| rothko |
The time had come for the Lo Recordings away to make their first trip to Europe. Rothko had already been to Holland and Belgium, so had already tasted the delights of a foreign crowd. The players consisted of the following noise hooligans: We all met up at Waterloo station for a trip on the Eurostar direct to Paris. I had never been on this train before, so was looking forward to another new travelling experience. At least we didn't have to lug loads of heavy equipment as all the heads and cabs were to be hired by the venue. It was a pretty unexciting on the English side (Kent looking particularly grey - even at 30 miles per hour). We made the obligatory trip to the buffet car, before getting to the tunnel, where you could purchase the delights of a tin of Tonic and a normal sized Toblerone for the bargain price of £3.00! I want a pig-sized jumbo Toblerone for that sort of wonga. We had the, almost excited, official announcement that we were about to go through the channel tunnel, and I half expected a line of dancing girls to come steaming through the carriage, but no, it was just like being on the tube. After a short stop at Calais, we began to get some real speed up at last. The weirdest thing about the French track was the way we leaned through the corners - leaning the same way as on a motorbike but being pushed in the opposite direction - strange sensation. We were picked up by a van outside the main station, and driven through to the East side of Paris, where our hotel was situated. We had our first sighting of The Batofar on this journey. Looked interesting - basically a converted light-ship moored up on the Seine. We had a general wander around Paris in the evening, taking in Notre Dame at one o'clock in the morning - looking very sinister. We ended up getting some taxis back to the hotel after getting horrendously lost, but it was worth it, just to see some of the architecture at night with no tourists around. We arose at the crack of eleven and went down to the local park with some French bread, cheese and salami. We amused ourselves by watching the finches dive bombing pieces of bread thrown into the air, and beating the pigeons every time. A message back at the hotel, and Mark was asked, "do you need three bass heads & cabs as stated?". "Yes" replied Mark, "are you sure?", "Err - yes I'm in the band!" The short walk down to the venue revealed that it was really quite big and stocked up with some very expensive equipment. There are many small sections to lose yourself in around the main floor in front of the stage. A big sheet of quite fine meshed fabric had been draped across the front of the stage, for images to be projected onto. The gig was a sell out, with people queuing up outside waiting to get in. The strange thing was, the audience even stood and watched while the DJ's did their thing - different. We did a bit more sightseeing during the next day, visiting the Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame. (I still think it looks better by night - but I'm weird like that). One of the things that struck me was the Metro. Wider platforms, faster trains and generally slicker, but I guess that's because it's a newer system than ours. The Eurostar journey back was uneventful but for the French Customs, who, true to form, pulled the longhaired and the coloured members of the party for further searches and questions. FAR TOO OBVIOUS! Anyway, all things considered, it was a glorious away win for Lo Recordings. skippy |