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Europe Day 14
I woke up this morning to our final day in France. As if my paragraph upon paragraph of superlative-laden drivel hasn't been clear enough…this has been an incredible trip. I'm so grateful to Brother Ali, who certainly went out on a limb by welcoming us onto this trip, BK-One, Rhymesayers, and all the promoters, friends, and family that allowed us to make this a reality.
Last night we played in Orleans, a Western city known for…right. No offense intended to the inhabitants of the town, but Orleans was by far the least picturesque destination we've hit thus far. It wasn't explicitly unattractive, but after the castle/fort/river-boat filled stops of days past, a "normal" French town felt almost disappointing. We've been spoiled.
After a 4 hour drive, we pulled directly in to the venue, and began loading in. An antiquated elevator system brought us from the garage directly up into the backstage area, and soundcheck was painless…due (more than likely) to the decibel limit imposed on live venues here the general sonic clarity of the PA and monitoring systems seems far superior to your average American club. It's nice to be able to, you know, hear what I'm playing!
Our dressing room was well appointed with Red Bull, beer, and water. The venue's kitchen had prepared a small pre-dinner snack for us, which appear to be a pile of raw cabbage, sitting next to a larger pile of rice mixed with salted fish and hard boiled eggs. One bite of the rice concoction furnished a mystery bone of some sort so, in the interest of avoiding any sort of foreign dental emergencies, I decided to pass on the delicacy…
Dinner was served at 7pm sharp and was, once again, fucking amazing. Fresh salad, amazing cheeses, root vegetables, carafe's of local wine, fresh bread, fresh caught shrimp…the standard chips and salsa back in the States will never be the same.
The opening emcee, Med Killah, had a full live band with him which, in the world of local opening acts, is usually a pretty big red flag. The resources required to run sound for a live band, even if the soundman is intent on running sound negligently, unavoidably takes time and attention away from the headlining acts. Tack on the inevitable disruption to the stage set-up, and you have what usually amounts to an unpleasant experience. Thankfully, yesterday was a pleasant surprise! Med Killah and his band was full of life and energy…he rapped in French, so I was completely in the dark as to what he was saying (much like the French crowds have been towards us….hmmm), but his stage presence was there and the band was pretty fucking good.
Our set was relatively successful, though yet another broken guitar string is leading me to believe that there might be something structurally wrong with the bridge of my Stratocaster. Technical problems aside, our energy was good and, despite the language barrier, the crowd was open and receptive to what we were trying to do.
Ali and BK, and always, destroyed the stage. Interestingly, last night was the youngest crowd I've seen thus far. Grieves and I are used to playing all ages shows for rooms full of underage kids, but our trip through Europe has, thus far, placed us in front of a slightly older demographic.
The show over, hands shook, and pile of raw cabbage left undisturbed, we began loading our shit out to the van. Eric and I took the first load down in the elevator. I pressed "1" thinking that it was the correct destination. The elevator door opened to reveal a full, Olympic sized, ice hockey rink. Whoops.
Back to the hotel, and straight to bed, as I'm really beginning to feel the weight of the fatigue from being on the road for the past 2 months. It's an incredible experience, but sleep is often the first casualty to this lifestyle.
I woke up at 8 and headed out on a run…while I did manage to track down the local river (every French town we've been to thus far seems to have been built around a river and/or series of central canals) I'm no more enamored with Orleans as a destination than I was when I arrived. Ah well.
We're on the road to Paris right now, with a luxuriously quick hour-long drive that should land us in the city with several hours to spare before load-in. Hell yes!
Europe Day 13
Nantes is a beautiful city!
We had one hell of a drive yesterday, spending about 10 hours in the van between the hotel in Strasborg and the venue in Nantes. Alternating between a rear-facing an seat and the bunk in the back, I felt thoroughly disoriented by the time we pulled into our destination. A perfect beginning to the evening, as I truly had no idea where I was, and no concrete sense of my surroundings. Hell yeah!
Grieves and I didn't play last night, as the show itself was a special live radio broadcast that had been booked well before we solidified our plans to play the French dates of this tour. It's always a bit strange having a night off in the middle of a tour, but this run has been a bit more relaxed in that regard (this is literally the first tour that has felt balanced in regards to pace, with days off in appropriate places, no overnight drives, and enough free time to allow for a bit of time to explore the cool shit around us) so it wasn't as much of a shock as it could have been. Furthermore, it was nice to get a chance to relax jusssssst a bit, take the chance to watch Ali and BK's set in its entirety, and not have to be 150% engaged all night.
We showed up a bit too late for Ali to soundcheck, but were able to load all the gear and merch in to the venue. The production staff were insanely helpful, and all of them seem overwhelmingly excited to have Ali perform. The venue itself was an old theatre, with a proper balcony and dressing rooms sequestered in the basement of the building. Located a little bit out of the center of town, I still had no trouble finding a really good cup of coffee at the bar next to the club, while I waited for things to settle down a bit inside.
After load-in, we were ushered over to a local restaurant where, once again, we were treated to an amazing meal. Carafe's of local wine, puree'd vegetable soup, Quiche, fresh roasted broccoli, and fresh fruit salad for desert. Amazing. This is past the point of redundancy, but these motherfuckers have been treating us SO well. The level and quality of the hospitality is going to be tough to leave behind, as will inevitably be forced to re-adjust to the American standard before too long. I'm doing my best to revel in it while it lasts.
Dinner having been handled thoroughly, we piled back in the van and headed into the city to check in at the hotel. Ali wasn't scheduled to hit the stage until 12:50 am, leaving us with several hours of free time before we had to head back to the venue. After asking the lady at the front desk in the hotel to recommend a good bar and being directed to a "Chinese Buffet" in a dark alley, we decided to take matters into our own hands and try and hunt something down ourselves. Sure, walking into a spot called "Euro Bar" may not have been the best idea, but a 12 Euro bottle of wine proved to be the perfect accompaniment to rather bizarre scene inside the establishment. A solitary DJ spun deep-Trance music in the corner, with an elaborate setup that included a number of lasers shining intensely on a bar full of folks that seemed intent on doing their best to ignore the musical spectacle. The DJ's most engaged audience member was a woman in her 70s or 80s who had brought (and was subsequently surrounded by) 4-5 massive garbage bags filled with God-knows-what into the bar, sipping aimlessly on a bottle of apple juice and staring quizzically at the laser-infused techno party that was taking place in front of her. Weird? Yes.
Declaring victory (as we managed to survive "Club Euro" without experiencing a strobe-light-induced seizure), Grieves and I headed met the rest of the folks back at the van and headed over to the venue. We were all warmly welcomed back, and shown down to the dressing room. Following a short live radio interview, Ali and BK took the stage prompt at 12:50, playing a 45 minute set in front of a crowd of kids that all seemed to be…on drugs. After playing hundreds and hundreds of shows, you get to a point where you can read the energy of a crowd relatively well. There are tired crowds, drunk crowds, energetic crowds, inexperienced crowds, too-cool-to-show-emotion crowds, and there are drug crowds. Last night's crowd was firmly in the latter camp. Not the worst type of audience by any means, there's still a unique challenge in trying to get your message across to a room full of hundreds of kids on mind-altering substances. They're there to party and have fun, but the reality is that if you could probably pump Henry Kissinger full of ecstasy and he'd be partying like a champ, which is to say that the emotion and support you get from your average drug crowd feels a little less sincere than that from a relatively more sober, but still engaged crowd. That said, the audience seemed to have a great time, and Brother Ali and BK-One put on, as always, one hell of a show.
Load out was accomplished in record time, and we soon found ourselves heading back to the hotel. I escaped immediately to bed, but apparently the hotel clerk, concerned that the hungry group of touring musicians that had just walked through the door, took it upon himself to raid the hotel's kitchen and prepare a plate of sandwiches…keep in mind that this was a massive chain, akin to an employee at a Holiday Inn in America preparing a home-cooked meal for a guest at 3am. Incredible!
I pulled myself out of bed at 9:30, and took a run through the center of the city. 5 blocks away from the hotel I happened on a castle, complete with trestle and moat. A couple miles into the run, I had seen no less than 4 perfectly maintained cathedrals, traveled through an arboretum, and spent 10 minutes running next to a beautiful canal. Save for the run through the fort in Belfort, this morning's jog was my favorite of the trip thus far.
Back at the hotel, I threw my camera around my neck and tried to seek out some of the cool shit I had run past. Oddly enough I randomly ran into a friend of mine from college. In a grocery store. In Nantes, France. Strange world!
Today's drive is a relatively relaxing 4 hours to Orleans. I don't know a damn thing about the city, but that's nothing that can't be solved in the next 12 hours.
More tomorrow!
