Dominique, far left, and the Festival BAR team…amazing group of folks.
BREAKFAST at the mill with Yvette, Jacques, Corrine and Jean Luc before everyone heads for the festival site.
Music starts at 12.30pm today and runs ’til 6pm. Today’s headliners – Little Bob Blues Bastards – had to cancel as 85-year-old Bob has lost his voice 🙁
There’s a silver lining in every cloud, though – the replacement is Elliott Murphy. We’ve never come across him before – a good pal of Bruce Springsteen who also write album liner notes for Lou Reed. He and his band were amazing!
Elliott’s fiddle player Melissa joins us for a few drinks and we hang out at the wrap party before heading back to the old mill. Been quite some weekend.
WE’RE up at a more reasonable hour today and have breakfast with Jean Luc, Corinne, Jacques and Yvette – nice to see them as they were part of the group from France that came to a Memorial Hall show in Scotland back in 2018.
I get a little work done then we take a drive to Chinon where we have a wander around and stop for some lunch.
Then it’s back to the old mill for before heading back to the festival site. Musical highlight today is Francesco Piu Groovy Brotherhood…as well as all the food and drink!
Opening up Festival BAR…fantastic night in Beaumont en Veron 🙂
WE SPEND the morning and afternoon catching up on some work.
I edit up a reel of vertical video clips from last night’s show and post it around my socials then we make our way to the festival site to load in.
It’s not the best weather, but all the outdoor areas are pretty well covered and the rain has stopped by the time I take to the stage.
There’s lots of familiar faces amongst the crowd and Margaret does well on the merch.
Once I’ve cleared my gear off the stage we go to eat – Marie Claude is running all the artist and crew catering and the food is nothing short of amazing.
We watched another couple of bands then head back to the old mill. What a night!
Grand time playing a pre-festival show at Relais du Velors
ANOTHER long lie and relaxed morning at the old mill.
It’s also another nice sunny day so after breakfast I take a walk around some of the wee roads round about.
We get some work done int he afternoon then make our way into town to set up for tonight’s show at Relais du Velors – a pre-festival ‘inauguration’ show.
The place is mobbed and we have a great evening.After the show Dominque presents me with a photo from a similar pre-festival show at the same venue (in 2017!) by photographer Laurent Leduc.
After we get tidied up we go to the festival site for some dinner then back to the old mill.
…after the show I’m presented with a photo by Laurent Leduc – taken at the same pre-festival gig in the same venue back in 2017.
The old mill – our home for the next week or two…magical
WE HAVE a very long lie at the old mill then make some brunch before heading to the festival site in Beaumont for coffee with Dominique and all the festival volunteers who are working tirelessly to have everything ready for the weekend.
Dominique takes us to a wee venue nearby where I’m playing a special launch show for the festival tomorrow (Thursday) night . We have a wee recce, chat to the owner over another coffee then we go back to the mill.
I sit outside and noodle about on the guitar and come up with some wee bits that might make a future song then we do a livestream and have a wee wander around.
Later on we head back into town and join everyone at the festival site for dinner.
WE’RE WOKEN at 4.45am (UK time) by music piped into our cabin. Jeez. Think it’s meant to give us a heads up that we have an hour to go before docking at Caen.
By the time we’ve come to, got ourselves sorted and I’ve found coffee we’re pretty much ready to go down to the car deck.
Once we’re not he road we stop at the first service station we find and fall asleep int eh car for nearly two hours! Then we go in and have some breakfast.
Messages on both our phones from Three inform us that the £25 spending cap I set up on our phones before we left to ensure our £2-a-day charge to access our UK calls/data/text allowance would run smoothly has been exceeded. I get on the chat with Three to try and find out what the fuck is going on and they’re pretty unhelpful saying that there’s nothing they can do about considering a refund ‘til my next bill. I’m a little but tetchy about it to say the least.
It looks like we’ve been charged £25 each for data used during a six-hour ferry crossing while we were asleep. Fuck off. To add insult to injury, if I hadn’t increased the spend cap in advance of travelling (as recommended by Three!) things wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bad. Also, no warning or notice from Three or any other service provider that passing through some kinda ‘no-man’s land’ would incur a mega charge. I’ll deal with this when the time comes.
Anyway, onward to Avoine and Beaumont en Véron where we rock up tp the festival site. Work is already well under way and went catch up with some of our local pals and have a coffee before Dominique takes us to the old watermill which will be home for the next ten days or so.
We chill for a while then head back to the festival site for drinks and dinner with the main crew…gonna be an exciting few days ahead…
Our cabin for the night…well, next few hours, anyway
ALTHOUGH breakfast at the hotel finishes at 9.30am we don’t need to check out until midday. We’re in no huge hurry so have breakfast, get back to the room, get our stuff together and leave the hotel around 11am.
The drive to Portsmouth is uneventful with only a sandwich and toilet stop along the way.
The ferry is scheduled to leave at 11pm so we have some time to kill and end up visiting Nando’s for some dinner, then on to the ferry port where we sit in a queue for an hour or so before boarding.
Our wee cabin is fine and we chill for a while before some zzzz’s….the ferry gets into Caens at 5.45am so not gonna get much sleep!
BREAKFAST is on until 11am so we have a bit of a long lie then head downstairs. A good spread of stuff.
No plans or rush for anything today but I do have a few things I need to attend to. First up, remove The Met landing page form my website.
Next, there’s new cover images to be made for my socials to help start promoting November’s album launch shows.
The next single – and last one before the whole album drops – is released on 17 October and needs set up with my digital aggregator for timely distribution to all the streaming services. It’s a bit fiddly as I dealing with all the singles and subsequent album as a ‘waterfall release’ to see if it helps build streaming numbers.
I also take some of the video from last night’s show at The Met and manage to edit up a song from the set on the iPad.
We venture outside for a walk int he sunshine and grab snack before returning to the hotel to chill.
We’re not hugely hungry later on so have dinner in the hotel. Cheap and cheerful – although my chicken burger has, I am sure, seen better days!
The Met is a fantastic venue…and we have a great time
UP EARLY to get the gear sorted out and car parked for a 10am getaway…and we’re on the road bang on schedule.
With just one toilet/food stop we get our hotel in Rochdale where we drop our bags and chill for a while before the six-mile drive to The Met in Bury for load in.
Shaun opens the stage doors and helps us in with the gear…soundman Craig who worked my show in the same venue – way back in July 2009 – makes soundcheck quick and easy. The sound, and space, is brilliant.
We have time to nip out to a nearby Italian restaurant. Nice folks but the food is mediocre…Margret’s cannelloni isn’t hot all the way through and the pasta has a strange texture. My risotto tastes good but is a bit sludgy. The fact that the food arrived about five minutes after ordering doesn’t inspire much confidence in freshness.
We’re back at the venue in good time for doors. I have to go and ‘sit down’ three of four times before I take the stage. Not sure if it’s the food, nerves or both…it’s my first show like this in a while.
There’s a good crowd in albeit a few less folks than we’d hoped for – especially after throwing nearly £200 in socials advertising over the last two months. Amongst the audience is my old pal an bandmate Marsha who moved down here 23 years ago (gulp)…and Rachel…one of my predecessor student president’s at Kirkcaldy Tech, Haven’t seen her for 40 years (double gulp!). It’s great to catch up with both after the show.
RELEASE day for MacPherson’s Lament…and I realise that I haven’t set up the official video on Youtube or Facebook. I get right on it after breakfast!
There’s still a few songs needing rehearsed for tomorrow’s (Saturday) show at The Met in Bury. We’re unsure of my set length at Festival BAR and any other French shows so I make up a variety of set lists to cover, hopefully, any eventuality.
Next job is the edit for the next single from the album – Good Friend Blues. Drops on 17 October, so time is tight!
I take a break to clear the gutters both at the studio and the house then take a wander up the lochside.
When I get back I finish the Good Friend Blues video edit then make some vertical video of today’s release for my socials.
I’d hoped to get all the gear sorted and car packed tonight but there’s still guitar strings to be changed and a bunch of other stuff needing done so looks like I’m gonna need to get out my pit early in the morning!!
