From Calais we continued our boring journey to our halfway stop in Metz. We arrived at our destination around 7.30pm, quickly freshened up and off out for dinner…..well the others ate whilst Jon and I found “The Lounge” (sounds like a sleazy club but it’s not). It was a perfect little bar that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Hollyoaks AND they had karaoke too. Both Jon and I felt right at home!!! After a beer or 2 the others joined us and a night full of merriment was to ensue.

It started to get late and hunger suddenly hit, I hadn’t eaten and neither had Jon so we decided it was time for a food quest!

As we do with most things, we left it too late to go on our search. Everywhere we went was closed apart from a McDonalds Drive Thru. We have walked thru the drive thru before and been successful but this night wasn’t to be our night, the 3 women slouching behind the counter didn’t look too impressed that we’d walked thru their drive thru and refused us service saying we didn’t look like cars so we can’t have any food. Dejected Jon settled for a KitKat and peanut M&Ms were my weapon of choice from the hotel vending machine. What a wholesome dinner! (There’s some pointless information with you.)

The next morning we headed off for the final leg of the drive to Zofinger. The last few hours were pretty seemless and in no time we were in Switzerland settling into the wonders of our hotel.

The weather was less than impressive when we arrived at the hotel, the rain just didn’t look like it was going to shift, which isn’t too great if you’re planning on playing an outdoor festival. After getting settled at the hotel we drove over to the festival site. As we were arriving the sky’s were looking a little brighter and we all had our fingers crossed the sky would clear. The festival was in the middle of acres of fields and the view was unbelievable, It’s not your usual horizon of drunken revelers puking in a bins, passed out on the floor. It’s refreshing, I could get used to these European festivals. So civilised.

We had around 8 hours to kill before playing so Myself, Paul, Steve (sound man) and Matt (tech) went to explore the wonders of the festival. The backstage area was paradise. Free bar, hairdressers and massages. Paul decided he was desperate for a haircut and he found a few knots in his back that needed seeing too. After Paul had his pampering and troughing down a 3 course gormet meal it was on to the real reason we were there…..Yes you guessed it…..a fusball tournament between Paul, Matt, Steve and Me…… Just for the record, I am far better at fusball when I play 1 on 1 (just ask Paul) so losing the game had nothing to do with me (cough cough)!!

After wiping away my tears we all prized ourselves out of hospitality and went to watch a little music. We were all pleasantly surprised by IAMX who were playing on the main stage and after them Paul and I went to see some Swiss hiphop dude who was pretty boring but we stuck around anyway because he had hot backing singers!!!

It would have been great to have seen the Prodigy play but sadly due to preparing for our own show we couldn’t but I could hear them on stage and they sounded HUUUUGE!

Before I knew what was happening it was stage time for us. I think this is possibly the latest we have ever played and even though it was tiring staying focused (redbull helped) the show went really well and we had a great time on stage, there were no technical difficulties (hallelujah), the crowd really got into it but the best part of all was we played in the middle of a cloud!!! I just thought they had a crap smoke machine but Chloë corrected me!

It is always an honor to be asked to play festivals abroad and we were really looked after by everyone there. No matter where we are in Europe we are always treated so well…….maybe one day the UK will take note. Hehe!! (Joke)

It’s going to be a bit of a wait till we play again but I’m itching to get out already!

Until the next time….

Jamie x