Back from tour

We’re now back in Paris after our travels in Spain and Portugal. After enjoying sunshine and cloudless skies during our tour it’s a bit of a shock to the system to be returning to a decidedly wintery Paris in the grip of a public transport strike.

Along the way we played shows in Porto (3 shows in 4 days!) Lisbon, Bilbao and Girona, did an interview on Spanish national radio in Madrid and then played in Bordeaux on the way back to Paris.

Of course a tour wouldn’t be a tour without some adventures along the way…

A number of more well-travelled folks than ourselves recommended we get ourselves aquainted with a GPS for this trip but after having rarely found ourselves lost on the motorways of Germany during our tour there earlier this year (aside from one incident in Kiel which involved an all-night drive from Berlin, cuckoo birds, a hostel located on a street not marked on the map in city centre, sleep deprivation and some cute red squirrels with furry ears) we felt confident we’d be able to find our way around.

Well, we were wrong. Despite being armed with maps, directions from the internet and a road atlas of Europe we frequently found ourselves at the wrong end of the city, on the wrong highway, miles from the hotel and/or lost in a maze of one way streets. Our thanks to the Spanish police, service station owners, taxi drivers and random folks on the street for their assistance in helping us at various times to get to the venue for soundcheck, get to the hotel, back to the venue for the gig and then back to the hotel afterwards.

Elsewhere en route we saw a beautiful sun rise in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Valladolid and Zamora. There was the flat tyre in Bilbao after soundcheck, the somewhat mystifying process for changing it and the missing tool we couldn’t find to unlock that weird wheel nut that was a different shape. Caipirhinias quickly became the drink of choice and were consumed wherever and whenever possible. The dancefloor in the club we played at in Lisbon witnessed possibly it’s first ever conga-line. Tasty chicken dinners minus cutlery, crockery and napkins in Bilbao. Swimming on a deserted beach at Arenys de Mar in Spain. Early reports back from the surf suggested there was a reason no-one was swimming - the water was bloody cold. Confusing directions from the internet for the venue in La Roca which took us past the venue, several blocks up the hill, around a block, down several one way streets and then directed us to a nearby plaza, some roadworks and a nice old church. Hmmm. Then by the end of the tour a strange form of motion sickness brought on by too much time in the car where you’d lie down in bed and feel like you were still moving. When you’re playing that game in the car where you say a band’s name and the next person has to name a band beginning with the last letter of the name just said and people are coming up with stuff like Lagwagon, Godsmack, Ratt and Slash’s Snakepit then it’s time to pull over to the kerb.

These minor scrapes and misadventures aside we had a wonderful time in Spain and Portugal. Our very special thanks to everyone who helped organise the shows (especially to Luiz in Porto, Mario and Mike in Lisbon, Harry in Bilbao, Albert in Girona) and to everyone who came to the shows. We hope to return again and see you all soon!

For the moment though we’re back in Paris and in a week or two we’ll be returning to the studio to continue working on the new album.

We’ll also be playing a show at La Mécanique Ondulatoire on November 29.

OBJECT + HELIGOLAND + Emmatome dj set
La Mécanique Ondulatoire, 8 passage Thiéré Paris 11eme
20 heures

November 18th, 2007 | Posted by Steve

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