FRENCH TOUR

Oct / Nov 1996Grant tells us about all the ups and downs of a very interesting and successful trip to France.

A VIDEO TAPE IS NOW AVAIABLE WHICH HAS EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE FROM THIS TOUR.

Monday 28^th October - Travel Day

Making the same mistake I seem to make every year when the clocks go back, I got out of bed way too early. This turned out to be a good thing as Nic had plenty of little chores that he loves to delegate to us. So Chris and I spent the morning licking stamps, folding sheets of paper, and nipping down to the post office.

When we arrived at the rehearsal room Del and Scott, our guitar tech and T-shirt man, in addition to their roles as our spiritual gurus, had already managed to wreak havoc on our equipment. Nic’s good sense of order and man management skills soon remedied this. It should be noted that for the duration of this trip Scott was to be known as Mr Coupon due to his successful football coupon on Saturday. He had only been trying every weekend for the last four years so he felt his princely win of £60 was a fair reward. A burden off his shoulders.

Our bus, supplied by Griersons of Sedgefield near Newcastle, arrived at about 14.30, masterfully driven by a very nice bloke called Neil who drove on the ill-fated British tour earlier this year. We’ve taken a real shine to Neil as he never seems to lose his temper, regardless of what we may have been getting up to behind him. Unfortunately, none of the electrical items on the bus seemed to work except the video, but even this required percussive maintenance.

We started off at 15.30, cracking open the first beer at 15.35. There was a long journey ahead of us after all.

Because the bus arrived minus any videos we had to resort to The History of Soccer part 3, which I’d seen about a dozen times, and Pulp Fiction, which everybody had seen about a dozen times. Fortunately, Gen phoned us and was promptly ordered to have a substantial chunk of his video collection with him when we pick up he and Zmago, our sound engineer, from Scratchwood Services just outside London. He was actually phoning to inform us of probable delays in getting a ferry due to the awful weather but, naturally, we were more concerned with our in bus entertainment.

Once our personal video collection was exhausted we turned to Mark Radcliff on Radio 1. Towards the end of his program we had the bright idea of emailing or faxing him to request a tune. Bobby and Del insisted on some old punk songs, which ones I can’t recall, and through Nic’s mobile phone, laptop, and the Internet, we eventually managed to get the shows fax number and sent off our request. I’m not sure if they received the fax or not but they never played the songs we had requested during the last 20 minutes of the show.

Everyone went to bed shortly after picking up the lads at Scratchwood.

Tuesday 29^th October - St. Quentin

I was wakened by Gen at 03.00 and informed that we were aboard the ferry which was just about to set sail, so I hauled myself out of bed and joined the others in the bar. They also seemed to be stuck in that limbo state between sleep and consciousness.

Once on the other side of the Channel everybody went straight back to bed with the exception of Bobby, who was still wide awake and attributed this to the high caffeine content of his Buckfast wine.?!?

The next time I awoke we were parked on a hill directly opposite the Salle Vermand Fayet in St. Quentin, tonight’s venue. Here we managed to get a full continental breakfast from catering….strong coffee, chocolate croissants, orange juice and yoghurt. We also met Jean Phi for the first time, our French tour manager, a top bloke.

Del has nicknamed Bobby "Beelzebub" thanks to his relentless and often effortless destruction of his bass equipment. In an attempt to make the most of Bobby’s fuck ups we had, by this point, set up a sweep stake, where each person paid their money and drew a number from a hat, the number corresponding to a songs position in the set list for the first gig. Sure enough, Bobby broke his tuner during the gig, admittedly a little later than we had anticipated, and Zmago walked away with a pocket full of change.

The gig was excellent, probably aided by the fact it was a festival, the Festival du Devenir to be precise. We ended up doing two encores, a strange occurrence for our good selves who are more accustomed to get on, get to it, and get off. The first encore was Golden Tooth, the second was Pink. The other bands, Burning Heads, apparently a happening French skateboard band with a guitarist in crutches, and Chokebore, an American band on Amphetamine Records, were both good. We play with Chokebore again on this tour, only the next time we’ll play before them.

It was nice to see Florent and Anne Sophie again, our promoters in France through a company called A Gauche de la Lune. They gave us two footballs to appease our desire, nay, need to play the peoples game.

After the gig the rest of the night gets a bit hazy. The local promoter came into the dressing room armed with a couple of bottles of Champagne and, later, he gave us a bottle of Tequila and insisted we make a heavy dent on it. I can’t remember going to bed but the inane drivel in my diary reflects my state:

- "We can detect their ploys. If they give us Champagne (as they did, the fuckers) that means they are right into the kinky shit".

Wednesday 30^th October - Evreux

Fortunately, when I woke up I didn’t feel too bad, just a little fuzzy. Nothing that an early afternoon coffee and cigarette couldn’t cure. The food here at L’Abordage wasn’t quite as good as yesterdays, consisting mainly of Emmental cheese baguettes, which are truly the Devil’s faeces. The evening meal made up for it, even though we all had to send our steaks back just to get a little heat in the middle.

We all went our separate ways after the soundcheck. Mr coupon went to get new trainers, some showered, etc., etc., but a group of us met up for a game of footie later on. As yet, over two tours, we are undefeated in France.

The gig was fairly fuck up free. Beelzebob treated his gear with an uncharacteristic degree of respect. Again, we indulged in two encores which I felt was one too many. The Penny Dropped and Pink, followed by Golden Tooth were the chosen ditties.

The support band were great. They were a mean and nasty 3 piece combo (!) with a wicked female singer/guitarist and Del doesn’t mind me letting you know that he had a wee penchant for them.

Thursday 31^st October - Lille

Before I go any further I think I should let you read Florent’s comment printed in our tour itinerary regarding the gig in Lille:

- "You are to be very good there, you are in my town & my reputation of best promoter in the world is at stake. The ball is now on your ground."

Pressure or what?

The venue, L’Aeronef, was one of the best we’d played in, with a huge stage and a lighting rig that had Nic diving for the nearest blond and red head. The strange thing about the venue was that it was situated on the upper level of a shopping mall, so we spent much of the day wandering about here. I fucking hate shopping malls so I far preferred walking around the older parts of Lille. It seemed to be a very busy working city but managed to be beautiful at the same time.

After the soundcheck and a good meal I was introduced to Antoine Quint who wants to run a fan club for us in France. He had travelled from Grenoble especially for the gig, and with dedication like that who are we to refuse?

Mary’s Child, the support band, were good, but I’m always wary of singing drummers, although he did share the vocal duties with the guitarist. We play with Mary’s Child again in Ris Orangis and Angouleme.

Time now to lift verbatim from my diary:

- "After the drunken debauchery of last night we saw some more this evening. Anne Sophie and Flo Flo were in attendance and that’s dangerous in anyone’s book. Tonight it was Jack Daniel’s that was the chosen dram. What made the difference was that Chris commandeered the J.D. rather than Bobby or I. All our good friends from Arras had a choke on it before we did. Just as well we had the Duvall beer. Lille seems pretty smart though. It’s always nice to see Flo Flo and Anso, who helped me translate a magazine article on the band. Last night Bobby and I were surprised to get a bottle of J.D. Tonight it was expected. Could be dangerous. It feels as though we’ve come home. Even though we can’t speak our native tongue, ha ha. Wank. We’re on the same tour bus that we used this year in the UK, as we swapped buses earlier today."

Friday 1^st November - Fontenay

8 EME ROCK FESTIVAL at the Grande Prairie in Fontenay. Baby Chaos on first followed by Chokebore, Sloy, and headliners Girls Against Boys.

From my diary:

- "Who the fuck knows what goes on. You see the problem is I wait too long to write this kind of shit so basically by this point I’ve had Uncle Jock, tasted that nasty beer stuff and had some funny French liqueur poured down my neck. Twas another top night. Hopefully I’ll remember the afternoon and morning later, but tonight has been top. Girls Against Boys were good and"

At this point I must have felt it was important to get some different perspectives so I let everyone else write in my diary. As it was written whilst the bus was moving and the standard of writing was appalling I’ve had a bastard of a time trying to decipher the following code. As for Zmago….well he wrote in Slovenian, didn’t he!?

Gen’s thoughts:

- "Top gig, not quite the mega affair of yesterday but good to be first on the bill - 40 minutes of lean, mean, power - or it would have been if we were any good (ARF! ARF!).

Played several minutes in total darkness - lucky old punter. Very well received and plenty of autographing afterwards.

Good food but catering ran out of desserts and very, very cute catering girlies.

Good, friendly atmosphere among the bands afterwards - watched some of each band and they all had their good moments.

Table tennis, Darts and drink, what a combination and to cap it all, we challenged and won at football against the in house crew - we are as yet unbeaten.

BABY CHAOS 2 FRANCE 0"

And from Zmago:

Now for young Mr Christopher Gordon’s nonsense:

- "The inspiration for my self pity was evil demons mo fo ass anyway my clean memory is not for public though perhaps I might be a mad impetuous fuck off so why do I give me space you for thought you arghh fuck thinky tricep cock boy."

Jean Phillipe, our tour manager:

- "At this moment I’m listening to the first LP of Smashing Pumpkins in the B.C. tour bus. It’s remind me lot of things (5 years ago!). This is at this moment when you are writing some words that you are sure everything go too far.

5 years ago I was a student and now I’m travelling with bands all around my country. But one thing is sure: each band is different but all are "sympathetic" and very nice.

Sometimes I feel far from home but when everything go like at this moment, maybe it’s a kind of pleasure: no trouble, no pain. The life just going on!"

Bobby:

- "J’ai une formidable crap red mark between my thumb + my other bit kinky - fuck yeah! - but or mais as we patter en francais, class - un autre group - not to do the biz. It is a cruel trick of la vie -

PISH PISH PISH PISH

No cancer pas de maladie or so I/he je/il thinks. The power to do this/that shit works big Fact - hey! Sky high.

And back to me, Grant:

- "Another night has passed and for some reason I’ve let all these knobs write in my book. I haven’t read what they’ve written but I’m sure it’s for shit. Never mind, there may be some intriguing insight there somewhere. The gig was good, but not as good as last night. Beelzebob acted out his usual problems, but we all know the fanny is faking it most of the time, and his problems are self induced. Del was obviously hassled….the sweatiest man alive was even more sweaty. By now I’ve almost given up."

Saturday 2^nd November - Ris Orangis

I woke up feeling a little spaced at 15.00 (par for the course) to find the bus empty. Everybody else was in the venue, Le Plan, having food and setting up the gear. Apparently, Le Plan was the last place Rory Gallagher played before he died so they named the street it’s on after him.

After the soundcheck we were effectively barred from the dressing room as Francois Etienne, a photographer we had previously met in Paris, was arranging a pleasant little set up in which we could be photographed. Fortunately, the photo session didn’t take too long and, following a short kick about with support band Mary’s Child, we were soon sitting down to a meal in the restaurant adjoining the venue. By this time people were queuing outside the venue looking into the restaurant at us, so we minded our manners and ate our food as though we were recent graduates from Miss Mayhews School of Etiquette. Soon enough much of the crowd had cottoned on to the fact that they could avoid queuing outside in the cold and, instead, came into the restaurant and talked away with us. Much autographing and allocation of guest list places ensued. Way hey, Rock ‘n’ Roll stardom!

Although the venue wasn’t rammed with people this gig was one of the best on the tour as the folk who were there went mad for it. I’m puzzled by this reaction because I’ve seen a video of the gig….we played like four hot, steaming turds.

After the gig Francois took some more photos in the dressing room. There was also more autographing of posters and tickets, and much showering before we returned to the restaurant which was open far later than the venue. The restaurant proved to be the catalyst for our descent into madness. We drank ourselves into a stupor whilst chatting to a group of young girls who had travelled from nearby Paris. Eventually we had to be kicked out the restaurant and onto the bus where over exuberance and general depravity resulted in, amongst other things, the destruction of the rear lounge table.

This night will forever be remembered with the immortal phrase, "But Chris….I am only 15" (add French accent).

Sunday 3^rd November - Nevers

Now I’m really struggling. No notes and only my slightly suspect memory to fall back on. Never mind, I’ll try my best.

Sunday, as most people know, is supposed to be God’s day. Well he certainly exacted his wrath on us this morning as punishment for last nights excesses. Apparently, Gen suffering from a bout of funny tummy and a potentially disastrous need for a bowel movement, was forced into foraging through a nearby wood in search of a convenient location, as the venue and it’s toilets weren’t open yet. On his way to the woods, Gen bumped into Nic returning from having relieved a similar problem. It seems everyone, including Mary’s Child, had suffered from eating the delicious turkey curry last night.

As soon as we were allowed access to the venue, Maison des Montots, we immediately set about trying to find some food. As luck would have it there was a barbecue waiting to be lit and plenty of sausages to cook on it. So, in spite of the muted protests from Stephane Mohr, our liaison at the gig, Del commandeered the above items and proceeded to cook us up some storming rolls and sausage, washed down with some typically strong French coffee.

The venue was a bit strange in so far as half of it was similar to a town hall whilst the other half was a collection of marquees joined together. This was another festival, completely different to British festivals, so there were four bands playing. First on, in the marquee, was a local band called Pebble Needle, followed by us then Girls Against Boys in the hall, with Big Mama finishing off the night in the marquee. They were a humorous French band who dressed in jesters outfits and were surprisingly good.

The gig was good, as usual, it being nice to go on relatively early and play a shorter set. This was my second chance to see Girls Against Boys and, once again, I thought they were excellent. They nearly didn’t make it to the gig for some reason or an other, but they arrived with just enough time to get their gear set up and get onstage. Their sound was good considering they hadn’t soundchecked.

Well, that’s as far as my memory serves so…next!

Monday 4^th November - Angouleme

So, onto Angouleme, the last show of the first leg on this French tour. To be honest, at this stage, I was beginning to be very grateful for the forthcoming break from touring. I’d miss playing the gigs but not the accompanying lifestyle.

La Nef, the venue in Angouleme, was another excellent purpose built venue, similar to L’Aeronef in Lille. The only drawback was that, like a few of the other venues we’d played on this tour, it was situated in an industrial estate. This ruled out wandering through Angouleme and kept us thinking of things to do in the interim period between soundcheck and gig. Fortunately football is always an option.

Mary’s Child were supporting us for the last time tonight, and once again they were good, although their extended soundcheck for which they were joined by Zmago on Gen’s drums did get really fucking annoying.

This was probably the strangest gig of the tour. When Mary’s Child were onstage the crowd was fairly quiet and, to be honest, not particularly large. So before we took to the stage we were all a bit down as it looked as though this last gig was going to be a subdued affair. However, when we went onstage the atmosphere did improve. The crowd seemed to have swelled and they made more noise, though it felt like many of them were there to check us out for the first time rather than already being big fans of the band. About half way through the set our friend Heimi Buttshahftr, an entrepreneurial figure in the recording industry, joined us onstage and managed to get the crowd going a bit more. Before we had gone offstage for the first time the crowd reaction continued to be somewhat muted, so we were shocked by their response when we did go off. They cheered and chanted so much that we couldn’t refuse them an encore. And another, and another. We did so many encores it became a bit farcical, almost cabaret. So the concert ended well, if not brilliantly.

Tuesday 5^th November - Travel day

Long, boring journey. I love the trip from Glasgow to wherever we’re going, but I hate the drive back.

Wednesday 20^th November - Travel Day

We left a day later for France thanks to the cancellation of our gig in Nice. We were booked to play Le Forum but it was shut down two weeks before our gig due to local residents complaining about the noise levels. This was a real let down for us as we had sold out our gig in Nice last year.

So, armed with gifts for Florent and Anne Sophie, we started our trek to Paris in a nice, big double decker bus and with not one but two drivers, one of them Neil. The chosen gifts for the gruesome twosome were a program from the Kilmarnock v Motherwell football match we had been to on Saturday, in which Tommy Coyne delivered three suckerpunches to Kilmarnock, and two bottles of Buckfast, which, although not exactly Scottish, is probably consumed more here than anywhere else.

We needed a bus with more bunks for this part of the tour as more people would be joining us this time round. Florent, Anne Sophie, our friend Thomas, Bobby’s girlfriend Irene and Zmago’s girlfriend Andrea were all extra bodies on the bus. So, despite the absence of Jean Phillipe, we still had 15 people to cater for. This meant the other driver, Jimmy, had to sleep in one of the drivers "coffin" bunks underneath the main sleeping area.

Despite the snow we made good time from Glasgow to Scratchwood (to pick up the Londoners) and managed to make the 24.30 ferry to Calais. As we approached Dover signs had warned us to expect delays, but fortunately we were only kept waiting for 25 minutes before being let on the Stena Invicta.

Once in France, Neil had to pull over in the nearest lay by as his and Jimmy’s driving hours had been fully used up for the day. Because they had to rest for 9 hours our plans to wander Paris in the morning were scuppered as we now didn’t expect to arrive until 14.00, soundcheck time.

Thursday 21^st November - Paris

By the time we were driving into Paris most of the assembled posse was up and about. The venue, Le Divan du Monde, is in the Pigalle district of Paris, the red light area, so we knew there’d be plenty to see after we’d done the soundcheck. Everybody that seemed to know anything about this area constantly warned us not to take our eyes off the equipment as things liked to go walkies.

We took a little longer over the soundcheck today because we hadn’t played together since the gig in Angouleme 2 ½ weeks ago. Everything sounded great, naturally, and the new effects boards (for our guitar effects pedals) that Nic had made, with design tips from Del, actually inspired me so much I’ve turned into Ywingie Malmsteen’s bastard child.

Following a couple of cups of double leaded coffee to complete the revival process we all went our separate ways for a couple of hours before the gig. Chris, Scott and myself took a stroll along Boulevard de Clichy looking at the dodgy shop fronts before going for a beer in a bar that had genuine grass and leaves on the floor instead of carpet. After trading in Scott for Thomas we decided that, having sampled the more seedy and sleazy side of Parisian culture, we should visit the nearby Sacre Coeur for a more traditional cultural experience. The views of Paris from the Sacre Coeur are great and, despite my being completely indifferent toward religion, I enjoyed watching a sermon taking place.

The support band tonight were called Jaff. I know they had at least one Englishman in their ranks because I spoke to him briefly after the show, but I’m not sure where exactly they came from or where they’re based. I never had the chance to watch them but I was told they were good.

Playing in Paris is a bit like playing in London in so far as there are always plenty of people there from the record company, magazines, booking agents, etc. Our agent in the UK, Jim Morewood from Fair Warning, arrived unexpected offering his usual greeting, "How ye doing wee laddies?", and introduced us to Salomon from Garance, one of France’s top promoters. Pascal and Bryce from East West came down to the dressing room before the show with Olivier Portnoy, a journalist with Rage magazine, whom we first met a couple of years ago when we first did Nulle Part Ailleurs. Olivier wants to do an article on us in our hometown of Glasgow. I reckon he just wants a holiday. We also met Gilles-Dan Moyal, a guy who hadn’t heard of until he came across the Web site and is now totally into the band.

The gig was good. There were no real technical fuck ups with exception of my guitar strings constantly popping out of their housing at the bridge. Although the stage was big enough and the hall looked pretty good, the sound in Le Divan du Monde is poor. For Zmago to get the best sound possible he ordered Chris and I to turn our guitar levels down on stage so that the only guitars to be heard came via the PA. It’s hard to be enthusiastic when you’ve got a bass and drum mix on stage. But, as I said, the gig was good.

Afterwards it seemed everybody had decided to forget about eating and used their buy out money (100FF / £12) for all together more worthy pleasures. So we spent the next couple of hours taking in a dodgy strip show, coming across a genuinely gay dog, and having a few beers before heading off for St. Etienne.

Friday 22^nd November - St. Etienne

Snow, snow everywhere. I trudged through the 3 inch deep snow to the venue with a distinct fear of attack from the snowball wielding maniac. I made it unscathed but arrived to find workmen putting the final touches to the hall, one of many in the Parc des Expositions. I later found out that we were playing the first ever gig in this hall. Guinea pigs again.

As I couldn’t get into the dressing room due to the work-in-progress I wandered about aimlessly for ten minutes until some energetic soul suggested a game of football. So Anne So, Flo, Scott, Chris, Thomas, Nic and I broke into one of the bigger halls across from where we were playing the gig. Despite Anne Sophie’s desperate lunges, my team (with Thomas and Flo) came back from 3 - 1 down to win 5 - 4. It was then that we were attacked by the snowball wielding maniacs.

Neil, our normally quiet and reserved driver, had been corrupted by Jimmy, the additional driver, and the two had spent the previous 3 hours in a bar somewhere in St. Etienne. As a result the two were completely bladdered and thought a snowball fight would be a great idea as we tried to unload our gear from the bus. Many cold hands and sore faces later we were loaded in doing the soundcheck.

Once again everyone went their separate ways after the soundcheck, but I couldn’t wander for too long as my football injury had worsened (this was picked up in a momentous victory for our pub team in Glasgow, Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, or Inter Sleazy as we prefer to be known). Instead, I helped Scott set up his T-shirt stall to look it’s most aesthetically pleasing, a feat not so easily achieved with the hideous purple T-shirts we were trying to off load to unsuspecting punter. Scott wanted to give them away. That’s Bobby Dunn’s artistic direction for you.

Gen and Chris went off to do an interview at the local radio station in the early evening. Apparently the radio station had gone to the trouble of getting in a Scottish guy who used to stay in East Kilbride as a translator. This, in theory, was a good idea but in reality the guy was really nervous as he had never been on radio before. He did help translate what Chris said though, and, through their English and Gen’s French, the lads managed to make themselves understood...... not necessarily a good thing.

After having some photos taken outside in the freezing weather by a photographer form Rocksound magazine we played a gig. The hall we played in was far too big for us. The capacity of the place was 700 and we had only 250 people in it. This didn’t stop the people who were there from indulging themselves in lunatic bouts of stage diving on to barren expanses of cold concrete. The gig was made worse by the extreme cold. The manager of the place said he wasn’t allowed to turn the heating on while people were in the venue!?? So, despite the lights, we barely worked up a sweat. We would have been better playing the same venue we played in St. Etienne last year, La Mune, which is in the middle of town and is a far more suitable size.

As we were packing up the gear after the gig we discovered that one of our cymbal cases and Del’s laminates were missing. The problem is that the cymbals could have gone missing in Paris and we simply hadn’t noticed. Fortunately, the cymbals in this case were Gen’s spares. Del was on a bit of a downer though.

Following a late meal at a nice restaurant where we were joined by the DJ Captain Bob and some other people from the radio station, Neil and Jimmy decided we had to miss out on going to a club and instead go on a search for diesel, deliveries of which had been stopped by the truck drivers strike. Whenever we are in France there always seems to be some kind of industrial action going on that affects us directly. Last year when we were playing colleges there was a students strike, and this year the truck drivers had just started industrial action over pay and holidays. Fortunately, garages seemed to have enough reserves of diesel and we made it to Mulhouse without a hitch.

Saturday 23^rd November - Mulhouse

Once again we managed to partake in a spot of early afternoon exercise, thanks to the basketball court directly outside the Noumatruoff. It’s not really the right game for a bunch of short arses though.

I decided to give Del a hand putting out the leads and pedals, basically getting all the guitar equipment hooked up in an effort to help him get over the loss of his passes. It certainly put a wee smile on his face, but I think that’s ‘cos I did it completely wrong.

After some lunch, showers and much postcard writing, we were taken to a pub in the centre of Mulhouse for a few beers and to meet a few fans. We were asked to do a similar thing last year in Mulhouse and, having agreed, spent a few hours in a record shop talking to embarrassingly few people, so we were reluctant to do it this time. After Anne Sophie had helped me in my fruitless search for a Paris St. Germain football top for my brothers Christmas, we went to the bar where the rest of the lads were already quaffing a few beers. Initially we spent the time talking amongst ourselves but soon someone had put "Safe sex…." on the sound system and we were inundated with people wielding CDs and posters to sign. Honest! It turned out to be a good afternoon……free beer and appreciative fans. What more could we possibly want?

The support band tonight were called Near Death Experience and were one of the better bands we had played with on this tour. They were kind of like Helmet with samplers. So good I bought the sweatshirt.

Whether it was because this was the last night of the tour or simply that tour madness had finally taken over I don’t know, but tonight’s gig was mayhem. It all started harmlessly enough, with the exception of pre-show dressing room antics, and only finally crossed the border in to turmoil during Sperm. This was when I noticed Bobby attempting one of his Salmon-esque leaps only to crumble to the floor in a dishevelled heap. I though this was kind of funny so I sat on him only to be pounced upon by Chris when he noticed what was happening. It’s hard to play even the simplest of barre chords when a man is sitting on your hands. Shambles.

After the disastrous end of Sperm, we opened the dressing room to be confronted by the sight of Heimi Buttshahftr wearing only his underpants, a leather jacket and a gimp mask. We also discovered that the reason Bobby had been on the floor during Sperm was that he had twisted his ankle and couldn’t stand. Hence, for the encore Bobby required a comfy chair on stage. Heimi joined us onstage for his recent hit "Full Sex" out on Anous Records, before departing, probably via helicopter, to let us get on with Golden Tooth.

The rest of the night included such scenes as Chris and Zmago walking naked through the venue, a game of football in the venue where Chris’s main tactic was to slide tackle everybody, anybody and anything, naked beer spitting contests on the bus, and finally, cornflakes and smoked ham on Florent’s bunk as revenge for one of his earlier misdemeanours. I had a sticky nights sleep.

Sunday 24^th November - Travel day

Wake up, ferry, still drunk, McDonalds, sit down, fresh orange and lemonade, duty free, 48 beers, for 14 quid, bus, read More magazine, sleep, London, fewer people on the bus, sleep, no appetite, sleep, read, sleep, fever, cold, flu, whatever it was, sleep, service station, chicken sandwich, video, sleep, shiver, sleep, cigarette, Glasgow, rehearsal room, unload, Nic’s flat, Star Trek, my flat, cigarette, water, sleep.

I want hotels next time.

Grant.