Le Marsatac Festival. Awesome location by the entrance to the old harbour at Marseilles. It’s hot, and brightly lit. Catering fills us with hope and amour pour le Francaise…a cute boy from Mogwai’s crew helps me with my merch boxes (he later turns out to have a thing for Sam...the cheek!) and I skip off to town to meet the ladies and Dylan. Sam, JD, Jen, Radio D and I take the tourist train to the top of the hill, to see what we can see. And it leaves us breathless. Second biggest city in France, and a location to die for. Le Notre Dame De La Guarde is a huge cathedral, watching over Marseilles and lights up like a flame at night. I buy the best snow globe of the tour so far, so we celebrate with Moules Frites & Rose. Hotel Belle-Vue has the best bar I’ve found on tour so far, with a view of the moon & the cathedral and the harbour through wood panelling and wrought iron. But we head back for Mogwai et poisson. Mogwai are great, but I long for the days they were so loud my ribs ached. The Rapture do what they do and damn they do it well. Jonathan their sound guy is a friend of JD’s and turns out I know him from NYC and the Sinead daze. Mogwai’s show in Barcelona the next night has been cancelled, so there’s some serious drinking to be done! And Dodgem Cars! Peach & Planning To Rock take one, Stuart from Mogwai & I take the other. Damn, he plays guitar and drives like a maniac! I am airlifted by one collision and Peach spills her vino rouge all over the killing fields. We’re like naughty kids. The band rock the house and all the cool kids are side of stage rocking out and getting their laughter on...Jonathan take the hot-shots...
The Super Furry Animals are in town recording and an impromptu football game takes place outside our busses. The Rapture get parked in and anxious with a drive to Strasbourg ahead of them. Mogwai head the way of the Tapas and we head for the hills…
DAY 24: POITIERS
For the uninitiated: “Day Off” = most of the day on the bus….
DB rewards our hard work with a hotel and a shower. The Warsaw Radisson it ain’t, so I get water on me & ma roomie JD call a cab and head for the town. La Notre Dame, sil vous plait! Poitiers turns out to be a rocking medieval-type town, with handy tourist trails painted in coloured lines on the ground weaving red, yellow or blue adventures across the city.
So JD and I space the evening away tourist stylee through back lanes, churches and gardens – doing lines in Poitiers.
We find Fnac and some livres anglais. Then hit the square for some Kir Royale and observation of the under-age drinking activity of western France. After heading off in search of a steak, we find a French enoteca and gorge ourselves on local Pinot Noir, cheese and assorted cured meats. Et le Crumble avec pommes…Peaches crashes the party in room 49 and we all go round the pinot noir bush until I fall asleep Romy & Michelle style.
Day 25: Poitiers
Refreshed yet kinda sleepy after our Saturday night hell raising, JD & I sleep in and miss breakfast. But we cut outta the no-comfort hotel for the venue, Confort Moderne, where we are greeted with a delicious spread of homemade goodness, pizza’s, terrine, cheese, warm crusty bread, cheese, salad, cheese….our home for the day an art gallery/record store/fanzine library/venue. It’s been running for 22 years, started off as a squat. So they have it all right, and for the right reasons. Delicious home cooked meal for lunch and now I head off in search of a laundromat with JD & Gunner, our slightly deranged yet always amusing bus driver before I start setting up. It’s an early one tonight, on stage at 9:30. I don’t see anything of the show but an empty foyer. All night dance party is on everyone’s minds: Dylan does some interpretive dance with the aid of a chair, but is pipped at the post by Gunner and the foxy chef’s bus driving moves…The DJ gets cheeky and plays some Peaches “Boys Wanna Be Her” … I climb up onto the balcony and get my air-guitar on…JD walking me through the moves and me shaking it like there’s no sleep ‘til Brooklyn…
DAY 26: BORED-EAUX
We park on the side of the road. We load in. The quiche is tasty. The rest of the club is not. No wireless means no sanity. I sit in the bus all day and write emails that may never arrive. DB, Dylan & I shoot the shit. The boys help me hang my merch out to dry. Peach dances and rides the pink roadster on the bar, which wraps along the length & width of Le 4 Sans, our hosts for the evening. I’m on video duties. Boys in Bordeaux are cute and wear stripey t-shirts, ooh la la! I pray all day for the wine of the same name to arrive…
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