We loaded into this cool venue and soundchecked and then it was dinner time. One of the best meals of tour was had here. We were taken to this really authentic German restaurant that also happened to brew their own beer. Yes! Unfortunately being a vegetarian you don’t get to really sample the classic German diet so I had to settle for tagliatelle, which was delicious regardless, but I got to watch everyone else eat, and share their sides which were soooo good. There was sauerkraut, cabbage and potatoes. All of them so good, especially the warm red cabbage. I had never tasted anything like that. The beer was amazing, and mine was served in a krug, which is a stone mug. Very cool experience.

Back to the venue to play as part of the Enjoy! Jazz Festival. Funny right? Anyways, with my pre-dinner krug, and some red wine before I took the stage, I was feeling loose and ready to chat to these people. Sly and I played a strong set and really had fun. From the stage I asked for a mountain guide to get up to the castle, which I was told turned off it’s lights at midnite, and I thought I’d found some interested participants, but alas, after the show, and after midnite, it was me and a backpack of beer and my camera that started the cobblestone-stepped trek up the side of the hill over Heidelberg, with this darkened beast looming high above me. I know in these situations I have to keep my mind from wandering or else it’s ghostville 2011 up there, which it probably is anyways, but I tried to sip my beer and keep my cool and keep walking. I made it to the steps of the castle, which were gated off, and took a bunch of photos of the town, and the wall protecting the castle. It was hear that I heard footsteps running down the cobblestone path really fast. I lifted myself over the wall to see who was running and saw a young man high-tailing it from higher up around the castle, zigzagging his way back to the main entrance, down the hill, near the town. It was really bizarre and quite unsettling to see and made me super uncomfortable but I decided to forge on and continue where he had come from, to see if I could get higher up near the castle to take some cool photos. Near the top of the castle, where the trail split, I set up my camera to take some timed exposures of the castle. Opened another beer and focused my camera and took some photos. When I got up to turn around there was a women standing 6-7 feet away from me! Not kidding! She had totally walked up while I was in thought and I had not heard her. Completely harmless, but totally scared the shit out of me. It was brutal. After that I decided it was time to head down and back to the bus. I mean, what’s an older lady doing sneaking up on me at a castle in the dark at 1am? Not fair… Back at the bus I spun a yarn or two about the castle and then settled into my bunk to try and sleep.

I was really looking forward to our return to Freiburg. It was one of my favorite stops on the last tour and this time we had more of a chance to see the town. We also had a hotel room, along with the bus, to shower and prepare for the show and the hotel had a sauna so I rocked a couple really nice sweats before the show and it was great. We played a venue called Jazzhaus and the staff and audience were beauty. Some nice man after the show offered me his business card and said next time Sylvie and I come through we have to stay with him, as I had “said many nice things about his town”. After the show, with the adventure spirit being strong in this one, I trekked out solo, again, into the darkened town to explore the beautiful little streets of Freiburg. This town is cool as it has little tiny rivers that run down the streets. Well, not rivers, but little baby canals, that are bizarre and really beautiful looking. Not sure if they exist just to keep the streets clean or not, but they are an interesting addition to the quaint buildings, and narrow streets that make up the old town. After an hour or two of wandering and a bunch of photos I hit the bus for another short sleep and prepared myself for entering Switzerland for the first time ever.

Our first Switzerland show was to be held at Parterre, in Basel, and it was our own headline show, so to speak. The Obel team had a day off and our agents had booked us a gig at this awesome little venue. We arrived early and setup and then the house sound guy took us for a guided tour of the old town, before we had dinner. Andy, the amazing sound guy from Agnes Obel, offered to work our sound for the night, as he knew the set and because he’s a workaholic. Being massive fans of the sound he does each night with Agnes, we jumped at the chance. After a beautiful little walk, and an amazing dinner, that I still don’t really know what it was, but it was amazing, we settled into the backstage area to sip some wine and eat some chocolate and hang out with the promoter and with Agnes and Anne, who had come to see us play (so sweet!). It was nice to have a longer set and also to play more new songs. The crowd was super nice. Interesting to see how each crowd reacts to live music. The French and Germans seem to clap for a really long time after you play a song, and the Swiss were more stern, clapping lots but also being very attentive and not laughing as much at my amazing jokes. I think they were amazing anyways. Sylvie is still on the fence about them. Met a lot of nice people after the show and then once the venue closed, all the food and beer and wine came out and we listened to tunes and everyone carried on and got a little loose and chatted about this and that. Nice little party. Andy and I finished with a smoked-peat scotch in the neighbouring bar after everyone went home, and it put me over the edge and sent me to bed, happy to have played Parterre, and certainly happy to have found a new friend in Andy, our Scottish soundman. Thanks to Andrea at Parterre for showing us an incredible time and treating us like kings and queens…xo

The next day Sylvie and I took a cab to the Basel Casino, where we were to play a show with Agnes Obel. I’m not going to speak too much about this show because it was a weird one. Believe it or not, Evening Hymns isn’t really a casino band. And we certainly don’t like playing them. It was a weird hiccup on this tour, that we made the most of, but a strange place to play, with a nice audience actually. Basically this cold huge room in the bottom of a Casino, that don’t really seem to care about live music, or whether my shipment of cds we had mailed to the casino had arrived. Thanks!
I was happy to grab another sauna before the show though, in the hotel that was attached to the casino. The highlight of the night though was my dear friend Kristen driving hours from Geneva to come see us play. I hadn’t seen her in years and it was great having a couple beers with her and catching up. So nice for her to drive so far. So weird for her to see us play a casino. Haha… I think I spent the entire time trying to explain to her that we don’t normally play casinos. Anyways, it’s tough on tour trying to keep in touch with people and I’ve learned it’s so important to make the effort to see people from overseas when we’re over here. Such an amazing bonus to being on tour in Europe. A chance to re-connect with old friends from afar. As soon as the show finished we were on the bus and off, rolling down the highway for the biggest drive of tour. I think it was 16 hours, to the south of Italy, to play a festival in Bari, Italy.

When I finally awoke on the bus and slid open the little window in my bunk I knew we were in Italy. This leg of tour was so exciting for me because I’d never been to Italy or Switzerland and it’s amazing to have music take me to these countries. Italy, from the window, looked beautiful, as we were winding along the coast to Bari. At a roadside stop I bought a pizza that was awesome and then continued down the highway. The staff in Bari met us at the venue and we loaded in. Great little theatre and nice staff. They gave us a runner to drive us to a hotel to take a shower. Such a strange room, and we had to show our passports to get the keys, to shower. Bizarre. Ha…. This was our first show with Sir Martin John Henry, who had travelled from Glasgow to play a week’s worth of shows with us. Nice to see his set and to have some new blood on tour. Also, nice to have another character on the bus to stay up late drinking with. Haha… We had a nice set and sold out of records (!!!!!) and then packed up the bus and the guys from the festival offered to take us on a tour of the old town of Bari, on the sea. We all piled into 3 mini cars and were whisked away through the streets of the city. We bought some beers from a little bar and then walked along the sea with a big posse and through the narrow streets of the old town, which had such beautiful light. Feels so exotic, as a boy from Orono, to be wandering through this town at night, sipping beers and carrying on. After a couple beers we were driven back to bus and after another nightcap it was lights out in the bunk, to arise in Rome at noon.

I have no idea how our bus drivers were able to coax the bus through the narrow streets of Rome but I was awoken in my bunk to the bus parked infront of the theatre we were to play in Rome. After a load-in and a bit of confusion at the venue about set times, and after trying to figure out how to get merch to the next show, Sylvie and I and Martin decided we should go wander with the 2 hours we had and see if we can explore part of the city. We set out on the city, walking through our neighbourhood with our mouths open at how beautiful the whole area was. I wondered out loud how far the Colliseum was away, maybe we could see it. We stopped at a transit stop and checked the map and figured it was close enough to walk. We set out at a quick pace towards the Colliseum and actually made it there within 45 minutes, as the sun had set, and the lights were on. Stood there in awe, not just at how amazing it is, but how awesome it was that we were able to walk there before the show. Took some photos and then hopped on the subway back to the venue. Pretty impressive use of the metro I think. 1 euro for 70 minutes worth of transit in Rome. What a deal! Got back to the venue just in time to soundcheck and then eat about 12 different amazing pizzas. It was perfect. We had a great show and afterwards met a lot of nice people at the merch table, where we had no cds to sell. Such a bummer, as a support act, where our only real source of income is cd sales, to run out of cds. At least we got to play this beautiful room for these great people, and to see some sights. I got a lot of really lovely emails from the Italians that attended both of our shows and I really hope we can get back there to play more shows in the future. Fell asleep on the bus and awoke on beautiful Lake Como, on the Switzerland and Italy border.

Nice to come back to Munich. Each time we’re there it’s too short. Just arriving in time to load-in and soundcheck and play and sleep and leave but it’s still a nice place to spend a short time in. Our good friend Stefan lives there and we looked forward to seeing him. He had filmed a session with us before for his website and so after our set we went for a little walk to film a video for “Asleep in the Pews”.  Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKafTQJTOfc

The show went great. Mika from Timber Timbre joined us for a few songs which is always so nice for us and we got to play to a packed room. Saw some folks from the last time we played Munich too. So rad! Beers were drank afterwards. More food was consumed, including the leftovers from our amazing curry+rice dinner. Another short sleep and now I write this on the road, in the back of the van, enroute to Koln.

I don’t remember much from the drive other than the Koln Dome coming into view on the way. So impressive. Brought back nice memories from the last tour. We played Gebaeude 9 which, like many European venues, is a big concrete box. They never really feel cozy until people get there but the engineers make them sound nice. We met up with our new friend Sabina and had a nice hang before and after the show. Also met a guy from Kansas named Kelly. Nice dude, friends with one of our Kutu labelmates Hospital Ships. Small world. Pretty uneventful night after the show. Back to the hotel to sleep for too few hours and then up for a big drive to the Rolling Stone Weekender Festival, north of Hamburg on the sea, near Kiel. It was a day of celebration though in Germany, on the 11th of November. People wear costumes and get drunk all day. Here’s a couple Jims outside our hotel room in full garb.

So we’re driving along the autobahn, minding our own business, when the police pull in front of us and put their sirens on for us to follow them and pull over. We get off at the next exit and they come and check our liscense and insurance, etc. Then they say that they want to weigh our van to see if we are legally on the highway. Well, at this point we’re frustrated as we’re going to just barely make soundcheck, but what can you do but oblige and follow them. They tell us to tail them to an exit 3 stops down the highway. They pull off the highway and into a truckstop, that has no weight scale, so they wave us around and back onto the country road, where we follow them for 15 minutes. It was ridiculous. You could see them looking all over the place, totally lost and without a clue as to where to find a scale. Eventually, after 45 minutes, we are pulled into a farm that has a big scale and they weighed our van, and we were over, supposedly, by a couple hundred kg’s. This cost us 35 euros, which you just have to pay, and then we got back on the road. So frustrating. Left us only enough time to load our gear on stage and start playing.

Sometimes I like being late, or behind schedule, or just in a mad rush to get on stage as it takes away from the usual preshow ritual of getting anxious, or overthinking things. This was a perfect example. I was a little stressed about this show, it being a Rolling Stone thing, etc. But because we were in such a rush to get stuff on stage and tune up we basically were thrown right into the fire. It worked out great. We played to a packed room and it was a really special show for us. We even got encored. Met a lot of nice people at that show. Afterwards we went and had dinner in the catering area… Really amazing food and pretty cool sitting there eating beside Jeff Tweedy and the dudes from The Notwist. Little ol’ unknown Evening Hymns probably looking like they snuck into eat. Ha…We got to see some Fleet Foxes, Wilco, and a few others, but the highlight for me was seeing Josh T. Pearson. I was given his record by my friend Ro and had listened to it a few times and it hadn’t connected with me to be honest. It was interesting but didn’t really grab me. Well his live show was beautiful and really pulled me in. Been listening to his record since then and it’s a heavy listen. Really amazing and worth checking out. Got to chat with him late at night and he is a true gentleman.

The festival was held on this old resort so artists and attendees were given little apartments to stay in. Pretty cool and super convenient for us to just wander and sip coldies.

Part of the excitement of the Rolling Stone festival was that I had arranged to surprise Sylvie with a surprise appearance of her really good friend, and no stranger to this blog, Dorotka, from Berlin. Her partner Terry and I had been in touch trying to plan a way to surprise the girls and so after our show Sylvie was helping pack up gear and voila! Dorotka magically appeared outside with our amps and guitars. It was a huge surprise!!!! Totally awesome. We drank a bunch of beers and had a really nice time. A bit of a bittersweet night though as we had to say goodbye to Timber Timbre and our friends. It was a short but sweet little jaunt through Europe with them, hopefully not the last! Beers were cheered. Hugs delivered. The road was hit.

In the morning Terry, Dorotka, Sylvie and I took a shuttle to Kiel and picked up our rental car for the next few days. No probs picking up our Skoda and we were off to Utrecht for a big show with Agnes. Nice to have new blood in the car and it made things more exciting, grant you Terry and Dorotka seemed to nap most of the way.

Boy did we get turned around in Utrecht. I took the rental car down a pedestrian street, and not just a short one, like a really long street with people and bikes everywhere. The police saw us but didn’t really seem to care. Tourists. It sucked but was good for a laugh afterwards, once we were safe and sound. Finally found the venue Vrendenburg on the outskirts of the city. It’s a massive, 1500 capacity, venue that was built as a temporary location for the old theatre in the city centre that is currently being renovated. Crazy that they’d build this amazing, huge space that is only temporary. It was amazing. Awesome food, stage, facilities. We got to play one of the biggest shows we’ve ever done and it was rad. I had a blast and people seemed to love it. Can’t wait to come back and play to these people again. They were an amazing audience. After the show we hung out on the bus and then drove into the town to stay at a dude named Eddy’s place, who T&D had found through couchsurfer.com… Really nice guy, who was able to also come and see our show. We settled in and fell asleep. Had an amazing rest. In the morning we drove T&D to the train station, said our goodbyes, and then Sly and I took off for Heidelberg, Germany.

Back to Paris. Pretty uneventful drive. Nice fall colours and a nice blue sky to accompany us. Hit Paris in good time and found the venue, La Loge, in a neighbourhood I had never been to so that was nice. So many neighbourhoods in Paris that are different from each other that exploring each section is really interesting. Similar to Toronto, but on a much larger scale. You get pockets of different culture here and there. It’s cool. And makes food choices always varied and exciting. Our show for Paris was presented with La Blogotheque. I’ve been a big fan of watching their videos for years so it was a great honour to share the stage with them. They screened a bunch of unreleased videos that were rad and then it was our turn to play. Sylvie and I have been playing the same set for most of this tour and it’s been fun working on presenting a tight set but we decided to experiment a bit more for the rest of the tour, to pull ourselves out of the regular motions. It was a good decision for us. Nice to try something new and smack our faces a bit. I think it went pretty well and I’m excited to refine things a bit more. It’s tough every night playing the same songs over and over and we’re kind of limited by what we can do as we are only a two-piece and want to keep things moving a bit on stage. I think pushing ourselves to try new things each night will keep us on our toes and in the zone. La Loge is a nice fit for Evening Hymns. Cozy and intimate. Got to see some friends too which is the best when you’re on the road and far from home. Always feels good to play to a packed house in a city like Paris too. Thanks Paris! Xo jb

We started the next morning too early and raced to Marseille. It was about an 8 hour drive I think. Pretty straightforward. Hit Marseille at night. Saw a bit of the sea. Dropped Sylvie off at the hotel and then had to drive back 30 minutes to the airport to return my car and catch a bus back into the city. Kind of a crazy thing to do after driving for 8 hours but it went pretty smoothly. Nice to listen to some songs in the dark on the bus racing back through the city. It’s those weird moments on tour that I love and make my life seem so bizarre. On a city bus, in the middle of the night, in Marseille, winding through the city.

Those two above photos are from this little pizza truck on the side of the road. Sylvs and I got lost on the way to the hotel and went to the opposite part of the Marseille that we were supposed to be in but magically we happened upon this little truck that had a wood burning oven in it. An older couple fashioned us up one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. Sylvie and I drove through the streets burning our mouths and licking our lips. It was rad. I want to build one of these. I think it would totally slay downtown Toronto.

I walked to a club where Timber Timbre was playing, as part of the Inrocks Festival, and watched their set and hung out. Nice to have a night off to watch them play. Again, they drove people crazy. It’s a powerful thing to witness.

In the morning, reunited with the van and the band, we took off for our day off in Nice. A stunning drive and a really pretty town. Spent the afternoon wandering around by the sea. We settled in for a nice dinner and a couple bottles of wine our hotel room, with the balcony doors open and the rain falling gently on the town. It was a really nice mellow night spent in with friends so far from home. A perfect night off.

In the morning we left for Milan, Italy. Being my first time in Italy I was glued to the window of the van taking it in. It’s a gorgeous drive from Nice to Milan. The highway follows the coast pretty much the whole way. Huge vistas. Our first stop was at some roadside gas station/convenience store and we ate amazing fresh sandwiches and then hit the highway for the final leg to Milan. The venue we were playing was called Magnolia and it is out by the airport. Really big space with an amazing staff. They cooked us an incredible pasta dinner that was hands down one of the best meals I’ve had on tour… I was worried what the attendance was going to be like for our first show in Italy but it filled up nicely just before we played and we were treated to a quiet audience that seemed to really enjoy the show. Such a trip to be so far form home, playing in a country for the first time, and have such a delightful crowd. Lucky us… After the show, and some beers, and after getting my ass handed to me in foosball by some Italians, we hit our fancy hotel, had a jacuzzi, and went to bed, for few too little hours. Story of my touring life.

I will leave you with that haunting image now… the incredible hunk, ergh, hulk…

Union Chapel from the outside

Reuben dropped this chip and caught in his shoe by accident.

the man of movember

my jam

A few coldies in the hotel before we hit the hay and woke up to hit the road to the ferry again, back to Paris. Met back up with Agnes and the bus and watched their set at Casino du Paris. As Sylvie said, it was nice to just chill out and watch a set without having to play. We put our feet up and relaxed.

Our next show was in Caen, which I can never actually pronounce properly. I end up saying “cone”. Sorry about that. Another beauty night in a theatre. Great sound techs and super receptive audience. We tried some new songs and then retired to the bus to sip a few jaspers with Agnes and crew before splitting up again for a couple weeks. It started pissing rain so hard when we were on the bus and it made for such a nice evening inside. Feels kind of like camping when you’re on the bus. Settled into my bunk so late, knowing that we had to get up at 5:30am at CDG to grab our rental car.

After a few hours of restless sleep I awoke at the airport and went in search of the rental company. We ended up getting a pretty sweet whip for this leg of the journey. A Peugeot 508 wagon! Sylvie and I grabbed coffees and hit the road for Strasbourg. Pulled over at a park/rest stop/aire to sleep for an hour or so in the car. Actually was pretty decent. Feeling a bit better we rambled to the venue. It was really nice for me to have my own vehicle again. Driving on tour really connects one with the area I find. On the bus, or even in the van, you get to put your brain on autopilot while someone else drives and you don’t take as much out of the environment. It was nice to get behind the wheel and look around and think. I miss that on this tour. Not complaining. Just pointing out the difference of this tour and the last. Okay. Going to drop it here at Strasbourg and pick it up again in a bit.

Thanks for reading.

Jb

It’s been years since I’ve blogged and right now I’m in Nice, France, sipping a nice wine and listening to Illmatic by Nas and I’m going to try and take a crack at catching up…. We’ll see how far I get before I fall into my keyboard.

So Paris:

We spend a day just wandering. Literally, just wandering around with no goals. It was nice. Super lazy. Much needed. That night we hit this great restaurant up… Awesome veg option and we drank a bunch of great wine. This is my wine tour! No more beer… Just all the wine.

Woke up the next day and walked down the road by myself to Pere Lechaise, the famous cemetery. Spent about an hour and a half walking around looking for famous graves and enjoying the amazing fall colours. Feeling sentimental. Listening to records. The new Ohbijou, Bon Iver, etc. Pretty touching day for me. This cemetery is incredible. Every single headstone is worth stopping to look at and yet it’s completely endless…. So much to see. No time. Here’s an overview of what I saw:

I like the flowers on these graves

Cool headstone… literally.

Chopin’s Grave

Edith Piaf’s Grave

Jim Morrison’s Grave

A really nice way to mellow out and reflect on life before heading to Pitchfork Festival to DJ a couple sets in the afternoon. Took the train solo to this massive building that the festival was being held at. Here’s a pic:

Got to DJ two sets which was a nice chance to go through my ipods and pick out some tunes, which I find normally turns into getting hooked on listening to songs you forgot you had on there. Anyways, thought it went pretty well. I enjoyed it anyways…

Got to see a bunch of great sets. Kathleen Edwards, Canadian represent, warmed the room up. Jens Lekman, Lykke Li and Bon Iver all killed it. The Bon Iver set was especially amazing. So exciting to see people having that much fun on stage. I think that guy is making really important music right now. It’s super important to me and to see him playing that huge room and just having a blast was refreshing. Got to hang out with Kathleen and her band afterwards. It was nice talking Canadian for awhile. Oh and I got some sweet new shoes… Thanks to Greg and Claire for having us for the day. Good times.

Woke up early in the morning to hit the Gare du Nord to head to Amsterdam. I laid down the law with the beggars at the station. Ate an overpriced sandwich and caught our train. I caught a little sleep on the train. We were surrounded by this family from Holland, I assumed. 5 of them, presumably traveling from Paris on a vacation or something. I assumed all this… But I thought it was really sweet and it made me feel really comfortable to see this, seemingly, happy family on a nice trip together. They seemed content. Made me miss my family back home and I hope that one day we get a chance to travel for fun together. Oh the things one assumes and builds a story out of…

I spent some time on the train staring into the window. On the last train trip from Paris to London I did the same and it kind of inspired some of the lyrics for the opening song Arrows on our new record… Again here I was on the train from Paris trying to sort out some of my life by staring at/into/out the window on a train moving fast across the countryside of France.

We arrived in Amsterdam to a fine mist falling down and the hustle and bustle of a busy transportation hub. After lugging our luggage (is that where the term comes from?) we arrived at Bitterzoet, a former jazz club, turned indie club by the wonderful host Stuart and his sweet old doggie Syl (my favorite dog of tour yet). I fell asleep on the couch upstairs in the green room listening to the CBC on my iphone and drifting off, to be awoken by the pitter patter of Timber Timbre coming up the stairs. Reunited at last with our dear Canadian friends. Happy to be back in the fold with them, dashing across the countries. The show was a great start to our journey with them. Nice audience, cozy space, and an amazing TT set. An amazing feeling to be this far from home playing shows with these guys. TT and I did our first tour ever together and here we are… It’s a trip! We finished the night off in a typical Amsterdam blaze of glory, if you can imagine, and hit the hay for too short of a sleep before we raced to catch our ferry in Calais.

hiking around Amsterdam at night

On the way, at a gas stop, we were interrogated by the custom’s police, which is always fun. They said they saw one of us throw something in the woods and they went searching to see what it was and couldn’t find anything and they hassled us for awhile longer before eventually letting us go free. We hopped back on the highway, a little freaked, and caught our ferry. Phew!

Here are some photos from the ferry crossing to England. It was my first time traveling this way to London. Pretty cool.

Veggie lasagna, mushy peas and wedges. Not too bad!

Our van in the hull of a ship.

Sylvie playing with her food

After the crossing we went to our hotel to check in. Was pretty jacked to be headed back to London, mostly so I could eat ploughman’s sandwiches from Marks and Spencer. I really love those things. We got to town and checked into our hotel for the next two nights. It’s a pretty “hip” place to stay. The first night we shared the place with Lou Reed, Tori Amos and Alice Cooper. That’s right, we shared a hotel with Alice Cooper on fuckin’ HALLOWEEN!!!! Mellow night with a nice dinner and some downtime. Not much to report.

Next post will be really soon… I’ve got it all typed. I promise! xo for now… jb

When I left off my last blog post, I was rushing off to the Grande Halle des Villettes to check out Pitchfork Fest where Jonas was DJing. I arrived RIGHT on time, as Jonas was just warming into his first set. I hung around his DJ table chipping in my 2 cents here and there and bopping along to the jams he was dealing out. I must say, I think our boy did a pretty good job! I vote him my fave DJ from the night. After his first set it was time for Kathleen Edwards to play, and we traipsed out onto the floor of the huge venue (a former abattoir, we were told) to watch the set. Kathleen gets an A+ for her efforts to keep all her banter in French! I’m always too shy to say much more from the stage than a few careful comments. Then JB played another batch of the hits and just like that our responsibilities for the day were done! It was barely 5 o’clock, and we were free as birds to wander around and catch the rest of the acts. Jens Lekman’s set was a particular highlight… the man’s got charm. JB and me were dancing around side stage by the time Jens and his awesome drummer/backup singer played their sampler-heavy finale.

The venue filled more and more as the night went on, and was absolutely packed by the time Bon Iver took the stage with his huge posse. There were 9 of them onstage! 2 drummers, a horn section, couple guitars, and everyone switching up instruments whenever needed. We were super excited for this show, and watched the whole thing from the wings. Those dudes looked like they were having an awesome time up there. And it sounded great… man, what a show! I’m so glad we got to go to that. It was fun hanging out with Kathleen & her band and catching up on some Canadian-ness (once we finally found out where the food was hiding, which was a major mission and took us a long time and a fair bit of sleuthing). Plus JB got a sweet new pair of free shoes! Thanks to Claire & Greg from Super! for hooking us up with that gig.

The next morning we hauled ourselves out of bed and made our way out to the street where we flagged a cab and loaded it with all our stuff. Even after leaving much of our gear with the bus, we had about a whole person’s worth of extra stuff that we couldn’t properly carry ourselves, so the transfer from the cab into the Gare du Nord, and from the platform there onto our train to Amsterdam, were an interesting exercise in sherpa-ism. Carrying two guitars in one hand plus backpack and rolling suitcase? Yeah sure, no problem, I’m an expert. The train trip was smooth and quick and then we were out on our butts in the Amsterdam train station. Well… those sherpa skills I was boasting about? They don’t stand up all that well on the endurance test. I was sweating and cursing by the time we wrestled everything outside and all the way around to the taxi stand. So guess whether my mood was improved when all the taxis refused to take us because the venue was too close to the station!? It was close. Very very close, in a car. Walking, with a herculean load of gear and merch and personal bullshit (you can bet I was wishing I’d trimmed the contents of my suitcase down), it was manageable but just. I had flashbacks of the last time we were in London, hucking our stuff around on the tube system. Next time we tour I’m installing wheels on my bass case! JB doesn’t believe me, but I’m serious about this. Luckily we were received at the venue, the Bitterzoet, by the extremely friendly and helpful and hospitable owner, Stuart, and his old pooch Syl. We immediately installed ourselves on the comfy leather couches in the band room and devoured several sandwiches. Phew!!!

A few hours later we heard familiar voices on the stairs and in burst our beloved Timber Timbre. It was really great to be reunited with our old pals. The show that night was really fun… it felt good to play in a bar again (this may sound weird, because we’ve been raving about the big theatres on this tour, but it was kind of like slipping on an old pair of shoes after you’ve been wearing fancy heels for a few hours). We met a lot of nice people, including Geordie and ? – some friends of our friends Laura & Colin, who tipped them off about the show – but it turned out they were already planning to come and see TT anyway! After the show we all went out to find frites and mayo (yummm) and walked through a bit of a suburb of the red light district… this is a bit of a strange experience for those of us who come from a place where the sex trade is illegal. I think we all had mixed feelings about it.

The following day it was time to head out for the ferry crossing to the UK. This was an all-day affair… drive to Calais, go through customs (process our visas, which takes extra time), drive onto the ferry, get out of the van, eat mushy peas (or in my case, fish & chips), kill some time, get back in the van, drive from Dover to London, find the hotel (way out in Shepherd’s Bush), get some pounds instead of euros, realize how expensive everything is in the UK…. etc. But it was all worth it in the end because the following night’s show at Union Chapel was my favourite so far. You’ll have to wait for Jonas’ post to see photos of the venue. He’s got some stunners I’m sure. For now you’ll just have to trust me that this place is beautiful. It’s in a square layout as opposed to the long shape of many (most) churches, with balconies on three sides – perfect for concerts. The whole thing is red brick, including the interior, which I’ve never seen before. And the sound! The sound! Singing into that space is an exhilarating feeling. The church was packed for the show, and we had so much fun. Mika played on 3 songs with us and having her there made the show so extra special. Lots of nice people there.

This is a layout showing all the pew that folds into a box on the wall in our band room. There are holes in all the places for pegs. I want to know what this is used for!

This room was the Sunday School, and I sneaked in to do a vocal warmup... I felt like I was a ghost and I was haunting this chapel.

That night we sat around Taylor’s hotel room for a while just laughing our heads off at Simon. What a clown. It was great to see those guys!

Simon looks like a cop. But definitely "good cop." I guess that makes Taylor "bad cop."

Taylor & Simon are wearing mustaches to raise money for prostate cancer this “Movember.” (And because it looks so smooth.) You can sponsor them here!

The next day was a repeat of the ferry crossing day in reverse. Too much time in the van for anyone’s liking, and I’d already finished my book on the way over, but luckily Mika lent me her iPod with the original Batman movie on it so I was easily entertained. They dropped us off in Paris just outside Le Casino de Paris where Agnes and the gang were performing at the Inrocks festival. JB quickly located the ever helpful Guillaume, and we got our stuff stashed inside relatively quickly and then it was goodbye to Timber Timbre for another few days until we meet again in Strasbourg tomorrow.

We grabbed a nice little dinner at a tiny Italian hole in the wall near the theatre, then found our seats and settled in to enjoy watching Agnes, Gill, and Anne dazzle the huge crowd. It was nice to be able to watch their whole set without having to dash back to the merch table before the encore. Then we were backstage reunited with our friends and all trying to catch up on what we’d missed on our days apart in between sips of white wine in the tiny red-velvet lined production office. It felt good to be back with these guys. Agnes and Gill tried to pawn off a bottle of nasty sweet-smelling stripper perfume on me (they’d been given a bottle by the un-named sponsors of the night’s event) but I wisely turned it down (probably for the good of the whole bus). We finally clambered back onto the good old Klaus-mobile and the familiar late-night shit-shooting session over beers in the front lounge. I was the first to crawl off to my bunk and I slept very soundly, waking up this morning in overcast Caen.

We spent all day inside the venue so I can’t say what Caen is like. We had lots of catching up to do with accounting, blogging, showering, and sleeping in. Not to mention JB was in dire need of a haircut! I took care of it, finally, and I think he looks awfully handsome with the new ‘do. Tonight’s show was a real winner. I had a great time and so did Jonas, and hopefully so did the audience. Feeling happy and relaxed (I just finished a very late dinner).

new haircut: so handsome!

Tomorrow we’ll be dropped at the Paris airport bright and early (try 6 am) to pick up our rental car and head to Strasbourg to meet up once again with the TT crew. This part of the tour is pretty confusing… lots of back and forth between our two touring buddy bands and some weird logistics concerning rental cars and festivals etc. But we’ll get through, we always do, and I’ll report back when I can.

Xo,

S.

Hi Everyone! Well, there is quite a lot of ground to cover since I last contributed to ye olde blogg.  Luckily Jonas is really good at taking lots of pictures of all the beautiful scenery we get to see, because I am terrible at it.  I just look at it and forget that later I’ll want to talk about it, and that photographic evidence is helpful for that. Besides, JB has a better camera! In any case, we’ve been having a great time and definitely living it up.  Here are Jonas and our incredible tour manager, Guillaume, chilling on the bus.

JB DJing for the post-show bus crowd

In this photo you can kind of see a bit what the bus is like on the inside… small but surprisingly cozy.  You can also see the wine & kronenburgs on the go, you can see that we can play tunes, and if you’re a real sleuth, you can see how late we stay up.  We keep doing it!  No matter our good intentions to get our beauty rest, we are just having too much fun.  By the way, Guillaume deserves a special mention because he is the best.  You’ve never met a man so quick with a maglite.
When we finally do tuck in, it’s even cozier.  JB posted a photo of me in my bunk and said I was playing flight control (which, by the way, if you don’t have that app you should get it).  That wasn’t accurate because what I was really doing was taking this:

Caravaggiesque!

I believe it was in Vannes where JB managed to get his hands on Gill’s harp.  He’s been eyeing it all tour, and I think he was pretty excited when she let him have a go. First she explained a bit about the workings of the harp, and how she can change the tuning of each string using the little levers along the top.  Then she played us all a few jigs.  A jig on a harp is much more elegant than a jig of any other kind I think.  What an amazing instrument!

A private recital

But JB really got his druid on when he tried his hand at a little plucking of his own:

Druid in training

Real druid

I guess we’ve were feeling quite medieval because the next day, in Angers, we got to see this suuuper cool castle!  They’ve just got it sitting there in their downtown like it ain’t no thing. Obviously everyone took a million pictures.

Capturing the castle

The place was amazing.  I mean I don’t know at what point in history they created the insane french manicured gardens within the moat and inside the castle grounds, but even those are probably older than most of the stuff I’m used to seeing.

Manicured moat

This thing is OLD.  And it’s gorgeous.  The view is incredible.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we all just traipsed around the ramparts taking photos.

There is actually a miniature forest growing inside the castle walls (which seems crazy to me because the castle itself is built up so high… anyway they manage it somehow.  This tree had a face:

(for my Dad)

And then there’s the gigantic Apocalypse Tapestry.  It’s sooo crazy.  Gill and I went through reading all of the captions.  We could barely follow any of it because we have very little biblical knowledge, but basically all sorts of crazy shit is supposed to go down when the apocalypse happens, and I do not want to be around for it.  Photos were prohibited but JB broke the rules and posted a sweet photo of the scourge of death in his recent post, if you’re interested. Then we walked around a bunch more:

JB and I take all the same photos! OH NO

Yeah we played this place. Like, uh, what!?

So obviously all sorts of stuff happens in between the sightseeing.  For example, eating.  We eat VERY well.  And also soundchecking, and other things that are much less interesting.  I’ll try to talk a little about normal daily stuff as well, but mostly the standout things so it doesn’t get boring.  Here’s one of the normal daily things… merch!  Every night somewhere in between soundcheck and showtime we find the merch table and lay out our wares.  Thanks to our manager, Christoph, it’s turned into quite the spread…. what with our cute little mailing list typewriter, and our massive silk-screened posters, it’s getting maybe a bit out of hand?

our wares

Usually pre-show we spend a bit of time in the dressing room getting ready for the show.  Apparently this is Jonas’ new routine:

JB's new moves

Well after a slew of very excellent shows, we now have a few days off in Paris.  Our friend Marine’s brother has graciously given us his apartment in Belleville.  The first day we totally slobbed it up, lying around the flat doing not a heck of a lot.  But we found a great restaurant around the corner and enjoyed people watching a bit (especially the waiters who were moving at hyper speed – slicing baguettes, racing around with plates, and only pausing to smoke half a cigarette in the doorway to the crowded patio, or devour a few bites of potato or an egg in the kitchen to refuel).  And yesterday morning I went and checked out the huge street market that was taking place on the main drag nearby.  This market ran for about 4 blocks and was loud, bustling, and really fun.  I was really wishing I actually had groceries to buy because it would have been nice to pick some things up.  They had stalls selling everything from fruit & veg, to clothing, olives, meat and fish, spices, and nailpolish.  You get yelled at by a lot of sellers trying to get your attention but I just floated through trying to be invisible.  I loooove markets.

mega market

Later JB and I wandered around.  A LOT.  We sort of had it in mind to go shopping, and had an exceedingly vague description of a neighbourhood to try which Agnes recommended.  We headed in that general direction but of course didn’t find the shops we were looking for.  Luckily walking around anywhere in Paris is basically a treat, so we just let our noses guide us and ambled aimlessly.  We found all kinds of lovely pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods.  Eventually I was exhausted and we had to stop for a coffee.  Oh! Wait, sir, I forgot to ask for it with milk.  Damn.  Can’t get used to the way they serve the coffee here (tiny and black) but I’ll learn.  The thing we really need to learn is how on earth to properly leave a restaurant.  Every time we eat or drink somewhere (in France) we struggle with trying to get out of the damn place.  Just let us pay!  They don’t bring the bill unless you ask, and for the longest time we didn’t know the word for “bill” – we now know its “addition.”  But first, in order to ask for said bill, you have to get the waiter’s attention, and damned if we can successfully flag ‘em down…

bonjour monsieur

And then we did find a really awesome vintage store in which I was completely overwhelmed by the massive selection, the heat, and the techno, but JB managed to find some warm leather gloves. A little murderer-esque perhaps but heck.

JB trying on coats. this one too big but would have been perfect!

I was the mule.

Shortly after that photo I was informed that you aren’t supposed to take photos inside the store… whoops!  Heheh too late.  So we just kept walking.  Eventually we stumbled upon this beaut:

ooooh, aaahhhh

And relaxed for a moment in the sun, watching two little boys kick a red ball back and forth across the square.  Life rules.

And now I must rush off because JB is about to DJ Pitchfork fest!  This is going to be so much fun because I’m excited for all of the bands and because I don’t know what Jonas will toss off his iPod and I’m curious to see how it goes over with the French.  Not to mention we get to see Franc from Magicrpm once again.  And as if today wasn’t enough, tomorrow we get to take the train to Amsterdam to be reunited with our good pals Timber Timbre.  Yay! So exciting!  I promise to report back soon.
Xo, S.

Well I have a lot of work to do. I should really try and blog each day as to not fall so far behind. I really thought that the bus would’ve made for an easier blog life but instead what happens is we finish each show, take what’s left of our rider (beer/wine) and stay up on the bus till 4am shooting the breeze and talking about life. Each night we become better friends and the conversations become even better and so now it’s a must that each night we stay up late. Sorry folks. It’s just how it is…. Then we hit our bunks and when we wake up we’re in a town with the sea or a castle or something totally great to go visit and we do. Then it’s lunch/dinner/soundcheck/performance/wine/beer/bus/chat/etc. So I’ll recap our last few days and then Sylvie will tell her version, from the Lady’s Angle.

So we were last in Brest with you, on the sea, at a Moroccan restaurant if I remember correctly… The next morning we woke to torrential rains. We were picked up from our cute little hotel and driven to the venue by Yannick, a dear gent, who told us that it’s almost always sunny in Brest and that they have a saying that “it only rains on assholes in Brest”. Thanks Yannick!

This night was amazing. They had over 1000 tickets sold before the day of the show! That was the biggest crowd I think Evening Hymns has ever played to indoors. Pretty awesome feeling. Here’s a shot of the crowd:

freaky deaky!

Sylvie in her bunk at night playing Flight Control probably.

Not to sound too redundant but man are we ever lucky to be on this tour. Playing to these huge silent audiences in these perfect rooms with professional sound crews and amazing catering and each night sharing this experience with our new friends Agnes and her crew. It’s a really special feeling. Fall asleep in Brest. Wake up in Vannes.

When we finally lift our heads off the pillow and look outside we’re in Vannes. An amazingly beautiful little city. Just over 50000 people here. Very boutique-y feel to it. Tucked in by the sea. Nice shops. Beautiful people. We walked around for an hour before we had to soundcheck. Our engineer that night, Arnaud, was amazing. Such a talented and gentle person to have behind the board for our set. It’s an interesting setup because Agnes Obel have their own sound guy, Andy, from Scotland, who is quickly becoming a good friend of Hymns. They set up and check for a couple hours and then we use the house technician for our set. Each night we have a different sound guy and it’s cool to see how they approach mixing our set each night. They are all so keen to make it great on their end. Such a nice feeling. I’ve spoke in the past blogs about the level of quality you get over here in techs. It’s totally amazing! Anyways, Arnaud was no exception. A top class engineer! Extra credit to him for helping me translate the dinner menu!  Here’s the venue from the nosebleeds:

Here are some photos from the town:

I didn’t take many photos in Vannes. Not sure why. It was so pretty! One thing that really stood out for me though is when we left the venue to go for dinner before the show we drove in a couple cars to get to the restaurant and it was raining pretty hard, and let up just before we got to our destination. We all walked as a big group to the restaurant, over the cobblestone streets and the rain was running in  little streams everywhere and the smell of woodsmoke hung in the air and it cleared my head and made me feel so nostalgic. A cool evening, after the rain had stopped and the world felt crisp and clear. And that smoke…. It was a very happy moment for me. And then I had an awesome pasta dinner with NO MEAT, CHEESE, or FISH!!!! WIN!

Another cool thing about Euro shows is the sound and light techs, and people from the venue all eat together with the band. And with our bus driver Klaus too! FAMILY!

Stayed up late. Got up late in….. ANGERS!

Again, another beauty town. Very picturesque. We went as  team to explore the castle, which is gigantic, beautiful and also houses the Apocalypse Tapestry which is the largest tapestry in the world. http://sourcebook.fsc.edu/history/apocalypse.html

the girls skip down the street to the castle.

we follow…

chateau D’angers

family

manicured grounds

tourists.

apocalypse that way… sure why not…?

cool!!!

noted, supposedly, for it’s asymmetrical gable…

Afterwards Sylvie and I wandered to the old cathedral and happened upon this spectacular pulpit… one of the most impressive ones I’ve seen on my travels.

incredible!

A few more shots of the town:

the oldest house in Angers, Maison D’Adam.

A nice full day walking around and a great night in the theatre. I really enjoyed Angers. Hope to get back there. Here’s a picture of the inside of the theatre:

The Phantom of the Opera

People lined up to get in…

photo credit: Anne

Well that’s it for now folks. We slept. We awoke (in Paris) and now Sylvie and I are taking a lazy day off. Met up with our dear friend Marine, who had her cellphone stolen this morning so we couldn’t reach her and we were late but so was she because she lost her phone and all this complicating business, blah, blah. Sucks. But at least we’re back on track now and just going to relax for a couple days. Do some sightseeing. Sylvie wants to shop. Rest, rest, rest!

Thanks for reading. Chat soon!

xo jb

Hi Everyone!  You missed me, didn’t you…?  Well never fear, here I am again to regale you with adventure tales.  Jonas did a pretty good job of bringing you up to date.  In Poitiers we walked around and got our fill of lovely French architecture and super old churches (we will always seek out the oldest stuff we can find.  Canada is a real baby compared to old mother Europa, and we are truly in awe when presented with centuries-old architecture).

Jonas "in awe"

The next place was La Roche sur Yon, where I attempted some shoe shopping.  The town was mostly deserted, but apparently everyone was in the shoe store, which was packed, so I decided to pass on browsing for fancy footwear.  The post office there is absolutely gorgeous, and other things of note include:  little skateboarder boys, and roving packs of young motorbikers, who are possibly enemies, as perhaps evidenced by the laughter of the skater boys when one of the motorbikers bailed in the park.

The show that night was lovely!  I mostly stared up into the smoky lights above me, so it probably looked like I was singing to one special person in the balcony.

From the wings: Jonas rocking Mountain Song!

After the show me and JB ran out to get some dinner before the audience let out.  He managed to negotiate some kind of salad & fries combo (narrowly avoiding a reenactment of the pile of unseasoned steamed veggies he’d been given for lunch).  I, however, got down to a massive hunk of charred and bleeding steak, preceded by an elaborate caesar salad with chicken, whole anchovies, and huge shards of shaved parmesan.  It was beginning to look dire when we realized we had to leave the restaurant within ten minutes in order to be back at the venue in time and our entrees had yet to arrive.  Thankfully I had the presence of mind to request our desserts to go, and we bolted our meals and ran back just in time to hawk our wares to the masses.

The following day (yesterday) was a day off in Brest – a port town on the North West coast of France.

Overlooking the sea

Appropriately, JB and I spent the day eating and napping, alternating these with bouts of watching French TV and sending emails.  We were awfully tired (and, if we’re totally honest, a bit hungover… check out JB’s hilarious one-sock look!)

He could only find one sock this morning! What a scrub...

At lunch, I tried to order a green salad but I mixed up my translation and ended up with the following:

HUGE slabs of liver paté! THE WORST.

F.Y.I, I hate liver.

BUT we did manage to get out and see some of the sights.  95% of Brest was destroyed in the 2nd world war by the allies (Germany was squatting in the harbour with its U-boats).  However, there remains a gorgeous old castle (some of the walls are Roman-built, from the 5th century!) and a very pretty and fairy-tale-esque tower:

look at these cute little flowers! they grow in cracks and crevices and look like tiny sea daises.

what is wrong with this picture? aww you're so cute, little french sign. thanks for looking out for my safety on the insanely blustery cliff's edge. i know what you meant.

And in a park on this same blustery cliff’s edge, overlooking the port, I climbed into a tree and had a real zen moment all to myself.  It was so very peaceful up in my strange semi-pine, semi-bansai looking tree (shaped like a deciduous but with giant pine cones and dark green needles.. so weird but I liked them a lot).

The view from my Tree.

Then JB came and coaxed me down (something about falling out and smashing my head) and we were on our merry way.  We had earlier spied a little Moroccan joint boasting on its menu a vegetarian tagine, so we headed there for dinner.  The owner ushered us in with a handshake and within moments we were enjoying piping hot veg tagine (stew) and couscous, along with a tasty vin rouge de Maroc.  This food was so perfect for a cold, windy night.  Not to mention it provided a welcome respite from what generally passes for “vegetarian” here in France.  A huge steaming bowl of delicious hearty veggies… no mountains of cheese (in fact no dairy at all), no secret hidden meat, no bread.  Phew!

Tagine! YUM!

My delicious dessert: Vanilla ice cream, chantilly cream, toasted almonds, honey, and dates. MMmmm JB was so jealous!

Hello, Mr. Camel...

Today it rained and rained so we’ve been mostly bumming around indoors.  The venue is great, we’ve got laundry on the go (thank goodness as I was about to run out of clean undies!).  Sound check begins shortly and we’re looking forward to playing.  Thanks for hanging in there, dearest blog readers!  More babbling from the J-meister and myself to follow (when next we get some chill time and some wifi).
xo
SS.

]]> http://www.eveninghymns.com/blog/blog-of-the-forsaken-2011-10-24/feed/ 0 http://www.eveninghymns.com/blog/blog-of-the-forsaken-2011-10-23/ http://www.eveninghymns.com/blog/blog-of-the-forsaken-2011-10-23/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:43:07 +0000 jonas http://www.eveninghymns.com/?p=1083 And so I left you in Poitiers. Sylvie and I went for a wander to see some sights around town. Found this beautiful river:

While we were standing on this bridge to take the photo an old car drove by and backfired about 10 ft. away from us and scared the shit out of us. I thought I was being shot at…

We also found these:

It wasn’t open but we took a picture infront of the 2nd oldest church in France.

And happened upon this place too:

An artisan umbrella maker!!!! Cool shop. Wish we had the money to buy one. They were beauty.

Okay enough tourist shots… We are at work over here I swear. The venue, as seen in the last blog post, was spectacular. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to play in the big room as no amplifiers are allowed! They are so strict about it. The room is perfectly tuned for acoustic instruments and they take that very serious. They have multiple spaces within this incredible Poitiers complex and they set us up in the restaurant upstairs. Certainly not as exciting as playing in the big theatre but fun nonetheless…. Still got to play to a really big audience and also to try out a new song for the first time. Post show drinks in the cafeteria and then off to the bus to sleep.

When we woke up we were in La Roche Sur Yon. An even smaller town then Poitiers. We ate some snacks and then went for a quick camera jaunt around town:

As the photos show it was a beautiful day for wandering around. Nice, quaint little place…

Had one of those weird food moments where we get free lunch and dinner at the same restaurant, provided by the booker, but they had no vegetarian options on the menu, except for a plate of tomatoes with some lettuce. Hahaha… oh France. Anyways, that’s what I had but convinced them to add fries to the dinner portion. Lucky me!  Sylvie had some fancy foods. Salmon and steak. Lets just see if she blogs about it. Saw this cute shop beside the restaurant and liked the way the sign looked:

We’ve been graced with really nice, big dressing rooms on this run that normally provide us a shower, washroom, etc. Nice to have that quiet space before the show to get cleaned up and collect the thoughts. Had a pre-show shower and it was great. Played this beautiful, huge concert hall. Great lighting and sound. Spoiled, like every night. I think this show was sold out too. It’s a treat to walk out on stage each night with these massive crowds that are so attentive and welcoming. It really helps to calm the nerves and this tour has been less stressful than most because of it. Here are a couple of the staff cleaning up after the show:

Just a cavernous room. Steep seats and a big balcony. Beautiful room. We played a good set I think and then stayed up too late with the Obel Team sipping jaspers and shooting the breeze.

Had too many beers and stayed up too late. When the bus stopped this morning we were in Brest, with a day off. Sylvie and I were dropped at our hotel and set out to wander the city. Our daily findings:

The Australian swimmer, Thorpedo.

The Sea

Thought this would like a classic iPhone photo and alas…

So the Germans had a U-boat base in harbour here which was eventually recaptured and the French dug up these ol’ subs and put them back in service for themselves. They kept 4 of them and used them for years. And if I remember the plaque correctly they were sent on over 500 missions… Supposedly these were pretty sweet subs. Hard to believe two troops would be in those things for 7-8 days. Crazy!

Pont de Recouvrance

The coolest thing about this bridge was the ambient sound coming off of it. The wind was blowing so hard that it created this beautiful hum from some part of the bridge. It was amazing! I tried to record it but it didn’t capture the sound as I wanted.

Sylvie defying gravity in a tree. I warned her that if she wasn’t careful she’d fall out and risk serious injury. An injury such as this one, that this poor bird succumbed to:

Anyways… that’s about it for our day off. We ate at a great Moroccan restaurant right near the sea. It was delicious. So nice to have couscous and tagine and all those vegetables. We needed that. Okay. This entry took me 1.5 hours to put together. It’s a time consuming process uploading the photos and sorting out things. Hope you enjoyed. We have all day in Brest again tomorrow and then a show tomorrow night. Can’t wait to play. It’s another gorgeous venue!!! Woohoo! zzzzzzz

Be well…jb