Breakdown

The Rhone Alps, 11/30/10


We eat breakfast at a weird slightly-more-upscale French version of Chili's called Hippopotamus where Luke convinces us that we can definitely make it the two hours to Lyon and that there will be a better chance of getting the van looked at there. Frankie points out the Mercedes garage right across the street from the hotel but we defer to Luke and soldier on. We get halfway up the first mountain on the road before the van just totally craps out and we have to pull over. Whoops! All my enthusiastic French from the night before seems horribly lacking in this situation of practical necessity, but we manage to get a tow back to a small garage just outside of the town we had spent the night in. After 4 hours of sitting around in the garage cycling through various options we get another tow back to the Mercedes garage that Frankie had spotted right before we left town to begin with. Luke arranges for a rental and we decide that he can drive back down to pick up the Sprinter when we have our day off in Paris in a week. By this time it has gotten dark, we are all starving, and Luke has been gone for what seems like FOREVER picking up the rental. We spread out in the waiting room at the garage, crack open a bottle of wine from the night before, and watch the first hour of the 5th Harry Potter movie on Frankie's laptop. Finally Luke shows up with the rental and we rush to get all the equipment from one van to the other and get on the road with enough time to make the show in Lyon. The rental is TINY compared to the Sprinter, with room for 2 to squeeze in the front and the narrowest bench seat I have ever seen in the back with a perfectly upright backrest that does not adjust. It is hellishly uncomfortable.


Le Sonic



























Lyon, France 11/30/10


Two hours later we are on a dark and desolate road running alongside the river in Lyon, with no signs or lights in sight and the GPS insisting that we have reached our destination. We just sit there for a few minutes scratching our heads until Frankie is like, "Oh, I remember this place, its on a boat IN the river!" Sure enough, there is a houseboat/barge situation strung with x-mas lights just out of sight behind the riverbank. We manage to load in and get ourselves through the crowd into the green room where, thank god, there is a huge table spread with food. These kids are punks and there was vegan lasagne and lentil casserole and rice galore, which was a welcome change from the cured meats we have been sustaining ourselves on all week. Everyone is in a terrible mood and the boat is freezing and the last thing anybody wants to do is play a show. The booker is super sweet though and there is a great crowd and we do our thing to a packed boat. There is a really nice guy who wants to talk politics with me in French but I am just too tired to take it. To top it all off when Luke goes to set up the merch we realize that we left all our records in Bordeaux. SHITTY! Kate does an awesome job speaking to the proprietor of the bar in Bordeaux on the phone in French, and we arrange for him to ship the records to Paris for us to pick up in a week. Everyone is exhausted and pissed off, and we get back in the terrible new van and drive into the night.