Marcus, Niko and I had one last day in Paris, and I think it’s safe to say we made the most of it. We met up with the Bruxelles guys and wandered around Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where such famous people as Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and Gertrude Stein are buried. We visited Chopin, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison (we’re in rock bands, it’s sort of a requirement, I guess).

As we meandered around the cemetery, we faced the slow dawning realization that we were going to have to say goodbye to Bruxelles very soon… this was it, the end of the three weeks, no getting away from it. We lingered for a while chatting with Thomas, Jimmy, Raphael, Kevin and Arnaud, then demanded Canadian-style hugs as well as the usual French-style kiss-on-each-cheek thing.

Before we started the tour, I had wondered how the different languages would play out, how we’d manage to communicate. The guys and their friends all have varying levels of English and our own French was fairly hit & miss. But it was fascinating to me how we’d all manage to bridge the gap. We found that if we weren’t sure about a French word, we could often say the English word with a French inflection and it would be pretty close. And many English words have been ported into French as well. We did get stuck from time to time, but usually we figured it out - if need be, with the help of an iPhone translator app.

(Of course we compared swear words in each others’ languages and learned some creative new expressions. And also learned some important things NOT to say - for example, while you can say “she’s good” in English to mean “she’s doing well” or “she is good at what she does", saying “elle est bon” in French is about as crude as catcalling at a woman and saying “I’d hit that"!)

After we said our goodbyes, we hopped on the Metro to meet up with our friend Sylvie near the Arc de Triomphe, and joined the hordes of people on the famous Avenue des Champs-Elysées, watching in disbelief as tourists lined up around the block to visit the Gucci store or whatever. We went for tea at a nearby cafe, and avoided ordering the €22 cheeseburger (?!). We got out of there and Sylvie showed us around some nice areas away from the touristy parts of Paris. We eventually picked a random reasonably-priced French restaurant in the 13th district for a great dinner & chat. I had one of the most amazing meals of the trip, a pintade aux choux (guinea fowl with cabbage) with incredible flavours, accompanied by a glass of Bordeaux. A fantastic final meal in France.

It turns out we’re actually quite lucky we left France when we did. Our flight left early Monday morning, and the country was due for a general strike - and possible petrol shortage - on Tuesday. We had no problems, but noticed long, long lines of cars waiting to tank up at the stations on the way out. A few days later we heard the roads to the airport were being blocked, so who knows what would have happened. Still… another few days of croissants and cheese wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. I’d have gone back for another pintade, I know that for sure.

And that’s it, we’re back, returning to reality in Canada, realizing that life goes on after the tour. Hard to believe it’s done - most of a year’s planning went into this, and it very nearly didn’t happen at all - but we did it! And we’ve got some fantastic new friends, memories, inspiration, ideas and plans to show for it.

Our next show will be our tour return party, on Friday, November 19 at the Railway Club in Vancouver, along with The Gentle Infidels, Stride Elementary, and David Blair. We hope you’ll come celebrate with us!

Huge thanks to everyone in France who put us up at their place, fed us, interpreted our broken French, pointed us in the right direction, loaned us things, came to a show, told their friends about us, and shared their lives with us.

Huge thanks to everyone in Canada who encouraged and supported us, gave us leads and suggestions, contributed to our tour kickoff, came to shows and told their friends.

See you soon!

Okay. It’s been a crazy couple of days, and a lot to process. Where did we leave off? Oh yes:

Beauvais

Didn’t quite know what to expect from Beauvais. It’s a town on the outskirts of Paris, a little too far to be considered a suburb. The venue we were playing, Chaudron Baveur, was a nice clean upscale sort of pub. Looking around, I had the feeling that most of the people there weren’t really there to see a band, and that we would be playing background music. Turned out I was wrong.

The owner gave us some fantastic meals - the freshest pasta ever. Some places treat you really well, and it just puts you in a great mindset and you play that much better. Bruxelles went on first again and did their thing. Those guys are really consistent and it’s been a joy to watch them every night, plus I have had their songs stuck in my head for days straight and I don’t mind one bit.

There was a nice big crowd by the time we went on, including a few Canadians living in Europe and the UK, and the people were totally into the music (there was one guy doing odd interpretive dance on the floor - this seems to be a trend). Unfortunately, my keyboard was totally busted and wouldn’t connect to the computer at all. Thomas and Jimmy set me up with Bruxelles’ Microkorg, and before each song I did a little experimentation to find some patches that sounded close enough to the original. It worked out pretty well, and the songs still seemed to come across.

Living at Ikea

After the show, we went on a quest to find the Formule 1 hotel near Beauvais. Formule 1 was a new concept to us. It’s a sort of a discount hotel chain, each made from a cookie-cutter template, and staying there is something like a cross between an Ikea catalogue and a hostel. You get a tiny room with a shiny, brightly-coloured bunkbed and a sink, and at each end of the hallway there’s these tiny individual pre-fab washrooms and showers that make you feel a bit like you’re on a space shuttle.

Finding the F1 was already a bit of a challenge. Getting in was like a comedy routine. The hotel was behind a giant fence which didn’t appear to have an entrance, and we went around in circles trying to figure out how to get inside (in classic French driving style, Jimmy did a deliberate 360 on the highway at one point). Then we had to find and punch in a code, which didn’t work at first. But at least we felt pretty safe inside the fortress, once we eventually got through the drawbridge.

The hotel wasn’t too bad, actually rather clean and quiet, except that I got the distinct impression that those space shuttle capsules were out to get me - I’d enter the washroom and lock the door and suddenly the toilet would start flushing and not stop. I tried to take a shower in the morning and it was so scalding hot that I couldn’t get in, regardless of which way I turned the tap. Marcus’s shower was the opposite, freezing cold. Niko’s was just right… who does he think he is, Goldilocks?

Paris: Wonderful and Awful

Friday, October 15 we were due to head to Paris. The day did not get off to a good start, as we found out that our last show in Lille on Saturday was a no-go, which was bitterly disappointing as I had been looking forward to seeing another part of France and wasn’t ready to end the tour so suddenly. Also, I was going to have to deal with the busted keyboard issue and figure out what to do that night. We had trouble finding the right place to eat and get some things we needed. On the way, we heard that the protests in France about the increase of the retirement age were blocking many roads in Paris and turning into riots. Great.

By the time we got to soundcheck at L’International we were tired, hungry, and grumpy. I decided to use Bruxelles’ Microkorg again and just spend a bit of time fine-tuning the sounds, so that helped a bit. I wandered the neighbourhood trying to find wi-fi, eventually standing outside a McDonald’s to get a signal (I refuse to eat there!) We were given dinner at a couscous restaurant across the street.

(Arnaud was there in spirit… he arrived later for the show.)

Things picked up from there. We were delighted to see two people we knew from Vancouver - JB, now living in Switzerland, and Daniel, living for a while in Italy - who had both come to Paris to see us, as well as a few familiar Parisian faces from the last show. We were playing to a packed room from the start, and the crowd was fantastic - enthusiastic and attentive, and a lot of fun. We talked to them in English and in French, and the entire crowd helped me with my French, answering my questions together in chorus - should I say “nouveaux” or “nouvelles"? I even managed to joke in French, and they even laughed. We played a great set, and realized quickly that this was the best possible way to end the tour after all - playing our very best to a crowded cheering audience in Paris. It was a wonderful show.

After Bruxelles’s set (happy birthday, Jimmy!), we packed up and joined the crowd in the upstairs and downstairs of L’International, talking to people from France, Norway, Australia, the US and everywhere. It was a great celebration.

Until I happened to glance down at my purse and saw that it was wide open - and with a lurch in my stomach I realized that my wallet was gone. It was a horrible feeling, trying to explain in bad French to a stoic and disinterested bouncer that my wallet had been stolen, trying to get anyone to do anything. I found out later that a few other people had almost caught someone going after their own purses or wallets, and there seemed to be a team of men working the crowd; we even managed to narrow down who we thought it was, but nobody could prove anything and I hadn’t caught anyone in the act. We’d been so careful through the entire tour with all of our money, gear, everything, and I’d been so good about tying the zipper on my purse, but I’d let my guard down for a few minutes. I felt sick.

The bastard got my credit and bank cards, driver’s license, various other ID - and about two hundred euros from the previous days’ sales of CDs and t-shirts. That hurt a lot, because we’re an independent band, entirely self-funded, and everything we earn makes a difference. But I have to tell myself I’m lucky they didn’t get my passport, which was hidden in a separate pocket, or my iPhone, and I had some money in a separate pocket as well, so I’m okay for food and so on until we get back to Canada. No one got hurt, and I had good friends around me to help me out and calm me down. It could have been a lot worse, and I keep reminding myself of that.

Saturday was very, very low energy. It was a bit of a rough night, and we decided it was time to splurge on a hotel. There were a few parties and things we were invited to, but we’re pretty tired, and packed it in early to recover. We’ve still got Sunday in Paris, so we’ll try to see some more sights before we head back on Monday. One more blog post coming when we get back….

The drive to Caen was long, easy and pleasant. We’re in a different van now, which is a bit smaller and requires careful organization to fit everybody in with all the gear, but it’s newer and shinier and quieter, so that’s nice.

Caen is a university town, and much more laid back and hippietastic than the other cities we’ve visited; in many ways it reminds us of Vancouver. There’s some great characters here, and we’re lucky enough to have a few people hosting us in the heart of town. One fellow at the place Bruxelles is staying was kind enough to make us a wonderful vegetarian dinner. Afterwards, he proceeded to start a small, contained fire on the coffee table.

Us three ARCTIC folks are staying elsewhere, directly across the street from a castle built by William the Conqueror in 1060. This is endlessly fascinating to us Canadians, since there’s not exactly a whole lot of thousand-year-old castles in any of our neighbourhoods in Vancouver, and we wandered around in awe staring at it for a while.

Our first show in Caen was at L’Ubu Cafe, a funky and enjoyable place. It’s narrow, so people usually prefer to lurk near the entrance rather than come up to the stage, but we were all able to lure a crowd closer. Bruxelles soundchecked and opened the night, followed by Pop the Fish, a French solo artist with some enthusiastic songs. We went on third and had a really enjoyable set, got some people dancing and had a grand time. Had a bit of a funny moment when people started clapping in rhythm at the beginning of “You Coming Down"… but way too slow for the song… so Marcus had to get them all clapping faster so that he could start the song and record the loop properly.

Lewis, lead singer of The Lanskies and a seriously intense entertainer, closed the evening with some wild and rowdy solo rock ‘n’ roll tunes, standing on chairs and tables and belting his songs in his Liverpool accent, demanding people sing along (which they did).

Our second show in Caen was at Les Atelier Intermediares, which turned out to be a sort of performance/workshop warehouse space a little out of town, where our hosts assembled a stage and converted the place into a good-sized performance venue, including video projections and pretty lights. The night started with a lovely haunting set from solo singer/songwriter Adrift, and then Bruxelles took over and filled the room with sound. We went on to a good, enthusiastic crowd, and it was all fine except for that the keyboard I’m using, which has a wonky USB jack, finally started to give up the ghost and kept cutting out in the middle of songs. I’m really hoping it’ll hold together for the last three shows of the tour. I’ve got some ideas for fixing it, but it is not a happy keyboard.

Afterwards, a DJ named Subsuker took over and the space got a little surreal, with guys doing shirtless interpretive dances to classical pieces after about an hour of house music. We headed back to our home by the castle and got some rest for the drive to Beauvais.

We’d like to send a little shout out to Pascal Dickens for setting everything up for these two shows - they were both excellent, we had a wonderful time and met terrific people.

Can’t believe we’ll be home in only five days. Leave us a message and remind us of home… here on our blog or on our Facebook page!

First outing in the tour van!

Paris was an interesting sort of adventure. The original plan was to get there at 6:00, soundcheck, have a bite to eat and a little bit of time to decompress before the show at 8:00. Instead, the traffic approaching Paris was so incredibly thick and slow that we didn’t arrive at Truskel until 7:45, where the sound guy was standing in the doorway glaring waiting for us. So we rushed our load-in right to the tiny cramped stage, set up, did one quick song to soundcheck, had a few minutes’ break, and then played our set. I don’t think it was one of the best shows of our existence, given that we’d also been sick for most of the past week. But we survived. Next week we play Paris again at L’International and we’re hoping and planning for better circumstances.

After our set, Bruxelles played (they couldn’t all fit on the stage though), and afterwards half of us wandered off to find a restaurant and had an absolutely lovely meal. After a fairly long and trying day, we decided it was time to head off to the home where we were staying. We wandered back to Truskel, which had turned into a dance club in the meantime. The guys who had stayed behind, including the three drivers in Bruxelles, were having a great time and really wanted to stay for the party.

Now, if you know Marcus already, you may know that he loves cars and is an excellent driver. But even I was astounded when he volunteered to drive the tour van (stick shift, “five in the tree", no GPS) through the insanely narrow, twisted streets of the city, amongst the sheer insanity and unpredictability of Parisian drivers that makes New Yorkers look like old ladies behind the wheel. At one point a motorcycle flew past us on the wrong side of the road, speeding through the red light through the intersection where we were stopped. But with Thomas giving directions, Marcus steered us through Paris at 2 AM, along the street that passes through the Louvre, past the Eiffel Tower, squeezing past other cars on roads so tight the van itself had to hold its breath. And he got us there without a scratch.

Saturday was a day off in Paris, and we mostly went our separate ways. Marcus could barely wait to get to the Paris Auto Show and see the new Ferrari and electric cars. Niko, Thomas and Kevin wandered off to hang out by the Eiffel Tower. I went exploring in the Chatelet area and walked for hours, getting happily lost and finding my way again, looking for nicer sections without so many tourists swarming about. We all met up again early in the evening and at the last minute decided to spend another night in Paris, which ended up mostly being spent on a confusing and circuitous search for a hostel somewhere way out in another neighbourhood.

Back to Clermont-Ferrand now, and we have another day before our shows in the north. Up until now we’ve always had Clermont-Ferrand to return to as our home base, and it’s really become a comfort, fun and easy to stay there, to the point where we hardly feel like we’re on tour. But for the rest of the trip, we’re road warriors again.

Wednesday was a day of mostly snoozing and recovering from our colds. I wandered around town once I got up the energy, did a little exploring. Marcus and Jimmy and some of the others checked out the local photography museum, which used to be a hotel. Other than that, we flaked out on the couch, watched movies and checked email.

Thursday, Marcus played a showcase at Spliff, a nice indie record store in Clermont-Ferrand. Shoppers gathered in the back of the room to watch, and local TV was there again to film the event.

From there Marcus had to pack up quickly and high-tail it over to Radio Campus 93.3, where we had an hour-long interview and showcase. This was a lot of fun. They had a translator for us - she was awesome, I want to bring a translator everywhere now! They asked us to play DJ and bring a few tracks by other artists as well, so we gave them a lengthy list of tracks by some of our Vancouver friends, and so out of those, Mongoose, Reid Jamieson and Parlour Steps made it to the airwaves of France. Marcus played a live set of four songs. If you missed it on Thursday, the show will be rebroadcast on Sunday, October 10 at 5pm local time - that’s 8AM PST / 11 AM EST.

After the radio show, we headed to a restaurant near Thomas’s place for a terrific sampling of local organic cheeses, meats and wine. And yes, cheese has definitely been a recurring theme on this trip… and a good one!

This morning we’re packing up for the trip to Paris, where we play at Truskel at 8:00pm. Very excited about this one!