So we woke up in Diksmuide, ate a good breakfast provided by 4AD and headed for Paris. Its a short drive, about five hours, through mostly very flat farmland. The drive was pretty uneventful; we saw some geese and a few sheep. We got diesel. Yup, thats about it. Then we got to Paris. As usual the English Lady in the GPS took us right to the door of the club- La Maroquinerie- (so we saw nothing of the grand city) where we were met by the promoter, a very friendly fellow called Vince. He got a few people together to help us get our gear into the venue and then took me aside to discuss things like meals, hotel, set times and the dreaded 105db sound limit. Now this is kind of fucked; a squarely hit snare drum will go over that mark and Asva has played at 140db wide open, peaking at 172. He couldn't be bought (I tried) and Serge convinced us he could make it work even with everything at literally half volume. Sound check went ok and we had a little time to kill before dinner so we walked around and looked at Paris. My guess is we weren't in the nicest part; lots of cheap clothing shops, bakeries, bars... it reminded me of downtown LA a little bit but for the rain and the cathedral nearby. What I wanted was a real French dinner and we had one coming. We got back to the club which had a nice place to eat right upstairs. The waitress asked if we wanted tuna... "hell yes! Tuna in France must be great!". Well it was tuna helper I think, on a cold bed of noodles. Kind of disappointing. I ate a little and went out for a cigarette.
People started showing up soon after our 'dinner', my old bandmate Stephen and another friend Rodolphe were there and some friends of Daves as well. Great seeing those guys for sure! When it was finally time to play it was a little strange playing quieter than our usual rehearsal volume but after a while it felt ok, pretty good actually, and we managed to pull it off in spite of our tuna helper dinner.
Things got messy afterward; Stephen and his buddies got really loaded and I got lost walking to our hotel. I've got to leave it at that, anymore explanation and somebody might stick a knife in me yet... Good Times!
More of this drivel later.