Summer tours
May to August - not TOO bad!
So what's happened since May - well, first off we had some good concerts in June - especially the "home concerts" where a family invites us (Les Passagers) to play in their home and organizes a party around that - the object, of course, being to gently start evangelizing. One of those was chez moi (my place!). We had every household bar one in our close accounted for, plus three other households from further afield (a total of 65 people in the house), had a great concert and every household bought a CD! Not bad.
An interesting time at the Faremoutier church BBQ on 31st May: great concert but TWICE interrupted by the DRUNK mayor of the town telling everyone how good we were. We're thinking of signing him up as our support act (he'll be needing a new job after the next elections!)
We also hopped off down to Chinon (on the Loire) for a pub concert there (La Lycorne), and, closer to home, visited Roissy-en-Brie for two pub concerts there (Le Frison), one on 21 June (fete de la musique here in France).
Oh, and we did a telethon thing - a concert for the Journée des familles Téléthon ... well, I never really completely understood the principle, but we played in front of lots of people (though we were a bit late on so it wasn't as large a crowd as expected).
Then I went off to the US for three weeks for work, gained weight and gave myself tendinitis by practicing too much in the hotel room (got a nice new toy, though - a Sansamp DI!)
After getting back we (the family) went on vacation while we (Les Passagers) did a bunch of concerts in the St Malo area - fantastic time (though I'm realizing I need some more consistent and productive practice habits - if only to stop the tendinitis). After ten days of THAT we returned home for 5 days and were then off again, this time to the UK - Greenbelt no less!
Interesting journey there: after getting up at the crack of dawn to get to Calais for the boat, after only 30KM we popped a window in the rental van and it took 4 hours for Avis to find us a new vehicle - so we missed the boat, got a MUCH later one and ended up putting up our tents at Greenbelt in the dark in a godforsaken (and strictly unauthorized) corner of Cheltenham racecourse (WHY don't the organizers reserve camping for the groups???).
The gig though was a tremendous success, and we sold 36 CDs - VERY impressive for the size of audience that saw us (we were in a small venue on the site - about 300 people, primarily NOT French speaking, saw us). Hopefully we'll get invited back next year for a bigger venue (and some payment!)
Then the bad news - Russ's October tour is off (it's IMPOSSIBLE to arrange anything like that in France it seems - this is the third time in two years this has happened!). Guess that solves the work problem (though I had that sorted before the bad news came through!)
So I'm back at work - NOT enjoying it at all (though I am working from home at least), waiting for the Passagers autumn schedule to kick off (and trying to add dates to it - anyone know anyone in the UK who wants a French band playing there? - or Quebec???).
Till the next time.
So what's happened since May - well, first off we had some good concerts in June - especially the "home concerts" where a family invites us (Les Passagers) to play in their home and organizes a party around that - the object, of course, being to gently start evangelizing. One of those was chez moi (my place!). We had every household bar one in our close accounted for, plus three other households from further afield (a total of 65 people in the house), had a great concert and every household bought a CD! Not bad.
An interesting time at the Faremoutier church BBQ on 31st May: great concert but TWICE interrupted by the DRUNK mayor of the town telling everyone how good we were. We're thinking of signing him up as our support act (he'll be needing a new job after the next elections!)
We also hopped off down to Chinon (on the Loire) for a pub concert there (La Lycorne), and, closer to home, visited Roissy-en-Brie for two pub concerts there (Le Frison), one on 21 June (fete de la musique here in France).
Oh, and we did a telethon thing - a concert for the Journée des familles Téléthon ... well, I never really completely understood the principle, but we played in front of lots of people (though we were a bit late on so it wasn't as large a crowd as expected).
Then I went off to the US for three weeks for work, gained weight and gave myself tendinitis by practicing too much in the hotel room (got a nice new toy, though - a Sansamp DI!)
After getting back we (the family) went on vacation while we (Les Passagers) did a bunch of concerts in the St Malo area - fantastic time (though I'm realizing I need some more consistent and productive practice habits - if only to stop the tendinitis). After ten days of THAT we returned home for 5 days and were then off again, this time to the UK - Greenbelt no less!
Interesting journey there: after getting up at the crack of dawn to get to Calais for the boat, after only 30KM we popped a window in the rental van and it took 4 hours for Avis to find us a new vehicle - so we missed the boat, got a MUCH later one and ended up putting up our tents at Greenbelt in the dark in a godforsaken (and strictly unauthorized) corner of Cheltenham racecourse (WHY don't the organizers reserve camping for the groups???).
The gig though was a tremendous success, and we sold 36 CDs - VERY impressive for the size of audience that saw us (we were in a small venue on the site - about 300 people, primarily NOT French speaking, saw us). Hopefully we'll get invited back next year for a bigger venue (and some payment!)
Then the bad news - Russ's October tour is off (it's IMPOSSIBLE to arrange anything like that in France it seems - this is the third time in two years this has happened!). Guess that solves the work problem (though I had that sorted before the bad news came through!)
So I'm back at work - NOT enjoying it at all (though I am working from home at least), waiting for the Passagers autumn schedule to kick off (and trying to add dates to it - anyone know anyone in the UK who wants a French band playing there? - or Quebec???).
Till the next time.
posted by Martin Bartlett at 6:07 PM
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