freygolo

Colorado Springs, Co (Usa) @ Union Station

2009-06-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

A thousand mile, 2o hours driving, and 1 time zone change later, we arrived in Colorado Springs. There's no clue Doctor Quinn was there but there are some kids hanging in front of the Union Station, things are looking great for tonight!!
We got no time to say we were a bit tired nor to get something to eat, the show had already started.
Life on tour is a constant sucession of new beginnings... We unload the trailer, get our gear all set up, take a look at the hundreds of cds glued on the wall in the back which gives this place such a shinny 70s' disco era look, we don't soundcheck, we are all grumpy because we can't soundcheck. In the end, we were just grumpy for the laugh because nobody really cares about soundchecks.... 1-2-3-4 and here we are again on stage!
Tonight was awesome, the room was full of kids singing their lungs out and moshpitting the entire show. Really awesome gig!!
We had fun after the show too, while people were moshpitting to the music of The Shilling and skanking on the A-OK's, we're having some beers with the owner of the bar... again we were having that delicious dark-brown beer... I have to get some back home!
Since we got no place to sleep tonight, Tiffany the trumpet player of the A-Ok's offered us to sleep at her house, in Denver... well, we can drive 75 miles more, so we loaded the trailer back and....blahblahblah ....
I don't think I've ever seen a girl's house in such a mess in my entire life... There are so many things left everywhere that everyone of us is not going to be able to sleep here, so half the crew spent the night in the van, some others slept in the basement, I slept in a sorta passage/hall/home of the cat place... I lied down where I could, where it seemed clean, and fell asleep right away.

Killeen, Tx (USa) @ The Sport Shack

2009-06-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Here we are back in Texas, after we drove 12hours, rather than wandering outside on the parking lot when it's 106 degrees(41°C), we decided to visit the Buzzkillers. It's great to see them again, we had a talk for a couple of hours, and as stereotypes about French people are particularly strong here, we reassured one of their girl friends: "Yes, French girls do shave their armpits as much as American girls do..." Then we hit the road back again, we only had about 125 miles (200 km) to go today. According to the increasing amount of people wearing lures and fishhooks on their caps, Killeen might be located more in a contryside part of Texas than Austin is.
We eventually parked in the Sport Shack's parking lot. The place is totally desert, and since it's getting pretty late, we started to wonder if a show was really going on tonight... After we went in the club to take a look and a quick investigation about whether we're gonna play or not, Sean told us the show was gonna happen, the only thing is that there's no audience... Well I' m exagerating a bit, let's see: if I don't count the guys from The Shilling, there is like 4 payed entries, 3 guys that put up the show and play in the local band, and the regular customers: 3 at the bar and 2 at the pool...
The 2nd local band has just cancelled so the hard task to open the show is now ours. Well, things look awful anyways so we decided to have as much fun as we could, and be as energetic as we could too. Apparently the audience liked it, the bar owner too, and offered us a round of a delicious 5% of alcohol dark-brown beer... at the end of the show Dirty Fredo told us that we sold as many cds as there were guys in the bar!! We watched The Shilling show that went the same way as we did, it's a little messy but the evening's as fun as can be! I would have liked to party a little more, but again, we're gonna spend the night driving so we loaded the trailer back and hit the road... even before the last band ended.

Baton Rouge, La (Usa) @ Insomkneacks

2009-06-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Even if we stayed up a little late last night and slept on the floor, the simple fact that we didn't spend the night in the van, got us all in a good shape to day. We all woke up at around noon, just in time to taste the delicious food Georges mom cooked for us. I guess I'll never know if that's something to put on her wonderful sense of hospitality or if it's all about the smell coming out of some of our bags, but Georges's mom offered us to do some laundry here.
So we arrived late afternoon at Baton Rouge all clean, fresh and fit. The Insomkneacks is a sort of open space for cultural events, that is, if you ever feel like showing some paintings of yours, recite some poems or play some chords; you're more than welcome to do it here.
Everyone treated us well here and the venue is nice; it looks like you're in some friend's living room: there's carpet on the floor, sofas everywhere, no stage at all, just a drumkit and a P.A in a corner of the room... it looks like a modest place but it's totally sweet and fully functional!!
The show starts early like every day because of the huge amount of bands playing. As the first two bands were playing, more guys were coming in, so that the room was packed when we got to play. There's no air conditioning, just a huge fan nearby the entrance door ... needless to say the heat is hardly bareable inside!! Nico (trumpet/back vocals) and Belzu (drums) got their shirts off and we started the show. Tonight is gonna be awesome, one of the best show since the one in Las Cruces. The guys here set the Insomnkneacks on fire, they skank, and sing the songs. We end up all sweaty and breathless. I wouldn't wanna play a second more!
We're playing back to back with The Shilling, they're playing in the same ahthmosphere as we just did. I sweated way enough already so I'm out to take some fresh air. Outside, I join the other guys from Freygolo. Nico found a hose, so we decided to take a shower on the parking lot... We stayed quite some time there, talking, drinking beers and taking pictures with our new friends from tonight. Then we loaded back the trailer and "took off", once again we're gonna drive the whole night!!

West Wego, La (Usa) @ Mvc

2009-06-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Louisiana during the morning that day. We're staying at Georges's, the guitarist of one of the bands we're playing with tonight. His house looks as kitsh as can be! Everyone is exhausted and throw their sleeping bags wherever they can to get some rest. As for me, after I went to the bathroom to wet the velvet curtain of the shower, I found myself some room by the tester bed of some unknown guy's room. And as Georges's mom requested, I carefully watch out not to make any scratches on the wooden floor with the zip of my sleeping bag...
Later on that morning The SHILLING figured out a way to practice in the living room, they wanted to get some MURDER MAJESTY songs into their show to please their fans, since they had to cancel the tour. We just fucked around a bit, we didn't want to go out out and face the local heat and humidity, then it was time to go.
I don't know whether the van is freaking slow whether the distance estimation was totally wrong, but all I know is that the 45minute drive turned into a 3 hour drive....
West Wego is a small town west from the Mississippi, we got there by the end of the afternoon and the show already kicked off. This place is rather "countryside-ish", it consists in a field with: in a middle of it a "cabin" that apparently is a tattoo shop, and on its left, on the yard, a covered part with underneath, what looks like the stage. It soon got time for us to play because many bands have cancelled that night. Tonight again we 're not gonna soundcheck, we only have 5 minutes to set up our gear and try n' sound good...There is a lot of people tonight, the athmosphere is really good but unfortunately we put up a shitty show: lots of mistakes and we were not into the show at all.
Nobody wanted to stay here too long so we loaded the trailer and decided to go to New Orleans. Georges directly took us to Bourbon street in the French Quarter; it looks like a pedestrianized street packed with tourists, bars, restaurants, and strip clubs. That's the kind of place where you party 24 hours a day! We stayed there a couple hours, got some beers and fell the athmosphere, then we went back to Georges's house.

Houston, Tx (Usa) @ The White Swan

2009-06-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

9 o'clock in the morning, and one hell of a mess is waking me up. I barely open an eye, still feeling too sleepy and what do I see? Shane and Mike fighting. It looks like the overnight thinking only lead to a fight...

As Shelco was weary of counting the points and convinced the situation could only got worse, he decided to take a plane ticket on the first flight to Vegas this morning. The tour ending up there for Murder Majesty, they decided to "fire" Mike and get him a ride to the airport along with Shelco... Mike, on a funnier note, decided to slash the tires of the van....

I really feel like I'm on a tv prank show, and expecting Ashton Kutcher to come out of nowhere shouting "you just got punk'd"... but it's real. Everything must come to an end, so there it is: bye bye Mike!

On one hand, I actually am thinking we're gonna have more room in the van, on an other hand, the athmosphere is grimmer now. I'm pretty pissed off that Shelco left so soon too... But as one moustache man who wasn't that much into dental care said: "The show must go on"... we load the van, say goodbye to the Buzzkillers, we're out to Houston!!

I didn't pay attention to anything at all during the 4 hour drive and slept the whole way through. The club is located in a sorta "ghetto" part of Houston. It's now 5:oo pm and there's really nothing to do before the show. We spotted out a Subway a little further in the street, so we decided to get our first meal of the day there.

Back to the club, it looks like the promoter did a good advertising job as there's quite some guys here. The first bands are playing, we're staying in the backyard sipping some beers, and we noticed that in general the athmosphere is more relaxed now that Mike's gone.

It eventually is our turn to play, we're lacking some room on stage to feel at ease, but a bunch of crazy guys are giving us enough energy to put up a good gig. The SHILLING, that played right after us, put up a good show too. The day ended up in a smoother way that it started, but I can't complain about it! Then, we loaded the trailer and left later on that night .

Austin, Tx (Usa) @ Red 7

2009-06-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

It took us the whole night and a part of the morning to get to Austin. There, TJ and James from The Buzzkillers one of the band we're playing with tonight, give us a place to rest, so that we won't be too tired. The heat combined with the tiredness gets us all in a sort of lethargic/coma state of mind, nobody's doing anything till it's time to go to the venue.
The red 7 looks like every other bar we've seen so far in the US: it's huge, there are pools, some weird table football with 13 players, but most of all you're expecting to see a bunch of cow-boys going into the bar and ready to perfom a quadrille (some sort of old school dance) at any time. The show is gonna take place in the backyard, there again the place is huge, good PA, big stage... When we got there we unloaded the trailer meanwhile the last band from this afternoon show was playing, after unloading we went on sightseeing. The center city of Austin seemed to be dedicated to partying and music, there are bars, clubs and gigs everywhere!!
We ate some pizza there, we were sick of the burgers at the time, then we went back to the venue. The Shilling aren't going to play because the promoter didn't want more than 4 bands playing... the show starts with the band Al Shire a really good punk-rock band with horns, we are playing after Murder Majesty and before The Buzzkillers. It's fuckin' hot in the backyard and there's not so much audience there... We tried to give 100% in the show but we're all tired, so we just put 50% into the show tonight. The Buzzkillers were really full of energy and I don't know if that's the reason why Belzu skank his ass off or it if the reason is the 5% of alcohol beers he had, but anyway they rocked!!
After that we unloaded the van and went back to TJ & James's. Quite some guys followed us there and we 're having a party, I kinda feel like I'm not gonna sleep my regular 8 hours tonight!!!
The least we can say is that alcohol interacts differently on everyone, as an example here's just one: dirty Fredo totally passed out on the kitchen floor amongst the other guys partying after an hour... whereas we, whom alcohol gives a really wacky sense of humour, took advantage of Fredo's passing out to draw dirty things on his belly and put gherkin up his nose... French sense of humour !!
On an other hand, it seems alcohol is less fun for some other guys. At around 4am, Mike, decided to strangle Shane for some reasons that still aren't clear to me... The party then turned into a tragedy, Shane's face turned blue which got us scared and everybody tried to separate Mike and Shane the way they could. After a couple of minutes, and most of all after Shane begged for mercy several times, Mike eventually let him go.
The athmosphere got "better" after that, but I wasn't in the mood to party anymore, so I went to bed, it was 5:00am.

Las Cruces, Nm (Usa) @ Code red cafe

2009-06-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

Scott and Brent took turn driving the whole night, and we arrived at like 6 or 7 am at Las Cruces. It's already freaking hot out here. The trumpet player from Second Class Citizen and his room-mate are kindly giving us a play to stay, they showed us the rooms where we can sleep, so I lied down on the carpet floor and fell asleep right away.
We woke up at around noon, hung around a bit in the neighborhood: Shane's got to get beers, there's a fast food we never had before in town, we have to make some laundry, we basically hung around in every air conditionned places we could find. We improved our English as well, Scott taught us the meaning of dingleberries... One might think it's a word that's kind of hard to come up with in a conversation, and yet, we manage to say it every two sentences!!
Then we slowly packed our things and left to join the code red cafe, which is a huge "bar/games room" place with a small venue next to it. There's a real stage big enough for us 6, a good PA, that's a great place.
Most of the people are watching baseball on TV and drinking at the bar. We decided to go with them and try the "Tecate", a mexican beer. The guys there are amazed to see French guys in New Mexico, in fact we're the first French guys they've ever seen, and they don't really know where France is located in the world either. Anyways the athmosphere is really cool, and all the guys are really super friendly.
Tonight Murder Majesty is playing before us and The Shilling are playing after us. Apparently Mike doesn't wanna play after us... We're all sorta surprised about it but we let them play before us anyway. They really kicked ass that night, they kicked ass so much that when we went up on stage the audience just couldn't wait to party more... Before the end of the first song, people danced, skanked, did circle pits... This show was really amazing, we're having a blast! This is the kind of nights that you wish would last forever, but apparently we had a long way to go to Texas, that's why we loaded the van and left right after the end of the show.

Tucson, Az (Usa) @ The Hangart

2009-06-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

Departure: about 8.00 am, distance: about 400 miles to drive today, plus we have to get some merchandising for The Shilling on the way, and last day trip proved us mechanical malfunctions were something we couldn't ignore. As for the merchandising, Fred a.k.a dirty Fredo, joined the crew last night as the official merch guy for the tour, that makes us 13 guys on the road now.
Except the heat of the desert, the journey through Arizona is a piece of cake, untill we reached the customs at around 1:00pm. There things got trickier, the border patrol put up a roadblock, and in America, just like everywhere else in the world, the officers feel rather suspicious about 13 punk-rockers travelling in a van... And considering the smell of marijuana coming from the back of the van, their investigation might not last long! And to prove I'm right, after being held 30 seconds for an unbearable questioning that went like that: " OK guys, whose bag full of weed is it??"
Shelco turned himself in. Due to the fact he 's still under 21, he "only" had a citation, a bill, and his mother will lecture him for sure when he gets back home...
Even though we lost quite some time there, we're still on time to get to Tucson and get The Shilling T-shirts on the way.
The Hangart is like a big rehearsal room, with a high ceiling and no stage. I like those kind of places, and most of all, the air conditionning is fully working and even at 9 o' clock in the night, it feels so good. We're playing after The Shilling and before Murder Majesty again tonight. The show is pretty cool for everyone, there's not that much audience, but there's enough people to have fun. It seems like Mike from Murder Majesty is the only one who didn't have fun... We're supposed to sleep at the Hangart tonight but a local guy told us that the place is infested with black widows... So, after we ate at a mexican fast food we decided to leave to Las Cruces during the night.

San Marcos, Ca (Usa) @ The Jumping Turtle

2009-06-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

We slowly woke up this morning, we're not in a rush as it only takes 5 hours to get to San Marcos, California.
We are hanging aroud till midday, then Sean calls us because it's time to go. We load the gear and the luggages in the trailer and the 12 of us gets in the van. I hope we won't have to spend too many nights in it because it might get hot pretty quick in there.
Shelco ( Murder Majesty's drummer) gets to drive first and we eat up the miles as fast as the locals eat triple whoppers, means fast as fuck! The weather's still freaking hot but the closer we get to California the lower the temperature gets... The temperature outside I mean, because the van is smoking really bad and I 'm pretty sure the temperature of the engine is higher than the temperature outside!!
Victorville, CA, its 3:oo pm and we screwed the radiator. Speaking of, there's only two ways of seeing things: either the American garage mechanics are really f***** skilled or the European ones think the customers are f***** idiots and that they can take your car for 15 days only for an oil change... Not only did they get to repair the van straight away but it also took them 1 hour and a half to get the job done. We're hitting the road again at 5:00 pm. The engine malfunction has some consequences and it's Scott, the guitarist for the Shilling, that is now at the wheel and the pace is much more slower...
We got to San Marcos in the evening, it eventually took us up to 9 hours to get there.
The Jumping Turtle is a real venue with a stage and all, but there again there's no soundcheck, only linechecks. Soon, comes our turn to get on stage, it's pretty early now, but once it's 11:oo.pm the show turns into a 21 + ages show ( no longer all ages).
We linecheck in 2 minutes, no need to say it sounds aweful and there are buzz and feedbacks in every monitors. We didn't put up a really bad show but we didn't put a good one either and to add a little extra to the disapointment I was starting the feel, Iwas told to stop the show because we're running outta time... I guess I'm gonna have a few beers and pretend I never played that show.
That night turned into a pretty long night and I was pretty happy to leave to San Diego. We 're gonna sleep at the house of the father of Mike, (guitarist for Murder Majesty) who is originally from there. I'm going straight to bed, tomorrow we're leaving at 7 am.

Las Vegas, Nv (Usa) @ East Side Joe's

2009-06-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

We've been here in Las Vegas for 2 days.We 're staying at Sean's house, the singer of Murder Majesty, the band which we're gonna share the tour with. With the jetlag, the steaming hot weather of Nevada, the millions of dollars we lost at the casino last night and the night we spent sleeping on the floor, I' m waking up with the urge to go to bed again.
The first show of the tour' s tonight, so we're killing time before the show trying to get ourselves used to the American way of life. We're playing pool, eating hamburgers and drinking soda... a lot. We're finally leaving to the venue. Actually we're playing at some guy's house, Joe, apparently his place is "THE place to be" in Vegas underground scene. I feel like I'm back in the 80s' and in the movie thrasin'.
The wooden house is located in the middle of a waste ground right next to the military base. The walls are covered with tags, there's a half pipe in the middle of the room and the bands are playing on the floor, facing the skateboard ramp. It looks awesome ! There's at least 10 bands playing tonight, everything goes super fast, every bands got their own gear and nobody's really soundchecking. The house is packed with kids, it's so hot inside that I barely watch the bands, except for The Shilling: the other band we're gonna share the tour with. They play real good ska-punk ala Choking Victim/Leftover Crack... I have to admit I've seen bands play better, but there's something about this band, some energy and fun that makes it great. I think we're gonna have fun with those guys!!
It's our turn to play, we play 7 or 8 songs in a row, without any breaks. The people are reactive to our music and the house turns into a gentle mess. Considering there's no stage, the place looks even messier. I can't really tell if we're playing amongst the crowd or if the crowd's dancing amongst us! Joe screams: " Vive la France" ( long live to France), we're playing a quick encore and we let Murder Majesty play. They' re also playing some kind of bad ska ( Choking V/Leftover Crack sorta music ), but with a more melodic aspect and a horn section. They have to face lots of technical issues tonight which avoid them from giving 100% of themselves. We end up the evening talking with everyone, trying to know each others a little more, then we're going back to sleep at Sean's.

Midwest Us Summer Tour 2009

2009-06-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

The SHILLING + FREYGOLO + MURDER MAJESTY US TOUR 2009

Esch Belval (Lux) @ Ska Punk Fest

2009-01-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Oviedo (E) @ Three point fest

2008-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Studio Session Feat King Selewa

2008-11-29T05:02:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while now that we wanted to record a ska song the way it used to be done back in the days, something that would sound definitely more old school and roots than what we've been doing so far, what would be Freygolo tribute to the rocksteady and 60s' ska songs that we' ve always liked to a certain extent. We labelled this project under the "cool things to do" but postponed it just because we are lazy people... until lately. Cheered up by King Selewa as the producer we gave it a try... here's what happened:
Here we are on Saturday morning, we have an appointment at the crack of dawn with Alex, sound engineer at the "Palmito studio". The "Palmito" ( sort of French slang to say palm tree) is kinda like the Mecca for local roots/reggae fans, kinda like riddim's waiting room, this studio seems like it's been made for ghost notes and offbeats... There are rainsticks, donkey skulls and djembes all over the place.... SCARY!
We meet our host, unload the gear, then the King (Selewa not Elvis) arrives... Now, we can start to work!
Alex sets up the mics, the amps, and the drums... this dude knows his job, and an hour later punk-rock is out, Kingston's (almost) in.
Then, the King briefs us about the recording process. We're gonna record the bass/drums/guitar live ( simultaneously)... But first and foremost we're NOT gonna record with a metronome, we can afford some off-timings !
Ten takes later the rythm part is done.
The horns are next, with the similar kind of recording process, that is trumpet and trombone recorded in the same time, to keep that live spirit.
We end up with the voices and some arrangements. There are off-timings, but it sounds alive, and it sounds damn good. The athmosphere we wanted to give to the song feels just right .
The result is really nice for Motown novices like us, I think we' ll put that song just the way it is on our next record !

Romont (CH) @ Festival

2008-11-15T01:31:00.000-08:00

Bruxelles (B) @ VUB

2008-09-06T01:29:00.000-07:00

Lessines (B) @ Centre Culturel

2008-09-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

Coursan (F) @ Festival

2008-08-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

Frontignan (F) @ Festipop

2008-05-16T01:25:00.000-07:00

Monaco (Mc) @ AJM

2008-05-09T01:22:00.000-07:00

Narbonne (F) @ Kosy Bar

2008-05-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

With an amount of about 300 gigs with FREYGOLO, we haven't stepped foot in Narbonne (south west of France), so we blindly and trustfully accepted to play there with the band GRIP. The show conditions are not so glamourous but we've always tried to get along with the motivated youngsters that want to put a little action in their town!
Here we are at 6 pm at the Kosy bar. This is a classic bar, like we 've played a hundred times before... Football table, snooker, darts, beers, some bar joke signs and posters, and in the back a little room where the show's gonna happen tonight. We meet with the guys from GRIP then we go on soundchecking... three minutes later, the bar owner stops us, apparently we play way too loud for this place... Well we're not that loud but the ceiling is so high that the sound is reverbarating all over the place... We're not gonna be able to fix that kind of problem unless we suddenly get possesed by Mac Gyver's spirit and we build a soundtrap with a snooker and a piece of gum. We decided we'd better stopped soundchecking at this point, and that we'll figure something out when the audience would come in.
There's not much to do in Narbonne, so we settled outside ( to picture the whole thing there was 4 pieces of wood on the parking lot in front of the bar ) and start talking with the GRIP guys and half of the PARCEL BOMB guys that went to see us from Perpignan ( 1 hour away from Narbonne). At about 10:30 p.m, the first band starts playing, they play their rock n' roll to the 50 guys there that I would describe as rather enthusiastic.
And here we are, the Kosy is almost packed, the athmosphere is great and everybody 's in to party. But we're not gonna party that long... After 5 songs, the bar owner stops us. The music is still way too loud to him, and who gives a shit if the bar is packed and beer is flowing around??!!! "Everybody Out Now !"
Not only is he a complete dickhead, but he's also agressive as hell, the situation gets outta control in no time... We didn't want to beat the shim outta him ( not that that we didn't feel like it) but unfortunately, beating him won't get him any smarter, so we decided to load the van and leave this place before we changed our mind and started a fight. Poor Ermengarde of Narbonne, Saint of the troubadours, may your soul rest in peace!

Steinefrenz (G) @ Liverock vol 11

2008-04-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Perpignan (F) @ El Mediator

2008-04-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

Eight o' clock; everybody's up. The night was short, we only had a couple hours of sleep. We have to be at Perpignan (South of France) at 2 p.m for the soundcheck and we stil got some to drive.
This time again I'd sleep during almost the whole "journey", only opening an eye or so for the "gas-cig-food-bathroom" stops (random order).
We eventually arrived at El Mediator only an hour late compared to the schedule.We join three quarters of the guys from SATURNE ( a band from Perpignan) who set up tonight's show.
Then we quickly put the gear on stage, the venue is quite big and there's a real stage, bad news is that it's too small for us 6 to fit on it. Tonight we'll play on the floor again. Th sound engineer is pretty cool and the soundcheck is not a big deal.
As we're all more tired than ever, nobody wants to do anything too actively. We'll just surf the web with our friends CHARLY FIASCO. We just found out we had the same taste for crappy music, so we share our latest discoveries and most appreciated crappy bands.
The show starts with the guys from PARCEL BOMB, they play some good old punk-rock sung in French, kinda similar to the bands from Guerilla asso. The venue now has a hundred kids audience. The guys from CHARLY FIASCO followed, they were actually renamed RAOUL CIRCUS by Belzu and his legendary memory... Their music is refreshing, full of humour, they played their straightforward punk-rock for our listenning pleasure!!
Then it's our turn. We start giving like 50 to 60%, the day after big parties are definitely not FREYGOLO's best days. We're getting into the show little by little and we finally give our "full potential". All in all we did a good show, the audience is really into the show and the athmosphere is good tonight. We 'l end up in a climax covering The crowd with the guys from CHARLY FIASCO doing the back-up vocals.
Almost like every last show we'll go back home straight after the show, We don't hang around that much, say goodbye to everyone and we're back on the road again !

Bordeaux (F) @ El Inca

2008-04-11T03:08:00.000-07:00

I open an eye at like 11:am. Judging how J-Chris (the new merch guy) looks now; a mix between a sea lion and a sharpey, obviously last night left its mark on some members of the band.
It's about time to leave, if I were young, with wide shoulders, and an inborn sense for reggae melodies and an ear-ring that seem to come straight from the most glorious days of piracy, I could have sing " on the road again"... Instead of that I'll try and get myself as comfortable as I can in the van and sleep some more. I fell asleep under Albi's rainy sky and woke up under sunshining Bordeaux's sky.
As sometimes things couldn't be any more perfect, we arrived at the same time as Tomy-Tom, one of the kid of the associtaion that put up tonight's show for us. The "El Inca" is a small bar in the center city of Bordeaux. We 're gonna play in a basement tonight. It's tiny but cool. We unload the van, set up the gears, souncheck quickly, then we go sightseeing a bit.
When we come back, the gigs are about to start. The bar is crowded with 80 guys, let's say that considering the size of the place it's pretty crowded. The guys from FKN are opening, I have to admitt that I haven't seen the show, I was way more busy trying the local habits which consists in eating peanuts and throwing away the shell. When I go downstairs, SWEAT BABY SWEAT are playing. Sounds like a mix of rock and a bit of stoner, those guys play very well, and they already have lots of fans completely devoted to them.
Eventually it's our turn... feedback... 1-2-3-4... here we go for 45 minutes of energic show. It's really cool to play on the floor, in the middle of the crowd; it's even cooler 'cause the athmosphere is really cool. Lots of guys know the songs and sing along, really good vibes. We end up playing that good ol' "Wasting My Time Again".
Quickly the basement is empty, but there are quite some people upstairs at the bar to make the evening last a little longer. We'll do just like them to get our 3 free drinks and to learn more about Nicko-Nick 's (the 3rd fellow of the Hell punk rock view association) love life. We'll leave at 3:oo am, after several scoops and wise pieces of advice. Some of us went to Franky-Frank's house and some others to Tomy-Tom's. It's now 4:oo am, eventually we are all going to bed.

Albi (F) @ Campus fest

2008-04-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

We were in Paris yesterday morning to shoot a TV show and we took advantage of the afternoon off to drive and get closer to Albi ( south west of France). That's why, we only only have a 100 km to drive this morning.

We arrived at about 1:00 pm. The fest takes place in Albi's University campus, a quick look around and I suddenly realize that we are in the middle of a "eco-warrior-hippie-another-world-is-possible" meeting with hardcore recycling guys. People pisses on haycock, takes a shit in sawdust, and only uses unicycle to move... It's truely a bit confusing at first, but the hundred or so volunteers here deeply believe in it and are really nice guys, so we'll play by their rules with pleasure.
The afternoon goes by quite fast between expeditious soundcheck, touring stories with our buddies from DIRTY FONZY, organic beers and rain in torrents. The hours that separate us from the show always seem to last forever when we soundcheck early in the afternoon.The show kicks off, an electro band, a theatrical interlude, 2 fire-eaters, 4 jugglers later, it's now 9:15pm and we're climbing up on stage. The rain eventually stopped and the big top is crowded as fuck. We're starting, it's really cold but the atmosphere is getting warmer... We are well received, people are gently pogoing, and asking for more... There's even that guy that wants us to get naked, it's funny 'cause there's at least one guy like him in each town, it just seems like the night there's no guy like him, you're almost missing something!!!
Due to the schedule, we quickly leave the place for the other bands. I don't remember at all the band that played right after us, but I do remember the FONZY"s performance at home. What a show!
We hang around after the show to have a couple of drinks, then we leave direction Guillaume's ( singer of the band CONDKOI) house to spend the night there. Again we have a couple of drinks, and eventually go to bed at around 3:00am.

Cannes (F) @ Mjc Picaud

2008-04-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

Our latest gig in the dpt was way back in July and our latest gig was in December, that gives us 2 good reasons to look forward to that show in Picaud where we arrived at approximately 5.oo pm.
It's funny because we had one of our fisrt show in that same venue. A heaps of good memories are coming back to my mind... bullshit the so called show was a crappy battle of the band where we lost against a neo metal band that wasn't even good and that may have called it quits back in 1998...
Our friends from ISP are already there, accompanied with the legendary ( as legendary as his newly hairdo dyed in red ) video clip director David BASSO. We say hi to everyone and we go to the soundcheck.There things are a bit slower, Toto wants to show why he's paid a huge salary ( = oo bucks ) tonight and is pretty demanding toward our sound.
Once the soundcheck is done, the guys from ISP take us to appear on their new video, the plot is a kinda punk karaoke in which a lot of bands are gonna have a sentence to sing. We sing ours sorta brilliantly... To be honest it's pure nonsense, I don't know what it's gonna look like once everything will be done, but David and ISP look quite happy!!
In the meanwhile the guys from BURNING HEADS arrived, we eat altogether, then it's already time to go on stage.
The Mjc Picaud is crowded with 150/200 youngsters. One day a prophet from Antibes ( basically a city near Nice, our hometown) declared in his infinite wiseness: " It's great to play far from home", as far as I'm concerned I think it's good to play in our hometown too. The audience moves, some sing alongs there, the room is filled with friends and common faces, everyone is happy and we are too!!
We let ISP go up on stage. I m' now part of the audience to watch the show. It smells like sweat, guys are spitting on themselves, a very huge Punk hxc show just like back in the days!
Eventually the BURNING HEADS are up on stage. I'm not a huge fan of many bands, but come on! They are BURNING HEADS for christ's sake!!! Their show starts over energitically and slow down a bit just to play a couple of good ol' reggae songs. A fantastic setlist, hits only tonight. There's nothing to say, they'll always be the best punk-rockers made in France, and I'm glad they are !

Paranoïa # 3

2008-03-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

1) Let's start with a classic, who is Freygolo ?
Freygolo is Francois: guitar/ vocals, Nico: trumpet, Jeff: guitar, Remi: trombone/ vocals, Arno: bass, Belzu: drums. We exist since 1997 & we play Punk Rock music.

2) You released your 3rd record in 2007, looking back on it what do you think about it ?
"Stereo Fighters" was released in June... Looking back on what's been done, our point of view is mixed, on one hand it's by far our best record, the songs are way better than on our previous records, better written they contain more personnal material too; on an other hand we are a bit disappointed by the way how it sounds, it doesn't sound exactly how we wanted. It sounds really good but unemotionnal, almost surgical, which turned out to be a disadvantage especially for the slower songs.

3) How was the recording process?
The recording process wasn't so good, we stayed way too long in the studio which drove us crazy. We 're partly to blame, we weren't so well prepared, but that's a kind of classic case for us, we're really lazy ass guys!!Moreover we had loads of technical problems, we had to re-record some drum parts in the end, so it didn't sound the same as the previous one, we had to fix that ... & so on.

4) You're 6 in the band, how do you write your songs?
Most of the time, I ( Francois) write a rough version of a song, show it to the others while practicing & everyone add their ideas & we basically write songs like that. The whole band is involved in the process of writing the music, for the yrics the singer writes it, that is me or Remi.

5 ) The songs are really fast-paced what gets you going??
I really don'tknow, we just wanna make good songs, fast or slow, it doesn't matter.

6) You have horns among the band how did you add 'em?
Well, we've always played some ska and reggae in addition to punk rock, adding horns happenned naturally. But we didn't make any auditions, or particularly look for horns. Some friends just came up some day & said - Hey, if I buy myself a trumpet or a trombone, can I play with you guys ? - we just answered yes.
7) Even nowadays, you're being compared to Mad Caddies, what do you think about it ?
Mad Caddies is a really good band, beeing compared to them is flattering, paradoxically we don't sound alike , I think. But we've been compared to so many bands since our beginnings than nothing really surpsises me anymore. One day some guy compared us to YES and GENESIS.... all in all Mad Caddies is not so bad !!!

8) You're one of the "old timers" in the Frech punk-rock scene, how do you feel about it ?
We've mostly been told this abroad, it's flattering, of course. In France we're seldomly considered as such, but, it's understandable, the scene has troubles to grow bigger.People are only interested in their friends bands and 2 or 3 other bands that are better represented in the media than the others... To be honest, we don't care, we don't expect much from anyone, we go our way & try to do our best.

9)Since 1996 how dou you judge your evolution ?
It's hard to be your own Judge, I think we've more or less been doing the same thing, our thing that makes Freygolo sounds this way. In the same time, we try to evolve, try to avoid doing the exact same thing over again. Considering the tempo of the different songs, maybe we slowed down a bit , we may be a bit melodic on our last record... I don't know.

10) You seem to convey fun and happiness on stage, is this some sort of way to tell people to have fun, or would you like to convey another message ??
We never really had a message to convey, we 're not here to tell people what to do. It's just music. One thing for sure is that we like to be on stage, and people who came up to the show wants to be here too normally, so why can't we have some fun together?!
11)There are 2 featurings on this record: Pit sampras (singer from Burning Heads) and Forest (singer from the Pookies). How did you meet them and do you plan other featuring for an other record??
Forest is a really good friend. We met during a show and became friends. We often see each other so the idea of him singing on one song came up naturally, plus we really like his voice.
As for Pit it's a bit different, we played with Burning Heads some time ago but we don't know them personnally, we wanted to have him on the record because we all love Burning Heads, we grew up listenning to "Super Modern World", "Be one with the flames", "Escape"... We are really glad he accepted to appear on the song "My Daily Grind", and his part rocks !!!
And yes, why not getting some guys to sing on our next record, it will depend on who we meet I guess...
12) You toured a lot abroad and even in Japan. How were the tours and what were the main differences?
We do tour a lot more abroad than in France.
The Japan tour rocked, we were really well received, it's really a country appart from the others. They have a huge respect toward everything and everyone. It's really my best touring memory.
In Europe the touring conditions are approximately the same, appart from England which sucks, when you play there: don't expect to eat, take showers and sleep in a bed or on a mattress.
What really changes is people's interest in punk-rock, about that France really sucks, the "best" countries for punk rock are Spain, Germany ....

13) After 10 years as a band, what do you think of yourselves and the future of the world ?
I'm quite happy with the band, we did more than 300 shows in the whole world, released 3 records... I never thought we'll do all this when I started the band.
Waht really changed nowadays, is the fact that we 're older and being in a band like ours is becoming harder and harder, it's hard to pay a rent when you're on tour 2 weeks a months and cannot work by so doing ... I don't know how the situation's gonna evolve but we'll find some solutions.
About the future of the world, as long as people only think about themselves and getting advantage of their neighbours, we 're heading into a wall!

Punk Rock Confidential Japan

2007-12-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

--NOFX
--BAD BRAINS
--Photos from THE UNSEEN
--DROP KICK MURPHY'S
--We love OPERATION IVY
--PUNK LOVE(Minor Threat etc..)
--PENNYWISE's PUNK PAPA
--TIM'S PHOTO(from RANCID)
--TOKYO HARDCORE TATTOO
--SKULL SKATES
--COKE HEAD HIPSTERS
--PUNKAFOOLIC! TOUR 2007(MAD CADDIES etc...)
--Live PICs from1997(HAWAIIAN6, FUCK YOU HEROES etc...)
--LIVE in JAPAN(TOY DOLLS, QUEERS, etc..)
--PHOTO HISTORY (FISHBONE, RAMONES)
--TURTLE ISLAND and BLACK GANION
--Xray(NAGOYA ORDER, NEW DAWN etc...)
--SET YOU FREE ????
--FISH & TIPS--COKE HEAD--
--DJ HIKARU
--PUNK ART (Heather Hunnoura)
--PUNKS NOT DEAD(YOUTH BRIGADE etc...)
etc...
+ FREE DVD (69 bands and more!!)
FAT WRECK CHORDS(NOFX, DEAD TO ME, STRUNG OUT etc)
INYA FACE RECORDS
PUNKAFOOLIC!(MAD CADDIES, locofrank, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME etc)
SKULL SKATES(COKE HEAD HIPSTERS are BACK!!, STAB 4 REASON etc...)
AUTHORITY ZERO, KOTTONMOUTH KING, RIVERSIDE, SA, SLANG, HAWAIIAN6,FUCK YOU HEROES, WATER CLOSET, IDOL PUNCH, DEEPSLAUTER,LESS THAN TV, TURTLE ISLAND, FREYGOLO, UG MAN, ROBIN,TROPICAL GORILLA, NUMB, SUNS OWL, WRENCH,NOT REBOUND, SPROCKET WHEEL, ????? etc...

Punk Rawk Issue 37

2007-12-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

Old hand that's been playing for 10 years amongst the ska punk scene Freygolo is launching his new record Stereo Fighters. Massive sound, great songs, potential party hits, the boys from Nizza put their music up to a whole new level. Let's check out the details with François, the singer/ guitar player of the band...

How has the recording process been doing?
It hasn't been really great. We stayed much too long in the studio. We had quite a few technical problems, we had troubles with all the arrangements and the mix. In fact we had lots of ideas, it's the same old story again: we're such lazy ass guys that we don't work that much before recording, so we arrived with all the ideas in a jumble and with the stress of recording, things can get bad really fast. But in the end, it's the first time our record is released in such good conditions, and considering the record itself it's by far our best record so far, more elaborated and more complete.

There are some changes in this record: diversification of the singing, guitars that dare more things, but most of all slower tempos than what you were used to. I assume your new drummer has something to do with it...
Well, it's been a coincidence of things. First thing is that time went by, we haven't released anything in 3 years. I think it's pretty cool we've evolved because, otherwise, I would have had the impression of being stuck. As you pointed it out we have a new drummer he's got a different style than our former one, he's really making room for himself in the songs. All in all, I think we all wanted to evolve, to avoid doing the same thing over again. We don't say to ourselves we should sound more like this or that, we leave different options to ourselves... We like trying new things, that's what we like.

The record is out on Versus Label, can you tell me more about it ?
We first met Christophe from Versus Booking, then, one thing leading to another, we met Mika from Versus Label who offered to release the new record. The cd was gonna be well distributed. We were sick of hearing people telling us they could't find our records in stores. It was really important to us to get a good distribution.

Has the record been well-received so far? With this evolution and this label, you might get some sarcastic views, people will talk behind your back, aren't they ?
Yeah, for the moment the cd is pretty well received. There is always those guys that think it was better before, but it was the case for our previous records too. Every time one releases a new cd, he's exposing himself to gossip, but to tell you the truth, we don't pay too much attention to people passing remarks. Two or three guys talking shit on us on a crappy internet forum isn't gonna change our lives, you see? Some people are interested in Freygolo and that allows us to tour quite a bit and to put out records and so on ... that's all that matters.

Considering the lyrics, I think you're more disenchanted than before, aren't you ?? Still fighting but a little tougher...
Yes, you're right somehow. The older I get the more bored I get too. I somehow got the feeling that nothing is ever gonna change, because people are fighting for the wrong causes all the time, and they are really selfish. Well at least you're saying we're still fighting, it's not that bad. The day when we are only disenchanted and bitter, it will be about time for us stop!!!

You're going to Japan soon ?!! Will the record will be released there ?
Yeah, we're going to Japan the 21st september, to play 8 or 9 gigs over a 2 weeks period. We're over excited, first because going to Japan is a complete new thing because of the distance and the change of scene... This tour has really been put out in the best conditions ever, we're gonna open for Less than Jake for 5 shows and share the whole tour with Authority Zero.
Anyway, yes, the record will be out in Japan on the 26th September still on IN N OUT Records.

tour cancelled

2007-12-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

"No fences, no borders. Free movement for all. Fuck the border."

Fuck, here we are, back home again... After having played a show in Budapest, and driving countless hours and even more countless kilometers...

We were forced to make a u-turn at the Ukrainian border, after the customs officers shot us out the border because we didn't have the original technical passport of the van... we only had a copy of it. The thing is that this original document is never delivered when you rent a car in any car rental shop in France; nonetheless explaining that to the only customs officer who was speaking English wasn't any help, as she was only repeating: "you can't go in without the original document", whatever I was saying to explain the tricky situation we were in.

We really tried to get into Ukraine but as they registered the number of our license plate in their computer, and took all the infos about us from our passports and made an official document of us being unwanted in their country, there was no way we could legally cross the border...
Someone once said "I fought the law and the law won", guess that couldn't be any more true than now... We really tried our best to get into Ukraine but we couldn't get a chance, Fuck!!!
We are deeply sorry we had to cancel the tour, we really apologize to everyone who booked shows for us, to all the people who wanted to come to the show, we really want to come back as soon as possible and we'll do our best to make it happen a.s.a.p.

We'd like to say thanks a lot to Daniel, Max and Sveta and all the promoters in all the different cities, thank you.
We'll come back as soon as possible

See you all, fuck the borders!

Budapest (Hu) @ Kuplung

2007-12-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

pics by Jan Kummer

Punk Rock Season

2007-10-16T02:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a view (for the Ukranian webzine "Punk Rock Season") with awesome french punk band Freygolo, made using e-mail.

1. Thanx that you agree to make a view. First of all, please, tell who and when started the band and a short history of Freygolo.
You're welcome, well Freygolo started back in 1997, as a 3 members band. It all started with Francois (the singer/guitar player) that is the only original member still remaining in the band today. Today we're a 6 members band with the same persons since 2005. Belzu, the drummer, is the last guy to join the crew after Fred our former drummer called it quits.

2. What does Freygolo mean and why did you choose this name?
Actually Freygolo doesn't mean anything at all, Freygolo is a small character in the cartoon Captain Future, it looks like a turtle that can change its body appearance, well we just kinda ripped the name off... We chose this name basically because we all like cartoon.

3. What genres and bands did influence you when you started a band and what are your favourites now?
We were all into melodic punk rock like NOFX, No Use For a Name, Millencolin, Pennywise, and some ska punk bands too like Less Than Jake, Mad Caddies, Catch 22 etc... Nowadays we all have different favourite bands ranging from hardcore to pop rock, depending on everyone's taste in music.

4. Who writes music and lyrics in Freygolo?
In general the music is composed by Francois that comes up with an idea of a song, only the basics and everyone puts guitar bass licks, drum breaks and rolls, backing vocals and shit so basically we all write the music. The lyrics are written by the one who sings: that is Francois for most of the songs and also Remi for some songs.

5. Do you often have some quarrels or discussions in the band and is it hard for you to find solution of such problems?
Of course, we have discussions and quarrels but we never fought physically as for now. Sometimes it's hard to find solutions, but we're all the kind of guys to think that there are solutions to every problems, so when troubles come in our way we just figure out a means to get rid of them, and we try to be patient ...

6. Of course, you have some relative and friendly bands. Please, tell something about them.
We've met lots of good bands while touring, Guerilla Poubelle a punk rock band based in Paris, Uncommonmenfrommars, a awesome punk rock band, you must see them live. They're amazing! Authority Zero, the band we toured with in Japan, are like awesome too, check out Sons of Buddha, Coquettish from Japan, they're great (check out black white clothing too their brand amazing stuff), and I could go on forever...

7. What countries did you visit with shows and where did you like it most of all?
Appart from France, we've been to Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Japan.
I'd say we all had a blast in Japan, most of us like Germany a lot too, kids are crazy in Spain too...

8. Are you satisfied with "Stereo Fighters"? Did you get the sound that you wanted?
Yes, we are all satisfied with Stereo Fighters, this must sound like another cliche, but that's our best record to date, we all like the sound even though afterwards you still wonder, like, fuck we should have done this and add this and stuff, but that's the way the cookie crumbles and we are really happy with this record.

9. You're back from your tour around Japan with Authority Zero. What are your impressions about it?

It's been AMAZING! We expected lots of fun, great shows, meeting cool people and we had this and so much more, the shows were crowded every nights.
We played with AZ that are amazing guys: really friendly, nice and funny... We played with Less than Jake, one of the bands we grew up listenning to... What else could we have??

10. There is a very strong ska/punk/hardcore scene in France. Tell something about it, please. Are there some bands that deserve a lot of attention (your point of view)?
According to us, we don't have a very strong ska/punk/hardcore scene in France, lots of bands split because it's hard to make a living out of music down here, especially in punk rock 'cause there are no labels, no good distributors to promote punk rock, and we also desperately need small venues and clubs because such places are so hard to find. We definitely need more infrastrucutures to promote punk rock in France.

11. Are there some political,social, ecological or any other problems that worry you the most? What do you think you can do to help to solve them?
I guess we're all in the band worried about ecological and social problems, even though we're not a socalpolitical punk band, I guess your everyday's acts can make a change on the long run, if everyone trys to pay more attention to his daily acts and neighbours and basically everyone around, maybe, we'll all feel better and get along better.

12. Let's talk about your everyday life. What do you do for living?
We all have different jobs, some of us have part time jobs and so called "mac jobs", Belzu's repairing pool , Arno works in a real estate office, Remi as his home studio where he basically record bands (Snapcut Studio).

13. How do you prefer spending your free time? What about some sports?
We 're all different most of us just like to chill out, watch tv, play video games, play our instruments. Most of us like football too,but we are not really big sport guys...

14. When you where kids what did you dream about? Whom did you want to become when you grow up?
I've always wanted to be a musician ever since I heard iron maiden and metallica for the first time when I was 11 or 12 years old. I'm just trying to make this dream come true.

15. If you weren't musicians whom would you like to be?
Nothing else !!!

16. Do you think that people in the band must be like a family or the main thing is the skill in playing musical instruments?
I do think how we get along is really important 'cause on tour emotions can go very high, because of tiredness and you can easily get angry more than in "real life", but obviously good skills are important too so that the band can improve.

17. Does anyone in Freygolo play in any other band?
Remi the trombone player has a side project where he plays all the instruments, it's called An Escape For Louie, Belzu plays in different bands just for fun. I can't remember their names right now

18. How would you describe Freygolo using only one word?
Like "Wow"??

19. Thanx a lot for this view. Good luck!

Tokyo Shibuya (Jp) @ Club Quattro

2007-10-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Same place same hour, let's start again with the same old guys... It's 6 o' clock and we're all backstage in the club quattro in Tokyo. You can tell the voice will quiver and eyes will become wet, tonight is the last show of the tour and you can feel emotion's in the air... no kidding. We spend the hour before the show motivating ourselves, like a egyptian philosopher said: "I, who choose everything in my life, I want to choose the way I'll die too (...) I do want to die on stage under the spotlights "... Anyway, I may not kick the bucket tonight, but one thing's for sure I'm not gonna spare myself tonight!!
It's time to go to work. Jeff climbs up first on stage and if we can trust the cheers of the 600 guys tonight, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out tonight will be a great night. There are nights like these when nothing can go wrong. Judging by the number of FREYGOLO t-shirts worn tonight, you can tell that quite some people saw our past gigs in Tokyo, as a matter of fact people sings along the horns melodies, they shout out the choruses! This is so much fun that Remi ends his trombone part on "wasting my time again" crowdsurfing. The last song is no different than this one, a third of the band is a microphone in the hand standing in the crowd, whereas on stage, Bill from AZ join us for the backing vocals. We've had shows ranging from good to medium average on this tour but tonight this one is the best show we've had !!
Backstage again, we catch our breath a bit but we're not done yet with the japanese crowd.So we just decide to join all the AUTHORITY ZERO on stage for "no regrets" their last song. Everyone is going insane on stage and in the pit, los americanos look happy as can be, it's so good to end up the tour like this !
That's it, this is the end, there's nothing else to do than party now. LESS THAN JAKE join us after their set, for them too it's their last japanese gig, so everyone's kidding around, drinking beers and we take a couple of pictures to immortalize this moment.
We're going to use our last strength in a final restaurant, we're gonna try to make this moment last forever, but everything has an end, it's time to go back to the hotel, our plane takes off 4 hours later.
This is by far our best tour ever, the conditions while touring were amazing, We're gonna miss all the IN n OUT crew, and more generally we're gonna miss Japan. In addition, I can't wait to play again with the guys from Arizona !!

Tokyo Shibuya (Jp) @ Club Quattro

2007-10-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

We went back to Tokyo yesterday. This time nobody got sick so we had the 6 hours journey in the van.
One thing not bad with IN N OUT, is that they have free access to almost every shows all over Japan. As we had nothing special to do, we actually ended up drinking beers backstage with MAD CADDIES and BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME that were playing yesterday in Tokyo, and as the more we are the better it is, Dan the SUICIDE MACHINES guitar player join us to cheer! I've had worse day off than this one!!
Once again we're playing in a club quattro tonight. This one looks exactly like the others, it's got the same half circle shaped pit, the same wooden floor and the same fences that separate the stage from the audience.
We're doing the best we can so that it sounds good on stage, as we're doing only one soundcheck for both tonights' and tomorrows' show. Then we leave to visit the streets of Shibuya, which is one of the most living neighborood in Tokyo, we got things to see before the show starts.
We're back at the venue by 6:30pm, the quattro is already crowded. Like every nights we take countless number of pictures with young japanese fans, then Hideki takes us away from our moment of glory to get on stage.
We're back and more motivated than ever tonight, you can feel it from the beginning of the show, which is just amazing. The 500 people here tonight react really well. We're putting up one of the best show of the tour tonight, the athmosphere is really awesome and it's driving us overjoyed.
After the show, we ended up in a restaurant, excited by the great show we had tonight, we're fucking around like naughty kids and with a little help of sake we let all our french attitude shines through. We cheer in every language we know, you can hear someone shouting almost everywhere...
We head back to the hotel late at night, and we're going to try to rest a bit because tomorrow is our last day in Japan and we 'll have to put the same great show over again!!!

Nagoya (Jp) @ Club Quattro

2007-10-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

Wake up call at 8 am. Originally we were supposed to have a 6 hour travel in the bus to get to Nagoya... But this was without any regards for the digestive problems of Mitsuru, our "guitar tech hero". After he threw up through the van's window, we changed our plans, we decided to head back to Yokohama and take the bullet train. And I have to say I bless Mitsuru's puke, this train is so fast that it only takes 1 hour and a half to go to Nagoya.
Appart from that, the sun is shining again in Nagoya, we then tidy away our yellow oilskins, and put out the bermudas again to hike in Nagoya before the soundcheck. This club Quattro is almost the exact replica of the one we played in Osaka. We soundcheck ... again, then we kill the time the best we can walking through the streets of the neighborhood.
We start at 7 on the dot, the show is cool, nothing more nothing less. The audience tonight cares a little less about the other bands, and this is also true for AUTHORITY ZERO, I just say to myself that they've all come to see LESS THAN JAKE and that's all.
After the show, the Arizona boys ended up the night in a restaurant, we went back to the hotel. We've all been exhausted and a little sick for 2 days. It would be more than about time we get our second wind, so that we can end this tour with more energy... Let's put it that way, we're more into a last grasp thing than a second wind thing right now !!!

FREYGOLO_Nagoya_Japan

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Tokyo Shinjuku (Jp) @ ACB Hall

2007-10-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

Every days on tour just look the same. Moreover when you're playing 2 nights in a raw in the same city, in the same neighbourhood and 10 mins walking away from each venues.
Everybody woke up relatively late today, the consequences of all the late night parties are showing up and we're all feeling tired. We rushed, hardly awaken to the club to soundcheck. The ACB club is one of those small venues we particularly like, it's just made for FREYGOLO. We soundcheck in no time, then we head back to the hotel to rest 'till the show starts. We went back to the club at like 7:30 pm, 4 out of 5 bands already played. The venue is once again quite packed.
A few reggae SUBLIME-like chords later for the band with the unpronounceable name that's playing before us, then we're already next to show that we're not here for tourism, there are no fences between us and the crowd, the show is then more convivial and because of that the crowd is completely insane tonight. They're by far the best audience of the tour. We end up the show in a climax with a stage in a state of mess that equals the one of the pit.We're then leaving the stage for our friends AUTHORITY ZERO, just like we do every nights.
The evening ends up in a japanese restaurant, I'm not staying late, my stomach is starting to od from all the raw fish, I 'll have a bowl of rice and go to bed.

FREYGOLO The Crowd Shinjuku ACB

Tokyo Shinjuku (Jp) @ Antiknock

2007-09-30T03:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday has been quite tiring. Leaving Nagoya at 8am, after a 5 hour rainy trip we got to Tokyo by early afternoon. After a genuine laundry, we walked through Shinjuku visiting everything we could: temples, getting panoramic views from top of skyscrapers, walking through the center city... Then we finally ended up the evening at the Tower Records to see an acoustic show of our friends from AUTHORITY ZERO. We 're getting along with them better and better and you can tell seeing how the parties go on !
This morning is free time, everyone's waking up whenever they want. Then we're all meeting at the Antiknock club for the soundcheck. This is another cool small club, about a 200 people capacity, a great stage: not so high wide enough. Again, the audio equipment is way too big for the place, let's put it that way, it's like putting the audio equipment of the Olympia ( a big venue in Paris ) in my toilet... the result is a really loud sound but this time a bit crappy too, the bass amp is cracking and the kick is so loud that everytime Belzu's playing it's putting my guts upside down.

It's still raining over Tokyo, we spend the rest of the afternoon at the hotel just fucking around. I missed the 3/4th of the bands by the time I got back to the venue and it's so crowded down there I can't even take a look at the last band playing before us. Here we go, we're starting to play and it's starting really well, kinda like Nagoya. The audience is reacting just fine and is giving us all the energy we need.We end up the show by the OPERATION IVY's cover " The Crowd" featuring the drummer from DON'T TURN AWAY doing the backing vocals. Amazing show tonight.
After the show, we're all going to a restaurant to drink some sake bomb to warm up us just fine for a anthology-like hold them poker game, which is gonna make collateral damage as the bets are glasses of sake... He doesn't want to admit it but I'm quite sure Jayson ended up the game feeling sick!!

Nagoya (Jp) @ Upset

2007-09-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

We 're leaving at 11am today, destination Nagoya. The journey is not gonna be long and except one or two fellows shouting shit in japanese from time to time, it's a quiet journey. One thing to mention is that our driver a.k.a "Huge Balls", has just taught us our first japanese words: "chinko" and "manko" - respectively "dick" and "pussy"-, therefore everyone is working on his japanese vocabulary!!
We arrived in Nagoya by 2 pm. The Upset club is a small club, like a 100 people capacity club. This is the kind of place we've played countless times accross Europe, we took advantage of it to perform our fastest soundcheck ever, a new record: less than 5 mins.
After an afternoon of sightseeing, we're back at the club at the beginnng of the evening. Contrary to what the local staff had foreseen, the venue is crowded. The first bands play and they're all good, I'm starting to believe that there are no crappy bands in Japan. The sound is once again so loud and I don't know if the japanese guys have super tough ears or if half the population down here is deaf as fuck, but noone ever uses earplugs.
At last it's our turn to go on stage. Punk-rock is similar to everything else: you lose some, you win some... tonight we're lucky bastards I guess!! It's by far the better of the 4 shows we played in this country. The contact is set right from the start with the audience, we are crazy on stage... and all that with a smile. We leave this kind crowd just warmed up good to let AUTHORITY ZERO set the venue on fire.
As the world couldn't be so small, on our way back to the hotel, we ran into a japanese girl that has lived several months in Nice, she even got pictures of the French Riviera with her !! The evening ended up in a sake bar in Nagoya, drinking up our homesickness.

Osaka (Jp) @ Namba Rocket

2007-09-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

We got up pretty late today, tired of last day's evening. Fortunately, we didn't have to travel today, Osaka is such a big city that we're playing there again tonight, but in a different club, a smaller one. We know those kind of clubs pretty well, the soundcheck is done even faster than yesterday, only disturbed by a little problem of guitar amps and electricity shocks in my microphone.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing, having a nap, and finding smoething to eat. I have to admit that I had quiete some tough times with japanese food... I'm participating to a kind of "survivor tv show" and when I pass the test, I got a pizza!!
The show kicks off with 3 japanese bands, it's crazy but all the bands are good in here. The timing is rad, they got good songs... On an other hand tonight we're not making the live performance of our lives, we 're almost playing like wimps. I think we lost all our energy skanking last night. We put up the worse show of the tour, that's not such a big deal either, but let's say the flame was desperately not burning tonight.
The show being over we decide to end up the evening at the "ROCK ROCK". The custom here demands that every bands take a polaroid of themselves, the photo ends up pined on the wall of the bar. NOFX, FALL OUT BOY, MXPX and even GUNS 'N ROSES are already there, so we don't hesitate a long time and take this photo... Our mugs end up in the bar window, between MOTORHEAD and LESS THAN JAKE !!

Osaka (Jp) @ Club Quattro

2007-09-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

We travelled from Kawazaki to Osaka today as we're having a day off. 600 kilometers in 8 hours and a half... We, therefore, woke up in Osaka we don't have to take the van today and that's good news, gathering 17 people in a tour bus gets it easily noizy. We'll kill time walking around in Osaka, that's a pretty big city and judging by the way people look in here, there's a good rock n' roll potential.

The Club Quattro is located on the 8th floor of a sort of mall. A great club with a capacity of 400 people, a great stage, and lights and sound equipments that are worthy a zenith ( big and well known venues in France). We get rid of the soundcheck quickly, it sounds good but ultra loud. Tonight the gig is sold out, tonight we start at 8pm again, and tonight again we strum our guitars as hell. We are starting to get used to the way the japanese audience react, even though their extreme attention and quietness between every songs is still a bit weird to us. AUTHORITY ZERO and LESS THAN JAKE are putting up amazing shows tonight. If you trust Roger (LTJ bass player/singer), Osaka feels like home, and appart the fact I couldn't find any socca (traditionnal meal from Nice) tonight, hell yeah in Roger I trust!!
We end up the evening at the "ROCK ROCK" bar where every bands that toured Osaka are supposed to go. And We meet there the guys from MAYDAY PARADE and PARAMORE that were playing in Osaka tonight too. The athmosphere is crazy and a few beers later, everyone ends up skanking along with the choruses from Operation Ivy, Pietaster and other ska hits that the DJ is playing. A little tired and the legs feeling numb, we head back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Kawazaki (Jp) @ Club Città

2007-09-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

We woke up easy this morning. The night was quite good for almost everyone, we're starting to get used to the time zone difference.
We wait at the hotel till 12:45 and Mizuki come to pick us up to do the soundcheck.
The Citta club can welcome 1400 guys and we are told when we arrive that tonight's show is sold out. The show is worth seeing anyway, KEMURI, LESS THAN JAKE, AUTHORITY ZERO, FREYGOLO together plus as a local guest COQUETTISH... It might be quite a good show!!!
As for everything, the soundcheck is really well organized, the stage is set in 10 mins, we soundcheck in 20, the bands soundcheck without any delay... it's some resty and comfortable way to tour, moreover we don't even have to take care of my guitar, Jeff and I have our own guitar tech for all the gigs.
The show starts at 5 o clock and the club is crowded, the guys from COQUETTISH are very good tonight. They run through their songs like madmen. Then it's our turn to play. We 're excited tonight and we play hard since the begining. The reaction from the audience is a bit surprising, because when you clap your hands you can have like 2800 hands clapping with yours but when the song is over there's a total silence... we're just going to play our songs without any breaks and clap our hands as much as we can!!! The gig went on well and it'd better off have been that way because LESS THAN JAKE is playing right after us.
I have to admit that I didn't watch their and AUTHORITY ZERO entire shows. On one hand I'll get the chance to see them again on this tour and on an other hand i'm way too busy talking to the good old guys from KEMURI... These guys are amazing, like humble and kind as can be. It's their turn to play, and there's something in the air right now, something we're gonna talk about for centuries. Time stopped its course, I feel like crying, and I, ordinary being an asshole, am almost about to get into their Positive Mental Attitude... I said almost !!!
We end up the evening like close friends, sake is everywhere and in all the hands, and we'll have a story to tell to our grandchildren: "when your grandpa played on the last tour of the japanese Ska punk ambassadors"!!!

Big In Japan

2007-09-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Japan we're all safe and our guitars too !!!
The flight even though lasted forever had been quite ok. No major troubles to mention, being closed for such a long time (almost) didn't drive me mad... but most of all for the greater good, belzu took a sleeping pill, we therefore didn't hear anything coming out of his mouth during all the trip.
We meet Mizuki and Machi at our arrival, they are our tour managers in japan, and we went to tokyo which is like 2 hours far from the airport. Just to make us feel like we're REALLY in Japan they took us to a traditionnal japanese restaurant in town. We kinda randomly chose some meals and, appart fro the rice and fish, it's not that easy to tell what exactly you're eating, but it seems ok all in all.
We then went on with some sightseeing, walking streets and temples... Tiredness catched up with us, it's like 34 degrees celcius outside, the streets are really crowded, and we haven't slept for 26 hours. Mizu Mizu took us to the hotel which is in Kawazaki, a big city near Tokyo. After a highly appreciated nap, we hang out outside in the city. The streets are still crowded, the shop signs are blinking everywhere ... I feel like it's not a good thing to suffer from epilepsie down here. It's not good to smoke either, at least not in the street, because noone is smoking except in small smoking lounges and close to the an ashtray. We also went to some records shops, the prices are really low and you can find punk-rock albums everywhere, it's different from home. We end up eating at Mc donalds, at least we 'll know the cause of our stomachache tomorow, then we went to bed.

I Think I'm Turning japanese

2007-09-20T02:06:00.000-07:00

"Let's pack our bags and let's run away, from that night, from that day..."

FREYGOLO + AUTHORITY ZERO JAPAN TOUR 2007
09/24 = KANAGAWA @ Club citta' kawazaki + KEMURI, LESS THAN JAKE, COQHETTISH
09/26 = OSAKA @ Shinsaibashi quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
09/27 = OSAKA @ Nanba rockets + DON'T TURN AWAY, VIBEDRED, SUNSET BUS
09/28 = NAGOYA @ Upset + DON'TURN AWAY, STUDS, The CLUTCH
09/30 = TOKYO @ Shinjuku antiknock + DON'T TURN AWAY, FAITH
10/01 = TOKYO @ Shinjuku acb hall + SCREAM WALKER
10/02 = NAGOYA @ Quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
10/04 = TOKYO @ Shibuya quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
10/05 = TOKYO @ Shibuya quattro + LESS THAN JAKE

Lespinasse (F) @ Le Before

2007-09-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

I don't know what we've done, but we spent 8 hours to travel through the 400 kilometers that separated us from Lespinasse... Well in fact, I know what we've done. First, We spent 1hour and a half to go out of Barcelona, the GPS is out of order and the direction aren't really clear in this town. Most of all, we lost 1hour to go to the "Jonquière" (a place near the border). According to Nico, you can find there the best and cheapest chorizo in the world... As if Toto's smell of puke wasn't enough already, we're supposed to endure the smell of the pork butchery... Plus, it took us 45 mins to find the exit #12 and we finally arrive at 8:oo instead of 5:00 at the "Before" parking lot.
Pierro of the 'To Loose Punkers" and Ju of the band SHAKE UP welcome us with arms wide open and didn't care about about our delay. Glancing at the venue: its wide, looks like a place to celebrate weddings and Communions... on an other hand there's no real stage, there's a kind of platform but it seems a bit sketchy to be 6 standing there. Belzu will be the only one there, the other 5 are going to play on the floor. Well... we unload the van, install our gear, sound check. There's an athmosphere of tiredness around all the FREYGOLO members tonight, everyone's paying back for last night.
There's like 60 people in the bar now. We start playing. The athmosphere is not as crazy as last night and if you add to this us being in a poor form, you'll get a more than an average show. We try to make this a good show the best we can and our friends of the band CHARLY FIASCO that are here tonight do their best too to motivate the audience. We finally make it and we end up with 3 "encores" that were a bit chaotic but energetic at least!!
We're not gonna fuck around that much tonight, we load the van back, say goodbye to all our friends and head back direction Nizza!!

Barcelona (E) @ Punk Or Latex Fest

2007-08-31T03:44:00.000-07:00

We're leaving at 8 o'clock this morning, today's gonna be a long day, we 're supposed to be at Barcelona at like 6 in the afternoon and play our set right away.
Ten hours, 700 kilometers and 6 "pit stops" later, we park the van, more punctual than ever, in front of the Apolo 2 (the venue). First news of the day, due to BRIDGE TO SOLACE cancelling the show, we turn up to be headlining the fest, consequently we're playing at 10 pm. We're going to have much more time to kill. And apparently, the cathering isn't going to help us out in killing time, there's nothing left to eat ... we'd rather go for a hike in the center city.
Back at the venue, we're told that the fest must stop a 10:45pm, knowing that there's already some delay in the schedule; it seems like an underhand trick is going on there!! Remi is taking advantage of this time to set up the details with Manu, the promoter of the fest. The bands are playing one after another, some are better than the others, but there were too many for me to remember all their names and the style of music they're playing.
"Suddently here we are. Like a thunderclap a firedamp explosion"... Anyway, It's our turn to go up on stage, and as I foreseen it's already 10:30 ... We start in a rush, angry about this bad schedule thing, but most of all we're excited by the 200 youngsters in front of us that are overexcited since the first chords. We run through the songs one after the other without a break, the athmosphere is fucking great, and for a second I'd almost forget that all the lights are on in the venue and that the sound engineer wants to stop the show after 5 songs... Fuck no!! we can't stop like this, everybody wants more songs!!! Ok ... We'll keep on playing!!
The break will only last while we're playing "she tries to be someone" because when we start to play "the crowd", the sound in front is turned down... Whatever, Arnaud and Remi help the audience to climb up on stage, we'll make noise with our amplifiers and for the voices... well the audience is already singing!! We end up the show in a total mess, with more people on stage than in the pit... I love Barcelona !!!
After such a good show, we don't really feel like going to bed. Noe, our host for tonight, is getting us to a rather punk-rock bar to knock back some beers. We meet Josan ( the co-promoter of the fest) there and quite a few yougsters that were at the show. Some liters of alcohol later, I think we lost the 5/7th of the crew, it's about time to leave! And it's going to be more difficult than what it was meant to be, Noe doesn't really remember where's she's living. We get lost twice and it takes about 1 hour and a half to find the right track. And as all the great evening must end in a climax... Toto pukes the absynthe he drank in the van!! We very nearly avoid a chain reaction and we finally go to bed at around 5:00/5:30.

Draguignan (F) @ Back 2 School Fest

2007-08-25T02:17:00.000-07:00

"Alone on the sand, my eyes in the water, my dream was too beautiful to be true. When summer is over you'll go miles away from me"... Yup, summer is over, just between you and me, it can go back to the caribou hunting I couldn't care less, what I care for is that tonight I 'll meet my garden side again!! We're leaving at 2:00 pm, we only have 1 hour and a half, not that much... idealistic for a renewal.
If I were Belzu I should say the "théâtre de verdure" ( the venue) of Draguignan is extraordinary, fairy-like, fantastic... but I am not Belzu. I'll just say that with the bar proudly showing a notice that reads "Beer: 1 euro", and this sweet smell of BBQ, the theatrelooks like a school fête. Get me an Aunt Sally and a fishing game and I'm really back to primary school.
We meet Toto the "(almost) volunteer sound-engineer-manager" of the place, that get us out of our nostalgic daydream to soundcheck.
The afternoon goes by very fast, drinking with Beru and the Maskes Feuillus crew, playing football and meeting the UNCO guys, It's already the time for WALEGUEN AGAINST to open the fest. We' ve already played with them before, they're style playing their old school punk-rock sang in French. We're getting on stage, I don't know wether it's due to anxiety because we haven't play in a long time but we're overexcited. Belzu was right, there's something magical about this place. We perform a great show and leave the 200 people in the audience warmed just right to watch UNCO. We're going to spend the rest of the evening celebrating Belzu's 26 birthday up until very late night.That's what I call a new school year!!!

Nice (F) @ Le Tapas

2007-07-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

Nissa (F) @ Tapas, Release Party

2007-06-23T04:19:00.000-07:00

One day a local poet said: "Nissa, is where your heart is!"...
And, I have to admit this fool wasn't all wrong... After lots of hiccups we eventually managed to get us a release party date in Nissa for "Stereo Fighters". And even if we're always anxious more than we should when we play in our hometown, it's still great to play at "home" in this good ol' Tapas, the place to be for teenagers drinking bouts and in a lesser extend the place for French Riviera's punk-rock.
There's not that much to say about this night, no funny stories, no exciting details... It's just an amazing night, more than 200 guys, lots of pals there, an awesome athmosphere when we were playing... Well let's put it that way, the evening was as wonderful as the poster Brian came up with was ugly !!!

Aix En Provence (F) @ Le Korigan

2007-06-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

St Etienne (F) @ L'Assomoir

2007-05-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Belfort (F) @ La Poudriere

2007-05-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

We gently leave Besançon at about 2 PM. The 2 "days off/nights on" were highly appreciated even though we haven't rested that much. We eat up the miles that separate us from Belfort relatively quick then we arrive at the venue in the afternoon.
Once again, our hosts Mathieu and the Mighty Worms crew get us a very good reception.
"La Poudriere" is among the best of the middle-sized capacity venue. You can put like 300 fellows in there I guess, the stage is great too, maybe a little too small for a 6 member band.
We unload the van, I change the strings of my guitar, we haven't received the new record yet, we soundcheck, pillage the cathering, we then play footbal with the singer from PEPPER who is hanging around half naked, only wearing a short and a pair of thongs when its only 17°C... Nico loses the ball... well the typical routine !!
It's already 9 pm and the venue is only full by 2 thirds... anyways, the REBEL ASSHOLES are swinging their rock n' roll boots out on the floor and it's great!
We've already played 3 or 4 times with them before, but this time it's by far their best performance. We play right away. This is our best gig of the tour, it's hot on stage, we're sweating... and thats' the way we like it! Come on! make way for PEPPER, then here comes the most awaited band: MAD CADDIES that go for a great set, less pirate more reggae influenced... a really good show tonight.
The party goes on until late late night, I don't really remember everything that occured in the end of the night, all I can remember is that we went to bed a 5h30/6h00 am at Mathieu's flat.

Geneva (CH) @ Le Piment Rouge

2007-05-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

We had a very short night, and the wake up was tough. we eat the breakfast fast and leave, we have to be in Geneva rather early. Our hosts lent us a road tax disc, so we spare a lot a time by driving on a the freeway. That's a little less picturesque but noone's really got their mind on that today.
Here we are at the Piment Rouge ( the venue) in the beginning of the afternoon. the neighbourhood is quite special, a kinda huge industrial estate in the center city that was put into a squat. Appretly this place is ran by different local associations... It's a great place and you just wonder what is that there's no place like this in every city. We meet the lovely Jennifer there and she tells us how the evening is scheduled... Then the classic loading-installing-soundchecking goes on...It's starting to rain outside, We stay in the venue or in the van, so the afternoon lasts forever. A drama 's taking place backstage, the VACHE LAITIERES, the headliners, don't wanna headline any more, it seems like the drummer has got a headache. If that's the problem, I got plenty of aspirins in my backpack !! The wonderful Jenny eventually manages to get to an agreement and we get up on stage. We were forced to play less songs so that the VACHES LAITIERES members can go to bed earlier, thus the show is really straight forward. We put up an average show tonight.
Paradoxically, we're having fun once our show is over. We let the local heroes wearing cows outfits "rock" the stage... We go outside to drink some beers with the TODOS . At the end of the show a DJ put some old ska songs, we didn't need more to set the dancefloor on fire ... And just because we felt like dancing, the charming Jen took us to an electro-music party.
We ended up the evening in the sleeping rooms of the USINE, (another well known venue in Geneva). Everyone is exhausted, we fell asleep early in the morning.

Payerne (CH) @ Silver Club

2007-05-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

We woke up at the end of the morning, then we left almost right away. We don't have a long road to Payerne but we got nothing special to do around here anyway. The route is getting us far away from the Lake Geneva to get us closer to the countryside of Switzerland. As scheduled we ate the miles quickly and we arrived at the Silver Club in the beginning of the afternoon. We're welcomed very friendly, I guess everyone here is really happy to see us. The club is an old garage that was trnasformed into a snack-bar/club, it's great even though the stage is a little too small to us six. We don't waste our time and we soundcheck right away.
All the bands are now here and while chatting around, the kids from TODOS DESTINOS dare to challenge us to a game of soccer. Two options: first, our reputation of being pro soccer players hasn't gone as far as Switzerland and they challenge us without having a clue, or, second option; they know, and there they're being audacious. Anyway, we're gonna have some fun beatinf them at soccer.
A dozen kids are coming from the nearby countryside, and Flav (roadie for the TODOS) is picking up up the teeth he lost while accusing some severe slinding tackles. The show can start. The TODOS, with the bitter taste of defeat at soccer, are the first to play tonight. Then LA RENARDE a sorta of local heroes band playing ska get up on stage. They 're much awaited, it's the 3rd time they're supposed to play here, but tonight is the first time they really do play, the other times they were too drunk to play.
At last it's our turn to play some power chords. The club is still crowded inspite of the fact it's getting later & later, the athmosphere is still good. Great show; the soccer game in the afternoon warmed us up well and the crazy people in front of the stage are setting ourselves on fire!! the gig's over we load the van quickly, we got some miles to go to the farm we're sleeping in tonight.

Montreux (CH) @ Le Ned

2007-05-25T01:18:00.000-07:00

There's always a day that sucks in every tour, I feel like this is today... After a gig in Lille ( north of France) that won't go down on history and a stop in Paris to get our new record that is actually in the Netherlands ( but, don't worry, you 'll get it tonight, we'll send it directly to the venue!!)... Destination Montreux in Switzerland!!
The journey lasts forever, and as the decay of the van wasn't enough to slow us down, the customs officers decide to arrest us too. We get arrested twice in 40 kilometers. We 're starting to get it very well:" Listen guys , we know you got some drugs, so just hand us out everything and we won't waste time searching the van..." Well you guys'll have to search then !!
As a result of all those hiccups we arrive to the Ned in the beginning of the evening, it's already too late to soundcheck, we'll just make a line-check before we play. Of course our record hasn't arrived to Yvo's place ( the promoter of the show), Yvo that very kindly explain to us that we should get it by tomorrow... Whatever, we're getting bored of this situation, we wait patiently till the gig starts.
Here is what a guy from a local webzine thought of our show:
"It's about 00:20, it's about time for Freygolo to go up on stage, I was expecting a great show and they didn't prove me wrong!! The set list is good. They play their best songs, "Nothing to Do", "Frustrated Market", "Inside Conflict's Toys"... A very good choice of the songs in the set list even though there weren't many new songs, but I have to say that their new record wasn't available this night. On an other hand the guys are jumping around, One of the guitar player is restless, going back and forth on stage, going to the monitor, playing with his guitar behind his head... An amazing gig that shows the band hasn't lost its explosive live performance of the beginning."
After the show we hang around a bit to drink a couple of beers with the guys from TIME WILL TELL, then we go back to the hotel, a little sleep might be appreciated.

Lille (F) @ La Malterie

2007-05-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

Grenoble (F) @ Campus Eve

2007-05-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

Someone once said : " there's no particular season for the music to live, no particular season for the sound to live "" ... It's not wrong ... This being said, I don't know if it's the good season to play in Grenoble. It's freezing, it's raining, and like a stupid Nissart (ppl that live in Nice) I am only wearing a short !
After we spent about 5 hours packed in a much too smaller hired van, we arrived at the venue at 4pm. The Eve venue is located on a big university campus. Actually it looks more like a "multipurpose cultural place" than a real venue, but it's gonna make it. After we unloaded the van and soundchecked quickly, we started a little poker game with the MINIMUM SERIOUS guys. What we didn't know at the time was that Mr BBQ is a pro when it comes to get some straight flush, we are broke really fast ... I did well to hush up instead of betting tonight's pay !!!
The show starts with SCHWERE ARTILLERIE, I don't know anything about the style of music they're playing, it's kinda hard to describe how they sound... It's twisted, with keyboards and high-pitched screaming vocals... one thing's for sure, it's rocking. We get on stage, like every show there ain't so much people tonight, it's not easy to rock the stage. We need a few songs to feel at ease and paradoxically this is the moment when the audience is giving up on us ... We end with an encore that's a bit useless and MINIMUM gets on stage. It's been a while since we met them, and the least we can say it's that their show is ultra professsional.
We piss off Fifine ( the girl that put up the show) a bit for another hour, we load the van back again, and go back home ...

Paris (F) @ Le Batofar

2007-05-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

When I look at the others face this morning, I won't be surprised if I was told that one used these 2 days off in Paris to party !! Some drank a lot, others, like real rock stars, got their drumstick signed ... A bit of a messy evening to sum it all up.
We're expected around 2 pm at the Batofar on the shore of the Seine, it's funny they made a venue in a boat, there's not that much roll and at least the neighbours won't bother about the noise. We get to meet Seb and the Badbear gang there, we know them quite well now. There are no less than 7 bands playing tonight, only 2 are going to soundcheck, we're one of the two ... Antonin is doing pretty well and it doesn't sound too bad, which is rather cool if you consider the weird acoustics of the venue.
Just like everytime we play with lots of bands I can't see half of them. When I eventually came in the venue, I missed the 2 first bands and M SIXTEEN is playing already. We are sharing the backline, the moment between each band is short and it's our turn to board a ship. The gig is going on well, the new songs have settled down the setlist... I'd say we do our job, nothing more nothing less, like the audience, enthusiastic nothing more nothing less. We leave the stage on this draw game and let the PO BOX take our place.
Everyone spends some time with different friends, Till from GxP is there, Madfab is over there,too many to count them all... I go back into the venue to got musically beaten up by THIS IS A STAND OFF , and after by BIG D ... Let's put it that way, they are amazing !!! It's only 10:15 pm and the festival is over, it's time we go back home to get some strength under the Mediterranean sun ...

Tonnay Boutonne (F) @ Puyro'Mania

2007-05-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things when Phillipe puts up a show near to his place is that you can be sure his mother is going to cook us a killer breakfast. Ths morning is no different from the others , we eat pretty well and this makes us forget that it's fu**ing early, we haven't slept that much and that we have 800 kilometers to go to Tonnay Boutonne, our next step.
I've noticed that those long journeys make the motor heats up as well as the i-pods the nintendo DS and most of all belzu's ass... It's about time we get there!!!!
Tonight we play in a festival with a dozen bands which are going to play on 2 separate stages. There's a small stage outside, we're gonnay play on the big one located in the gymnasium. As we happen to be there a bit late to soundcheck, we ll just linecheck. We quickly unload the van, taking great care in avoiding to put the gears on dead little birds fallen from the roof, then we go to the holiday village, where we're gonna spend the night, to rest a bit before the show . We're back at 8:30. We eat a paella... And we go on stage. It's not so hard to motivate the 400 or so guys in the crowd. Everyone seems to have a good time and it's our best show since a long time.
After the show we hang out a couple of hours then we load the van back, we're all tired, the journey tired us all.

Charleroi (B) @ Le Coliseum K-fé

2007-05-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

We wake up early this morning. We slept in Grenoble, at Antonin's house, our new sound engineer. This dude is digging porn movies and booze, seems like we're gonna have some fun!!! a couple hiccups later, we finally leave with just one hour of delay. We have quite a long way to go to Charleroi.
The road to Charleroi is going pretty well between us having naps, eating sandwiches and getting lost on "touristic tour" thanks to the GPS. We eventually get to the venue. The Coliseum which is in the middle of a street dedicated to sex shops, cine sex, and hookers ( let's say that Antonin is pretty at ease there ). From the oustide it looks like it was a former cinema; on the inside the place is divided in 2, one huge venue downstairs and a club upstairs. This club is a bit small but looks cool, there's no stage we play directly on the floor but the place is well equipped. We meet Phillipe and the " Strikes Again" crew there whom already put up a few shows for us in Belgium for the "Time To Drop The Gun" tour.
The show starts with the band BLACK SHEEP which is replacing at the last moment HAPPENING LEEK which was originally supposed to play tonight. They play a nice sorta punk/ska music the likes of Guerilla Poubelle and PO Box. Then it's our turn to play. The café is crowded with 50 people... not so much people there tonight but from the first chords we can tell that its gonna be a good evening. The fact that we are on the same level as the crowd avoid the separation between the crowd and us, the dudes in the front take Nico's mic to sing the back ups, Remi sings in the middle of the crowd... what a shambles ... I like it !!
We end up the evening drinking rounds with friends and band members we met on previous gigs, then we load the van back again. See ya tomorrow...

Nice (F) @ Le Nikaïa

2007-04-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Terrassa (E) @ Egara 66

2007-04-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Waking up at noon, not feeling so good. Nonetheless the hotel we spent the night in is located in Terrassa, the city we're playing tonight, so we're gonna have plenty of time to recover our strength.
We're killing time looking for snacks, debriefing last night show, and having a nap... and after that it's time to go to the venue. The god GPS being out of order, we go back to the old -following the Mappy directions- method ... well, we got lost. Manu, the one who's booking the show, came to pick us up and we arrive to the Egara 66 club. I've never learnt spanish whatsoever and I could be wrong but seeing the decoration I'm starting to wonder if "Egara 66" wouldn't mean "Road 66" ... It seems like a biker's club down there !! The bar owner welcomes us cheerfully, he's all smiling, speaks french and is offering drinks to us right when we arrive. We don't need more to crown him king of the night !!
A few drinks later we souncheck and start to realize that the PA problem the youngsters from XOKOHOLIKS told us earlier is a really great issue... to make a long story short you can't hear the voices. Some tricks to set up the PA were done but in the end it is not that good.
The show starts and contrary to what the staff foresaw, the venue is pretty crowded. The first two bands play and then it's our turn.
This show might have been a great one considering the enthusiasm of the audience for it, that was without counting on the PA, which wasn't really good from the start, and that basically self-destruct before the middle of the show...
There's nothing more to say, just that this ruined the show and that it's a shame the price of the entrance was 8 euros for such sound system conditions.
We ended up the show the best we could, we loaded the van again and went to the hotel to knock back a few beers before hitting the road again tomorrow morning.

Barcelona (E) @ CC Boca Nord

2007-04-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

This show wasn't really planned; everything has been decided at the last moment. Our Spanish tour booking agency called us explaining that AGAINST ALL AUTHORITY just cancelled their European tour and therefore another band to be top of the bill with NOT AVAILABLE was needed for the show in Barcelona... Vamos (let's go) !!
Our finances being in bad shape, Mika's ( the boss of VERSUS) finest free party van is going to save the day once more. The vehicle still hasn't got any seatbelts, and smells like gasoline more than ever, but it can drive pretty well , that's all we need !!
We leave at 8 in the morning, drive the 700 kilometers to Barcelona in more or less 8 hours ... We easily find the venue because Totof lately bought a GPS. The venue is part of a big leisure complex for the youths. The venue is pretty good, not too big neither too small, it has a capacity of 350 people maximum I'd say. We soundcheck quickly, then we hang around drinking beers in the room just aside. We're all tired and the rain that's coming down outside is not helping to drag ourselves out of the laziness.
There starts the show, the first bands play, and we talk a bit with our fans from Barcelona. The youngsters in here really like FREYGOLO and they want us to know it !! We're asked for a countless number of photos, the merchandizing table is crowded and I just burst out laughing when I see Totof, the tour manager, sign some autographs.
We finally get to play at 11: oo pm. The athmosphere is great from the first chords we strum to the last ones of the show. The new songs fit in very well in the set, and the energy is there on stage and also in the pit. It gives me such a thrill to hear that half the venue is singing along our songs ... Is the audience from Barcelona the best ever ??? Well I don't know, anyways MUCHAS GRACIAS (THANK YOU VERY MUCH) for this awesome night !!! Then, we let the stage to the German guys of NOT AVAILABLE. The show kicks off with "welcome" and I'm almost crying thinking about my younger years listenning to them. They're on stage equals to whom they are backstage: very nice; and they are here to party more than to perform the best show in the world ... Anyway it's working perfectly, they set the Boca Nord on fire!! We don't hang out that much, load the van again , and head to the hotel ... See ya tomorrow

Freygolo / Stereo Fighters

2007-01-31T05:58:00.000-08:00

Freygolo "Stereo Fighters", new record out May 23 !!!

Paris (F) @ La Maroquinerie

2006-11-12T03:53:00.000-08:00

We've been waiting for the " Kill Your Elite Fest" for a while now. Besides this gig tolls the bell of the "Time to drop the gun" tour, it allows us to meet quite a bunch of friends. Soundcheck at 2p.m. We are here almost simultaneously as the Japanese guys of COQUETTISH. After all this time we spent sending mails and emails, it's cool to meet for real at last. We get into the "Maroquinerie" and meet the GXP ( Guerilla Poubelle a famous French band) that tells us how everything is going to be troughout the Fest. The fest is going to be upstairs and downstairs, we'll play downstairs. The venue is great, 500 guys sould be able to be there between the pit and a 1meter height stair. The stage is great too, neither too big nor too small, just big enough so that the 6 of us can feel at ease.
The 1st show starts early at 6:15 p.m, 8 bands are going to play tonight, unfortunately I won't see any bands playing upstairs, the venue is too busy. I'll spend the evening watching the bands playing downstairs, falling in love with RANDY'S RIPCORD female bass player, and talking with all our friends here tonight. We get on stage at 8:oo p.m on the dot, the show is well put-together by Guerilla asso!! The venue gets busier and busier, and the crowd gives us a warm welcome straight from the first chords we play. It's one of our best live performance. The guys of COQUETTISH got on stage and rocked with us for our last song: "the crowd", an OPERATION IVY cover. We've been waiting so long to share the stage with them, we couldn't expect a greater end !!!!
The evening ended just as well as it started. After us, the japanese guys and then GUERILLA POUBELLE rocked the place. Meanwhile, we sold our last "Time to drop the gun" cds. We'll try to get some others for the next tour. The Fest is over at like 11:30 p.m, we got a 10 hour drive journey to go back home so we don't hang around that much. We leave, destination Nissa!!

Metz (F) @ Le Jeanne D'Arc

2006-11-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

After everyone has spent the night scattered around Paris ( we used our day off of yesterday to master our new cd in Paris), we met around 11a.m in front of the Formula 1 ( cheap hotels) in St Denis La Plaine in the Parisian suburbs. The travel between here and Metz is not going to be long and that's not a bad thing, we're all obvisously shaken.
We arrived at like 4:30 p.m. Our local promotor is already here, the " Fendu", I did not really get why "Fendu" was his nickname but one thing for sure, it had something to do with alcohol!! We took a look at the venue. Tonight we'll play in a basement as well, but contrary to Lille, this place looks damn fine. It's not that big, 100 kids max should be able to be there, but the place is well designed; moreover the bar owner looks a bit grumpy but not too stupid. Then, we went with our kinda daily routine: we unloaded the van, we carefully installed our gear trying to avoid to block the emergency exit located right behind the stage, we struggled with the only plug courantly working, we did not soundcheck... etc.
We ate at about 7 p.m. Tonight we'll have: pastas and ... space pancakes!!! I don't know if it's a local food speciality, but it's the first time we're given such food to eat while on tour. I believe we lost Totof from this point. This was the pancake that broke the camel's back. Have the touring conditions of Freygolo eventually managed to piss off the manager ??!!?? Here comes the shows, the venue is overcrowded I just couldn't go downstairs to see the 1st band play. Thus, I waited upstairs installing the merch with Nico till it's our turn to play. Finally here we are. From a "stage point of view", it won't be our best gig ever, we are litteraly packed together like sardines. I broke a string of my guitar, my microphone didn't work, they were feedbacks buzzing around ...
On the other hand the welcome is absolutely great, the venue is crowded as fuck and the audience is really enthusiastic. It was a good show.
Saïd, the bar owner, celebrated this by offering us a round. While repacking our stuff, we noticed that some dumbass broke a table of the bar, for no reason at all... This show was the last "rock" show of the Jeanne d'Arc... Thank you dumbass!! We already got so many places to play some rock music in France we really needed that!!! It's getting late, we're leaving, tonight we'll sleep at Nico's, a old friend that lives around Metz.

Lille (F) @ La Rumeur

2006-11-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

We leave Strasbourg at about 10 a.m. It's fucking freezing. we join the freeway and head towards Lille. We go through Luxembourg to put some cheap gasoline in the van, and through Belgium to eat the worst sandwiches I've ever eaten in my punk-rocker's life!! We arrive in Lille at about 5p.m. We're a bit early so we kill the time playing Starwars on the van's PS2. It's 6p.m when Charlotte (Chacha) from my Homerun Records, the girl who organized the show, eventually showed up. From the very beginning, she tells us that we'll be the only band playing tonight, because the drummer from OVER THE STARS broke his arm in a car accident this afternoon ... I don't know why but it seems tonight's gonna be the most quiet gig in FREYGOLO's history!!!
The bar is part of a 2 stairs building; upstairs: the bar, restaurant, bog, and boozers; downstairs: the "venue". We set up our gear "on the wet wooden and agglomarate stage" and quickly realized we won't get enough room on "stage". Just like yesterday Remi, Nico and I will play on the floor. Despite the tiny size of the place, a sound engineer reigns over a prehistorical 4 tracks tape recorder ... We' re told that the bar is equipped with a sonometer and that we must keep the volume under 105 Db... We soundcheck playing Loaded Dice and we reach 115 Db !!! Alarmed by such a row, the owner of the bar rushed downstairs and after an especially agressive argument, I see Belzu put some pillows in the sound holes of the bass drum... This surrealistic vision of 2 giant cotton buds trying to stop the sound to bleed from the drumkit pissed me off... Soundcheck, we won't make anymore tonight. We'll figure something out before playing. For now we're getting hungry, so it's time for some pizzas near the bar in a nice little restaurant.
We come back at 10 p.m. Meanwhile, "La Rumeur" got crowded with 50 guys. The venue downstairs is weirdly designed, everyone is standing on the left of the stage... As a matter of fact, I sing for the wall in front of me, or let's put it that way, for an awesome TRUST (an old French band) poster on the wall. These are nights like these when the only thing you want is to go to sleep... After the show we fuck around a bit, drinking a couple of beers talking with Pierro a former member of BOULBALA, Wize, Romain OTS, and the youngsters of the band FAKE OFF, and then we go to Chacha's house to take a shower and sleep a little.

Strasbourg (F) @ Le Molodoï

2006-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

It’s 6 o’ clock in the morning, I’m shivering....anyway today we’re going to Strasbourg ( F ). We got a long way to go, today we’re gonna have a long day. We are using the van Versus ( the tour booking agency) rent for the Feverish tour, during the whole week. The van is like 8 meters long, has got a cd player, a T.V, and a playstation... what class!! Well almost, it’s just that the T.V doesn’t work, playing video games thus becomes a bit tricky !!!
Nevermind, we make a detour to St Etienne ( where the headquarter of the renting agency is ), to get the T.V fixed... We wasted 2 hours for that, if you add those 2 to the hour we wasted driving around in Strasbourg, we reach a sweet total amount of 13 hour drive. One thing I forgot to say is that we were supposed to souncheck at 4p.m, let’s say we’re not going to do it ...
The Molodoï is a large venue, but today “Les Défrockès” ( the guys who put up the show for us), set up a stage in the middle of the venue reducing the size of the venue by 2/3. That’s not a bad thing, the bar stands right aside the stage, it looks like we’re in a small club.
We quickly eat, then we play some texas hold ’em poker backstage to pass the time before we get on stage. I go and watch KURU play and talk a bit with Vava who plays in the REBEL ASSHOLES that came to say hi.
It’s our turn to play now, as we haven’t got enough room on stage, Remi, Nico and I will play on the floor. After a quick linecheck we start with the intro... it sounds like shit, the audience treats us coldly ...It’s not gonna to be easy tonight. Eventually we played an average set, without any outrageous mistakes or moments of glory. We ended up the evening at Jaloul’s from the band KURU who is our kind host for tonight. As far as I’m concerned I went to bed almost immediately, exhausted after the day we spent driving.

Chelles (F) @ Les Cuizines

2006-10-28T05:09:00.000-07:00

We get up early this morning, St Etienne is cloudy, the night was short and I ‘m feeling the lack of sleep. We quickly take our breakfast, say a warm goodbye to our hosts and take the motorway...
I slept more than half the way, waking up every now and then when we stopped at tolls and when we put some gasoline. That’s why the 500 kilometers between St Etienne and Chelles seemed rather short. I looked at my watch its 3:30 pm we ‘re only half an hour late. It looks like we’re more and more on time, gotta keep an eye on that and put it an end soon !!
The venue is really great, netheir too big nor too small, and very well-designed; the perfect venue to play some rock n’roll. It’s funny how, from a day to another, the places we get to play are different: yesterday’s pub was as big as today’s platform to put the drums on stage.
We take like 10 minutes to soundcheck, it sounds good, the sound ingeneers are cool and competent guys. Then we go backstage to meet our friends of GUERILLA POUBELLE (GxP) for whom we open tonight . It’s been a while since we met then and it's always a pleasure to see them.
We stay backstage playing video games, talking bicycle gears with Youpela and talking about sex with Fannie aka “dude, it’s just screwing!!” ( both are roadies for GxP)....It’s 7:00pm, we go to a Japanese all you can eat self-service restaurant. And in this summer camp athmosphere I didn’t notice anything and took a spicy salad, that is when my stomach decided he had enough...
Three hours and a half and 2 alca-selzer later, I missed NAFTA6TEM: the first band to play tonight, we’re next. The audience is full of energy and the athmosphere’s good, I can seequite some guys singing along. We’re a bit spineless, it’s like you win some you lose some, an average show to sum it up .... We leave the stage to GxP, they just rock, feedbacks, pants down and a very energetic show.

It’s already time to go back home. It won’t hurt for once to go home by night....

St Etienne ( F ) @ The Pub Fiction

2006-10-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Today is the kick-off of our last shows for the “Time To Drop The Gun “ tour. There’s like about 8 more shows to come before we take a break so that we can release the new record.
Metting at 13pm at the rehearsal room, we load the van and then we’re “on the road again!!” The van we rent has only got 6 seats so we downsized the staff to its minimum ( the 6 members of freygolo) to go to St Etienne. Except the endless traffic jam at Givors and the directions in St Etienne that did not fit the changes of direction of the traffic due to some roadworks, the journey is fine... We turn up only 1 hour late in the crime scene ...
For the second time there we meet Nassim, the sweet guy who put up the show for us , and our friends from WHITECARD and THE PANTHER PARTY. The pub is as big as my room and the floor’s tiled, speaking of the size it’s pretty cool the gig‘s gonna have a convivial aspect but speaking of the tiles it’s less cool because it’s gonna reverberate the sound all over the place... anyways we ‘ll care about that just before we play; no need to soundcheck, we’re getting hungry so it’s about time we taste the local food speciality: the donner kebab.
The stomach full of ketchup and mayonnaise, I watch THE PANTHER PARTY concert, a brilliant emo pop band, it’s the 3rd time we play with them and I can’t get enough of it .
Then it’s our turn to play, after a quick soundcheck wich lasts like...hum...30 seconds...
1-2-3-4 let’s go ! The pub is crowded the floor turned into a ice skating place due to the condensation and the crowd is gently pogoing. There’s a very good athmosphere here tonight, but the bouncer doesn’t seem to enjoy himself maybe because we play football/soccer with the pub’s kinda disco ball ( you know that old balls like from the 80s’ that you hang on the ceilling and the little mirrors on it reflect the lights from your coloured spots ), disco ball accidentally taken off the ceilling by Rémi ( the trombone player). We play 4 new songs in our set just to see if they can make it live, “Good for nothing” and “She tries to be someone” are really making it tonight contrary to the other 2 new songs ... We end up the show at 11:30, the barman offer me a fresh beer and is happy that we stopped just on time because the cops showed up, apparently we played so loud that we shook the walls of the neighbours’ above !!
We finaly ended up at Guillaume PANTHER’s house where we talked about an hour or two and drank a few beers and then we went to sleep pretty exhausted, 3 slept at Guillaume’s place and 3 others at Lolo’s PARTY house.
We got a long way to go tomorrow ...

"TTDTG", Japanese Issue

2006-10-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today I received a few copies of our “Time To Drop the Gun” japanese issue!!! Nearly 3 months ago to the very day “TTDTG” ‘s been released over there, I was actually quite looking forward to taking a look at the thing. It’s true that this edition is quite similar to the French one, but after all it’s still cool to flush out the 2 or 3 changes.
The Japanese label added the song “Nothing To Do” as a bonus track – song which was originally on our split cd with D-Sailors ( a german band) , split cd today out of stock -, plus the homemade videos for “Loaded dice” and “Wasting My Time Again”....I don’t really know if adding those was their best idea ever, I haven’t watched those videos for like 2 or 3 years and maybe I shouldn’t have watched them again...
The most amazing change is probably the addition of a kind of mini-booklet which contains the lyrics of all the songs translated into Japanese. What suprised me the most was actually the fact that all the lyrics from each and every songs were translated, even those which weren't good enough to be on the original booklet ....

Draguignan (F) @ The Derrock Night

2006-09-09T02:30:00.000-07:00

Let’s start it all over again. Tonight show: The Derrock Night 2, a fine mix between inspector Derrick & some Rock ‘n Roll... nice evening to go!!
Aiming for Draguignan (south of France), we are optimistic as we’ll meet again with old friends “Les maskes feuillus”...( the association that put up the show)
And they’re not going to prove me wrong, as soon as we arrive they got us into one of their (in)famous “pastissade” ( basically a drinking bout). After that we unload the van and soundcheck without that much of motivation...
Diner time: we discuss about thongs with the parisian band G-STRING and that’s when we got to know about a local legend which tells the story of a kid who’s been half eaten by a kinda giant fish.... truth or fiction ??? we don’t know but just let Totof answer to that, ‘cause when it comes to aquatic beasts issues he’s a super genius .
This is the kick-off of the evening, the “SINGES VERT” ( a local band) opens, they sound like a crossover between old French punck bands ( the Ludwig Von 88 cover won’t make a liar of me ) & Guerilla Poubelle ( a band from Paris ) maybe they remind me of them because both bands have painters..... who knows??!!
Then, the youngsters from the “Singes Verts” leave the stage to the older “WALEGUEN AGAINST”, I have to confess I watch their live performance from one corner of my eye, all my attention’s on Totof actually trying to pick up Franky’s mom ( one of the guitar player of Walleguen Against).
Then we get on stage, tonight is going to be good, the 150 kids or so are here to have fun and party and they’re showing it... Great show!!!
Last but not least, G-STRING end up the Derrock Night vol.2 with their Rock’n’roll/ Rancid-like
punk-rock music, and they are doing fine...
Here it is, the end of the night, we’re exhausted, we don’t fuck around too much, we say a cheeringful goodbye to “Beru” ( one of the “maskes feuillus” guys) who actually passed out in the kitchen; his forehead against the table, and then we’re gone .

Luynes (F) @ The Korigan

2006-09-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

Eventually, oh yeah, eventually; here comes the 1st gig of the “season”!! Between the time we spent recording the new album and everyone’s holiday, its been a while since we hit the road. Thus we meet with light hearts at the practice room to load the gear.
Our van (still) being out of order, we charged Totof ( the tour manager ) with a tough mission: finding us a cheap transport means ( and by cheap , I actually mean free ) to get us to the 2 shows of this week end. And this time I have to admit, he accomplished his mission as brilliantly as the worlds best tour manager ever... Let’s put it that way, imagine a huge Mercedes van which seems to be coming straight from the 40s’, all safe and most comfortable inside that is: no seatbelts except for the driver, not any kind of brakes whatsoever but a constant smell of gasoline and as if it wasn’t enough already this fucking thing is fluorescent orange, just to make sure the police would never arrest us ... this van is definitely a must-have to go and dj in an open air techno festival thing ...
Let’s go !!... motorway... toll... well, finally this van can drive!! we are almost reaching a whopping 90km/h.... 2 hours later we are in Luynes (near aix en provence south of France ), in front of the Korigan -the venue we’re playing in tonight. We’ve already played there a couple of times before but this time is a bit different because EZ an G ( 2 pals from the band FICKLE) are now running the venue and tonight is the first gig they organize since it opened again.
They quickly show us the place and they worked really well to renovate it, looks really great !!! Then we chat a few with EZ and G but only a few, as they organize the show they got quite some work to do...
Here comes the 1st band, called NOT ANYMORE -they’re friends of ours we brought here with us- the guitar sounds like shit, it’s not their best live performance to date but they’re still doing fine .
Here we are, it’s our turn to rock ..... damn !! rock n’ roll ain’t dead but he’s coughing like hell tonight, we play like shit, no energy there’s nothing we can do, we’re simply not gonna make it tonight. So, we just fled backstage after the show, with tears in our eyes, then we took a look at LAZYBONES show ( the 3rd band tonight), and they are doing gently well .
We ended up this evening talking around with almost everyone, this was quickly done, it wasn’t crowded tonight.
Then we loaded the van back again and went home...
See ya tomorrow !!!