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.