After a bit of Google research one of the guys discovered there was only one place within walking distance where food would be available - until 2pm! So we rushed there and to be fair it was a really nice, comfortable restaurant. Unfortunately for me, I can't speak French and nobody there spoke English but I managed to order a portion of potato wedges anyway. Not exactly my usual standards when it comes to healthy meals but at least I could safely order knowing there were no animals involved.
When we got back to the bus to our delight we discovered that there were people working in the venue until 6pm and we were allowed access to the toilets, showers and Wi-Fi! If you've ever toured you will appreciate how great that news was! Also, it was an absolutely stunning, boiling hot day so I grabbed a chair from the venue and read my book in the sun for an hour or so. I am currently reading 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind' by Yuval Noah Harari. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has the desire to learn more about the history of our species evolved, how and why society gradually changed due to the agricultural revolution etc. It's a best selling book so you won't have trouble finding it if you are interested.
Meanwhile our techs Solj and Dai made use of the free time by re-stinging the guitars and also attempted to see what was potentially wrong with one of the guitar cabinets. I think they managed to solve the problem anyway. Here is a photo of the insides of a guitar cabinet for anyone remotely interested.
I grabbed a shower before the venue closed and felt pretty good. A few of us even cracked open some beers. Back to gaming, I packed my Nintendo 64 console and after using what seemed like endless use of adaptors I managed to get it hooked up in the back lounge. Myself, my brother Tyla and our driver Mike spent a good hour battling it out on Goldeneye 007, Mario Kart and International Superstar Soccer 64 which were our favourites 20 years ago! We all decided to play on the same team as Wales vs Belgium and got pummelled by the computer controlled team. Football games these days feel very difficult but back in the day you couldn't beat ISS64 and it's made up player names! We actually took a short break to go check out the beautiful red sky after sunset. I was gutted I actually missed the sunset itself as I imagine it was probably glorious!
Hunger was striking. After a struggle we managed to find one junk food burger/pizza place on JustEat.fr that would deliver to our rural location. Again, nothing vegan on the menu but I ordered a portion of French Fries to get involved anyway. That's when my emergency stash of microwave rice/grain packets came in handy. 1 minute microwave lentils and vegetables from Aldi and you've got a relatively half decent meal to go alongside with the fries - which were awful by the way.
For me the evening ended with a few beers watching a Pritchard Vs Dainton DVD in the back lounge with Tyla and Neil. Even though I was well aware of it I hadn't really watched a whole lot of Dirty Sanchez back in the day so this was an eye opener. Those guys were absolutely mental doing all sorts of hideous acts involving shit, piss and sharp objects etc. I follow Matt Pritchard on social media after he came to a 'Bastard Sons show and he is now an inspiring vegan chef, author, TV presenter and multi iron man endurance athlete!
I had a decent sleep and onto the show day. There was a promise of breakfast up until 11am so I made sure I was there for that. Muesli and juice indoors instead of inside a bus was a nice change at least. There was egg and bacon also available so it bonus for the other guys who woke up in time.
We loaded in early and made sure there was plenty of time for a soundcheck. The venue staff were really friendly and there were lots of them. In France, it's quite common to have regimented Lunch and Dinner times for the bands and venue staff and today was no different. Thankfully for me, the lunch was very healthy and they had made special vegan dishes for me and the other veggies. There was lots of it too! Very happy and full drummer ready for soundcheck.
Despite having plenty of time for a lengthy soundcheck we got it over and done with pretty quickly. Tyla had a bit of an issue with his bass rig but it got sorted out fairly quickly. I had cleaned my IEM's out again and changed the buds on them to experiment whether they could sound better for me. I think they were a tad clearer and seemed to stay inside my ears better so that's an obvious bonus.
I went for a lie down after soundcheck and put on a meditation session on my Headspace app. I found it difficult to zone out properly so it didn't go very well so be honest. But still it's nice to try and rest your body and mind for a short while.
Soon enough it was dinner time which was even better than lunch! Whoop!
After dinner I used the time to go through some drum videos on my laptop and I did try to upload one but unfortunately it kept failing so I gave up after the 5th attempt. Sorry.
Showtime was soon enough. It wasn't the busiest crowd but was pretty decent considering where we were in the country! The audience didn't take long to warm up and we got them jumping up and down, singing and giving us the middle finger soon enough! Sadly my monitor sound was nothing like how it was in soundcheck, this was frustrating but I just tried getting on with it anyway instead of spending half of the gig asking for changes to be made in between songs.
Overall it was a decent show in a nice venue! I would come back for sure. Shower, pack away my drums, load out as we were leaving at 1am for another mammoth drive to Switzerland.
To be continued...
I love your blogs! Thank you for taking the time to do them.
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