed mushroom soup. 

I woke up at the oh-so-early hour of 11:30am today, threw on my running clothes, and headed towards the city center. From what I was able to see, Lille is a pretty amazing little town, with an old, centrally located cathedral, tons of winding cobblestone streets, lined with little shops, bakeries, and restaurants. I'm excited to get a good meal and relax for a bit before our 5pm load in for the show this evening. After 3 days off, it will be nice to get back on a stage, and I'm super curious to see how the French crowds react to our music!

Side note:

Grieves and I just ventured into Lille's downtown area for lunch. He ordered Steak Tartar. Confidently. The waiter seemed a little hesitant, awkwardly asking Grieves if he knew that the dish was served cold. Seemingly undeterred, Grieves waved him on. Several minutes later, a plate containing small piles each of chopped raw onion, capers, and parsley, all surrounding a massive heap of raw ground beef with a raw egg on top, was placed on the table. Grieves tried his bet to remain calm but, several bites into the dish he sheepishly admitted that he thought he was ordering a well cooked steak complemented by tartar sauce. Whoops. 

To his credit, he tried his best to choke down a couple of bites, but it quickly became pretty clear that he wasn't prepared to make any sort of appreciable headway. Raw beef: 1 Grieves: 0. We then walked around Lille for a bit, exploring the myriad shoe stores, patisseries, and wine shops that the town has to offer. Wide streets, lots of trees, hatchback cars, and folks that don't speak a word of English. The change in the number of folks that speak English out here, especially relative to the Scandinavian countries, is pretty striking. As confusing as it may be, there's something incredible about being in a country where you really truly have to work to make yourself understood, and where, in turn, being understood is not a foregone conclusion. 

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