Quality night out in Paris on Friday. Went over to catch A Certain Ratio on the first night of their micro-European tour.
Got the Eurostar over early arvo with JG and Mickey Way, stood in the bar the entire journey, then hit a brasserie right outside Gard du Nord as we landed to rendezvous with Mickey Way's mate Jaz who'd flown in from Coventry that morning, and to catch the Argies vs Germans.
About 8hrs after we'd started drinking thought it best to get our arses into gear for the gig itself...
ACR themselves were playing the Mofo (I kid you not!) Festival in the north of the city, which was basically just a gig in a huge sports centre divided off into different rooms (inlcuding a 'mo' room, and a 'fo' room, would you believe!). Didn't recognise any of the other artistes on the billing and ACR were the headliners.
Befriended a French lad called Gilles who started talking to us on hearing our accents. He'd hitch-hiked down from Britanny on his own and had seen the Order there last year, as well as the Hammerstein gig cos he'd been working in Noo Yoik at the time. Good week for him cos he'd also caught Section XXV in Paris just five days earlier.
Highlight of the night was Tony Quigley joining us for a beer. JG had shouted out 'Tony!' at him an hour earlier as the band arrived and he'd given us that look as if to say, "Should I know these bastards?!" but stopped for a moment anyway. Then he wandered back out from the dressing room later, sat himself down amongst us and had a good old chinwag till he left us cos the band were due on stage. What a top lad. Told us that after the tour ACR are going into the studio for 2 weeks to nail their new album. Hoping to get it out next year. No label yet. They've got about 12 tracks knocking about. Also said there's no plans for any British dates yet though, shame. Liam also joined us for a chat. Can't believe he's been in the band 16 years now. Doesn't look anywhere near old enough for starters!
Gig itself was a sweaty backroom. Pitch black. Absolutely mobbed. ACR in one corner, with a huge projection of themselves against a wall to the side of them so that it looked like two gigs going on at once. Jez completely forgot the lyrics for Do The Du, kept stepping up to the mic, then back again, then to the mic again, with nothing coming out. Moscrop was in Kraftwerk t-shirt and combat shorts. Denise wandered out for Flight, then a good 2mins into the song realised she didn't have any contribution and wandered offstage again, Jez telling the audience she had Alzheimer's! New stuff sounded fairly solid, back to basics ACR and none of the bollocks experimentation they've let themselves down with in the past.
All in all a good night out and I got my setlist off Don Johnson himself at the end when I clambered up on stage, another top lad.
Oh, and I made sure I got myself a rack of snails around 1am outisde Gard du Nord. Well, when in Rome.. .
Setlist -
Did it chart?
