Superheroes' Tour de France

by crunchy.dk 13. November 2001 13:31

Check out the band's account of the Tour of France
Now we’re back from France. It was a blast and right below you can read things we wrote during the tour.

Asger Tarpgaard, 20th October:
18/10 – Roubaix, La Cave aux Poètes: very small venue. We (I) couldn’t stand in upright position because of the roof was low. For this tour we had to re-make backing tracks for the hard disc recorder (see October diary to find out why) and at this concert we had to play with the new tracks for the first time. We hadn’t had time to rehearse with the new backing tracks so we played quite a few mistakes. Fine night though. It was also the night where we met Laurent, a representative for our French label, Spirit Of Jungle, and he should follow and help us during the whole tour (actually we left him at a gas station on the second day, but it was NOT on purpose!)

19/10 – Amsterdam, Paradiso: 3rd time we visited the place. It’s really a fine place and a lot of people showed up even though Access To Amsterdam (a big music convention) was going on and Paradiso wasn’t a part of the convention. The night was 100% success! When we go to Paradiso it’s almost as being home.

Lars Hovendahl – 30th October:
20/10 Reims, Festival Octob-Rock: quite a big venue and the stage crew were very nice and professional. For the first time on the tour we got the chance to check our e-mails, but the dial-up connection was very slow...

21/10 Dieppe Festival Juke Box: Nice venue though the stage manager was smoking the largest joint I ever saw. It seems like all the French are smoking a lot of weed.

22-23/10: 3 off days in Paris. What a beautiful city. It was wonderful to be back!

24/10 Paris Le cafe de la Danse: After a few days off in the “ city of love“ we played a really great concert and the crowd was really into the music. We also saw this amazing band from Belgium “ Das Pop “ They played it real cool!

During the days off our managers and Asu did a heavy pub crawl in the famous red light district Pigalle. Actually they got so drunk and stupid, that they went into several stores and fun houses. Yebo stole an enormous vibrator from a hardcore sex shop. I was told that he carried it in his pants!!! I'm sure they had a great time. The other off days were also used for shopping a lot, records, clothes and we went to several tourist attractions and made a few interviews. Nice to have some days off...!

25/10 Nantes L´Algodon: this was a very small venue. The stage wasn't more than 12 M2 and it was triangular. The only way we could fit on stage was in this stupid line, like the 50´s bands. We just missed the moves. It must have been really funny to watch. This day was the 5th day with chicken for dinner. Bjarke, Thomas T, Asu and Thomas C went out for something else. They got a “Le Salade Bizarre” (nickname for a pretty bizarre salad).

26/10 Tulle Festival Oh les Choeurs: Very nice city surrounded by hills and a river. When we arrived it was like 25 C and sunshine. The venue was great, we had a great stage sound. Thanks to the stoned stage manager. It seems like the further south we are getting the more unknown we are. It was almost like the start in Denmark when nobody knew us. Bjarke, Yebo, Laurent and me went to a laundromat to do some washing. We were told that we could leave it and pick it up before 9 PM. We went there 8PM guess what...Yep! no man and worst of all, no laundry. The festival did some work and we got it back in the morning before we left. After the show Thomas C and I was drinking a lot backstage and the other bands was also very drunk. At 4 AM they began to trash the backstage area with a football. This was also the day where Thomas C got his hearing back. He had some strange alien alike in his ears so eventually he had the opportunity to see a doctor...

27/10 Lyon Le Ninkasi: Probably the worst place we ever played and we will for sure never return. They had a limit of 95 DB and that's impossible to stay under. So listen up we will never do another show in such a place...actually they had their own brewery and they made a great beer!!!!

Thomas Troelsen, 31th of October - Halloween Night:
I think the tour so far has been a success and we’ve got very good response on all the concerts. The only problem is that a new EU dictated law forced the venues in France (and in the future the rest of EU countries) to play under 105 db! From my point of view this is simply NOT possible for medium sized venues and it will be very difficult to get good sound in the future. When I go to a concert I expect the sound to be loud and punchy and I’ll probably never enjoy rock concerts (that has to be loud) unless the venue has a huge range of speakers placed in it.

We had two wonderful days off in Paris where I went shopping records and gadgets and we also had one of the best show there.

Our shows only last for approx. 1h 15m so there is a lot of time to kill. We always go see the cities that we visit but most of the time we sit in our tour bus playing Nintendo, cards and watching tv: Woody Allen: Play It Again Sam and Manhattan Murder Mystery, Austin Powers, a lot of Simpsons shows, David Lynch: Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twisted Sisters Live Concert, Stenbroens Helte, Friends and of course the ultimate ‘on the road’ movie Spinal Tap!

So as you might imagine – we’re having a lot of fun on the road here in France and sadly we’ll already be home in only 4 days.

Asger Tarpgaard, 4th of November:
Clermont Ferrand on 28th was cool. We played right after a guy called Mano Solo had played on another stage. Nice city surrounded by a couple of vulcanos.

The 29th was an off day in Bordeaux. Its pretty far south and the weather was great! The next morning we went to the beach. We had to walk a big sand mountain (the biggest in Europe – 115 m) and we thought we couldn’t make it, but of course we did (just look at our band name!). It was nice with a little taste of summer. We were bathing and building dams and stuff in the sand... just when we were children. The concert at Le Cat was fine though the monitor guy was enormously stoned, so he was worth nothing. In generally French connected to music venues smoke very much and apperently not everyone gets better doing his or her job.

The Colmar and St. Quentin festivals on 1st and 2nd of November were OK. Not really anything to write home about. Great treatment, nice food...

The last concert: the 3rd we should play in Vendome at Festival Rockomotives. What a fine night!!! Lovely audience! After the concert we celebrated the fact that it had been a great tour. People got so terribly drunk. Unfortunately we had to begin the long drive home so couldn’t stay that long. Bus driving and booze isn’t always a good combination: Bjarke fell out of the bus on his way up and started talking to his shoes, and Lars woke up and had to puked all over the bus. The next day (today!!) people were so hung over and wouldn’t believe your eyes, and to make everything worse we had to kill 8 hours in Essen, Germany, because our driver Leif had to sleep. We ended up renting a hotel room and watching German boring TV. Back in the bus we watched yet another movie, went to sleep and BOING – we are back in wonderful Copenhagen