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!