Wednesday 23 December 2009

Bird Head Son Tour 2009 Complete!

The Spasm Band tour of 2009 has just finished. Our last trip - predictably - was probably the most disasterous of the year. We played in Marne Le Vallee near Paris, in a great arts complex that was a converted farm. Plenty of snow on the ground, but still people made the effort to come and see us and it was a good gig. When we got back to Paris to get the train home we found out that the Eurostar wasn't running because of the weather, and we'd have to spend an extra night in Paris. Later that night we found out that not only was the Eurostar not running, but all planes were grounded, and Calais was closed to ferries.
It still wasn't clear the next day if or when the Eurostar would re-open. We couldn't get any news and no one seemed to know what was going on. Flights back to London were getting completely booked-up, and the prices were getting crazy. One report suggested that 24,000 people we're stuck, unable to cross the Channel.
We then decided the only option was to try and get a coach. Luckily there were spaces on one of the last ones that night. We caught it at 11pm, drove to Calais through the snow, caught a 4.30am ferry, and were back in London just in time for rush-hour the next morning.

Our autumn/winter tour also included a great two night stint in Montpellier, with fantastic gigs at Victoire 2, and Le Jam. In retrospect that would probably have been a great place to end what's been a brilliant, exhaustive, and inspiring tour!

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