October 8 2006
10:07am (France)
We're at the ferry port waiting to board the boat to Dover. The ferry is friggin' huge. We actually got some sleep last night and I feel pretty good. Marc, Skillet, and JJ are fairly hungover apparently. We had dinner in the hotel last night and drank a couple of bottles of wine. JJ and I started off with a three cheese quiche and salad then had the duck confit with sauteed potatoes. It was really, really good and cheap. I wish we'd had time this morning to have breakfast, but with the way things have been going the past few days, we thought we should leave for the ferry early. Now we've got an hour to sit before we load. The UK border officers pretty much just laughed at us and waved us through.
Chris.
Wednesday, October 11th
10:24 am
Sitting here in our hotel in Bedford, a really nice older joint in a beautiful city. It's been a couple of days since we've checked in with y'all, so I'll do my best to get everyone up to speed. Let's see, we got up nice and early after getting our drink on in Calais and headed to the ferry port. We had been told by several different people that it might be a bit of a pain for us to go through customs with all of the gear, etc. so we were all a little bit keyed up (and simultaneously out of it from the activities of the previous evening.) We were instructed to park the van and go into the customs office while someone "dealt with the vehicle". We filled out our forms and answered some typical questions ("What is your business here?" "On what date are you leaving?" etc.) and they sent us on our way. I think they were kind of amused by us, really. Once back in the van, we queued up and settled into an hour long wait for the ferry, at which time, Marc noticed a roach just hanging out of the back ashtray. Yup folks, that's how the pros do it. The ferry was cool, though my hangover was playing hell with my equilibrium. Took about an hour and a half to get to the UK and on our approach we were treated to a wonderful view of the White Cliffs of Dover in all of their glory. We drove for an hour or two to Twyford, which is just outside of Winchester, to the lovely home of a lovely fellow named Oliver Gray, the promoter for that night's show. Talk about the quintessential English treatment: we arrive and introduce ourselves, he shows us into the sitting room, makes us some tea and we chat for a while. Then we take a nice leisurely stroll through the beautiful village of Twyford and its surrounding countryside, ending up at Oliver's social club for a much needed Guinness. Brilliant! That night we played at the Railway Inn with a kick ass band called the Good Time Charlies. Check 'em out if you can, because they rock like hell (and they're a really nice bunch of guys, too.) After the show, I got my first taste of driving on the left side of the road--not too scary at that time of night, but still extremely unnerving. It's not too hard to get used to, but in the cities it can be hard to navigate and remember to "Stay left, look right." And while I understand the concept and execution of the roundabout, when there are multiple lanes and lots of cars, I fucking hate them. We retired back to Oliver's house and had a few more beers and a few more laughs with our gracious host (not to mention a huge plate of cheese and crackers), before hitting the hay. Next morning, Oliver made us breakfast, the Full English, as it's called--toast, eggs, bacon, baked beans, tea, even a bit of marmite. It was awesome and definitely got our day started off right. After a few pictures, we bid a fond farewell to Oliver and set off to Bristol. So there you have it, in a nutshell, our time in Winchester. Thanks again to Oliver and Birgit, Peter our doctor friend, Fred, Isaac and James at the Railway, Chris and Marilyn, Craig, Steve, Andy and Nish of TGC, and all of the fine folks who came to see us play. We had a blast!
Then it was off to Bristol, about three hours west of Winchester. After checking in at the hotel, we headed off to the venue, St. Bonaventure's Parish Club. It was quite a challenge finding it, though, as Bristol is a fairly large city and they just don't do the grid plan over here. We had a great time and a great show and the folks that we met and worked with were truly wonderful. Our opening act was the Lone Pines, another great band that we've had the good fortune to meet--check them out. So thanks to Stuart and Sherry for running awesome sound and being so kind and fun to hang out with, James, Melissa, another great audience and the boys of the Lone Pines, Dan, Steve, Anthony and Daniel, who gets special thanks for letting me use his bass to finish our set after my low E snapped. Hope to see you all again soon!
Once back at the hotel, we popped into the bar to have a nightcap (or twelve) and met some more nice folks, Naomi, Tony and Ravenous Rob the Kilt Wearing Scotsman. Drinks were drunk, songs were sung, silliness abounded and eventually the hotel folks told us we had to go to our rooms because the bar had been closed for hours (they'd stopped serving us already.) So, cheers to Naomi, Tony and Rob, hopefully our paths will cross again one day.
Addendum: We were perilously close to running out of T-shirts, so we had our good friend Raymond (photographer, efficient German) send us some, so we could continue to sell them to the fine folks of the UK. They were to be shipped to Bristol and held at the DHL office for us to pick up, so our plan was to swing by on our way out of town and pick them up on our way to Bedford. After two and a half hours of trying to find the DHL office (several attempts at getting directions from random Bristolians, purchasing a city map and driving all over the place) we finally found it, only to be informed that, despite the labeling on the box itself to the contrary, it had actually gone out for shipment and wouldn't be back to the hub until 7:00 pm. We couldn't possibly wait around, as we were already three hours late to get to our soundcheck at the next venue in Bedford, so we had them send the shirts to our hotel in Bedford. Once we were on the highway, however, Skillet remembered that the promoter in Bedford had told us that he'd changed our hotel, due to a confirmation snafu. He contacted the original hotel, apprised them of the situation and asked them to keep the package for us.
We got to Bedford quite late and fortunately the promoters weren't mad at us. Though attandance wasn't stellar, we rocked and had a good time and made some new friends. Thanks again to Mike and Keith and all the fine folks of the Ent. Shed and our wonderful audience.
Jesse.