Yes, Paris.
The crepes here are magnificent.
Anyways, it's been a few days since my last post, and in that time I've been to the following cities: Manchester, Duisberg (Germany), Brussels, Antwerp, and then Paris.
The Manchester show was iffy. We basically drove 5 hours to play for a crowd of durnken Brits who didn't seem terribly interested in the music (they were the only crowd who didn't cheer long enough to warrant an encore). That being said, the guy who booked us there really liked us and seems interested in getting us back for some bigger shows that he books, so it wasn't a total loss. After the show we drove to a small town near Dover to stay for the night. It was a 4 and a half hour drive or so, so we didn't get in until about 5AM. The next day in England was supposed to be a heavy travel day, so we didn't want to risk missing our ferry.
So the next day we went to Dover for our 12PM ferry. Dover looks incredible, with the white cliffs towering overhead as you drive into town. Since we arrived early, getting through customs and ticketing was literally no problem whatsoever. And if I may say so, we were all quite happy to get the heck out of England. The people were great and very hospitable, and we ate very well there. Plus, I discovered that in the majority of their truck stops England has this wonderful little to-go grocery chain called M&S. It has excellent sandwiches and salads, fresh fruit, and deserts, all organic/free-range and for very reasonable prices. If America had something comparable I'm sure it would do very well; sure beats the hell out of McDonalds. But anyways, we were happy to leave England, and as we were pulling away from the coast I could see why. This dark cloud bank literally stretched as far as the eye could see, and stopped right at the coast. It was . . . vaguely creepy.
So we arrived in Calais and drove to Duisberg, about another 5 hours drive, near the city of Essen. Having left England we all felt better about life, despite the large amount of sleep deprivation. And I finally got my first taste of good German beer in Germany, and might i say it was worth the wait. Plus, the venue fed us dinner (and a lot of free German beer), found us a place to sleep, AND fed us breakfast in the morning, along with the fee they paid, so it worked out great for us. Plus the sound was excellent, the crowd friendly, and we sold a reasonable amount of CDs.
After Duisberg we went to Brussels to play in what our booker told us would be the best venue of the tour, and having played there I believe it. It was a huge, professional stage, and they treated us like rock stars, with a fully stocked green room and an excellent meal, and paid us 750 euros, one of our biggest guarantees of the tour. The crowd was tiny when we first looked out, but had grown to about 60 by the time we went on. They also bought a lot of our stuff, especially this family from Atlanta who had been looking for something to do while on Spring Break. The city itself, however, was a bit sketchy. There were signs everywhere warning of pickpockets, and our cameraman/driver Maik was actually attacked. The venue we were playing at was called Botanique, and it was actually a public garden with several venues inside (we assumed they were able to give us such a large guarantee because of government funding). So Maik was outside taking pictures of the garden, when he was approached by a group of men from North Africa. In his words, one of the men came up to him angrily demanding to see the camera, to make sure he was not in any of the pictures (they were large panoramic shots, so of course quite a few people were in the pictures, at least at a distance). Apparently the man then began hitting him and grabbing at the camera. Fortunately Maik is trained in Aikido, so was able to pretty much shrug off the attacks. He pulled out his cell phone and told them he was calling the police, at which point everyone scattered. The police didn't seem perturbed and even asked if his attacker was north african, and never bothered to show, since nothing had been taken and no one hurt. I guess this sort of thing is not uncommon in Brussels? After the show we went to Antwerp to spend the night, and we ended up staying up way too late drinking Belgian beer.
Yesterday we drove to Paris. Despite staying up so late the night before, we wanted to head out early so that we could at least see some of the city before the show. This perhaps was not the best of ideas, as Emanuel (and the rest of us) have all been coming down with a light cold. Not a problem for us, but definitely a problem for Emanuel, as he has to sing. At any rate, when we got to Paris we decided our best bet was to head to Sacre Couer, since, being on a hill, it promised the best views of the city, as well as being a gorgeous landmark in its own right. After Sacre Couer, we went back to the venue and did our soundcheck, at which point they fed us a small dinner. Afterwards, Emanuel went to take a nap while the rest of us went Crepe hunting. We managed to find a sign that said "Indian and Creperie"; we were all skeptical, but beggars can't be choosers (it was the only mention of crepes we had seen), so we went to check it out. The crepes turned out to be incredible (according to Gil the bass player, MUCH better than the ones at the tourist trap Sacre Couer). So now i have had an authentic Parisian crepe.
At this point we returned to the venue, and discovered Emanuel in poor shape, his voice largely gone. The show was then by far the worst set of the tour; the crowd was small (most had come to see the band before and then left when they were done), but that was a good thing, as Emanuel didn't have much of a voice, I had a spotlight in my eyes and couldn't see the music (thus playing the entire set from memory), and all of us had difficulties figuring out how to play given the voice issue. So yeah it was a pretty bad set and we were happy when it was over, but such things happen. We then went back to our host's flat, where we spent 30 minutes or so finding a parking spot.
I can't wait to get back to Germany tonight. We are planning on taking it easy at the show, maybe scaling back a few songs, and hopefully Emanuel will be better in a couple days. Tonight is Karlsruhe, Germany. It's 12 here and we have about 5 hours to drive, but we all needed the sleep. It's guaranteed we'll be quite late at this point, but the other venues we have played at haven't really cared much (or in some cases taken it for granted when we were late), so whatever.
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