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Archive Sunday #41

Added 2024-03-24 13:00:09 +0000 UTC

The next day we drove west towards Switzerland. We got to the border crossing and quickly realized there was something wrong when there was a lengthy conversation in German between Luc and the border guard. Our paperwork was all in-order, but it turns out our van was much overweight for the Swiss regulations. We didn't have much time to spare, so we quickly unloaded the bass and guitar amp along with all of the merch to the side of the road. Kata graciously volunteered to wait it out with everything, while we promised to scoop her back up as quickly as possible.

Luckily we called TRAAMS along the way, and arranged for them to pick her up a couple hours later since they were taking the same route. We made it just in time into Zurich to load-in with the rest of the gear and get a quick line-check. TRAAMS even let us use a couple of their amps for the night to save us time. The show went well even after the day's added stress, and we cleared out in time for the venue to start their dj night. Once everything was loaded back in the van, we all went out for pizza to decompress.

The next day was a travel day, so I got up early to walk around the city and check out some sights. Once everyone else was up, we headed into France and stayed an hour or so outside of Paris in the small town of Fontainebleau. It was just outside a national forest, and we wandered into town to hit up a little pastry shop with our extra time to kill.

The following morning we drove the rest of the way into Paris, where we loaded-in to the venue called Le Divan du Monde. It was this beautiful old cabaret theater that had tons of Parisian flavor. Once we finished soundcheck, we all went out to enjoy the nice weather and walked up to the nearby hilltop village of Monmartre. After wandering the streets we hiked up to the popular scenic view overlooking the rest of Paris. We had to dodge a few swindlers selling bracelets wrapped around the wrists of unsuspecting tourists, but we made it back down the hill where we found a nice little restaurant for dinner. The show went great and the crowd seemed to enjoy it almost as much as we did.

After that, we headed through the channel to get to London. We played at the Electric Ballroom in the familiar Camden neighborhood with streets lined with food carts and t-shirt vendors. It was definitely a step up in venue size and we were all pretty surprised that it filled up. I think this was the show where I convinced the guys to throw Stoop Kid in the set, even though Andrew was a bit skeptical it would go over well with such little preparation. Thankfully the crowd loved it and it contributed to an overall great night.

Next, we made our way up to Manchester to play the Gorilla built under the massive brick railway arches through town. We were all pretty tired at that point, but thankfully the rowdy and raucous Manchester crowd always brings the energy and excitement up. Then we continued north up to Scotland where we played the BBC 6 festival in Glasgow. Our show took place in this old church called St. Lukes where we got to meet up with the Lemon Twigs again in the lounge before we played. It was a short but sweet set which came as a relief after a long day of traveling.

We made our way back south to hit up the city of Leeds for our first time ever. We played at a place called Brudenell Social Club not too far from the university there. The venue made the English delicacy of meat pies and even had vegetarian ones for me to try. This was probably the first time English cuisine started to click for me, and Ethan's raving over the sausage rolls at the gas stations started to make sense. The show was a small one, but turned out to be especially fun with the tight, compact stage and the close crowd.

Our final show of the tour was out on the island of Ireland, so we drove through Wales to catch a ferry across the water. Unfortunately the Welsh police seemed to be sticklers for the rules much like the Swiss so we got stopped once more for being overweight while driving through. Thankfully they had a better system in place and offered for us to store some stuff in a secured locker and pick it up later. So we unloaded most of the amps in the locker and told the officer Luc would be back tomorrow on his way to return the van. Then we finally made it to the ferry just in time to cross over into Dublin.

Thankfully the TRAAMS guys saved our butts once more and let us borrow their amps for the show that night at the Academy. So we played our final set using mostly borrowed gear to probably one of the best crowds of the run. Afterwards we each had a Guinness that the promoter assured would be much better than the American version we were used to. Then we said our goodbyes to Luc and Kata as they prepared to drive back to Holland and we got ready for our long flight back home. The Europe runs are always especially difficult navigating the different restrictions and cultures of each country, but at least we learned some lessons for next time. Luckily we had several fantastic shows along the way that made us excited to come back for more.