QUID PRO QUO FRANCE

So here I am Lille France,the first of our french leg and its at the Zenith Arena Lille. Most of the venues we are to play in France are Zeniths these are purpose built arenas which make life a lot easier for all concerned as access lighting rigging every thing is as it should be and very professional,another great gig to about 2500 fans next I am off to Lyon to the most amazing location, the venue we are to play at is one I have visited before. In 2010 I went there with a band called Tokio Hotel and in all fairness it was a bit of a disaster, Tokio hotel had quite recently won the MTV Europe best new comers which is no small feat but !! this then made them believe that they where maybe a little bit bigger than they really where, as a result they went out and hired Take That's old staging and put on a large show, There was eleven trucks on that tour as a result the venues that they had to play where big!! unfortunately the crowds that greeted us where not very big at all... That said the venue Tony Garnier,  is awesome its an old slaughter house and an amazing piece of architecture,I believe the Quo managed to get about 4000 people on our visit there it was a great show,as always Pats lights and the videos and screens where amazing as was the sound in this huge building, it was a really brilliant night, but then you must remember I am still in a bit of a daze at this point.So its load up and on to the next one.

At this point I have to admit that I don't have a great deal to offer on the French leg of the tour as I had not even thought for one moment about having a blog however, I do hope you will stay with me as on the German leg I started making NOTES, yep that's right little snippets of day to day life on the road with THE QUO. So back to the story so far we continue on to Marseille and a little drama on the load in,on this tour there are two other trucks one carrying PA and the other video and lights, the later was driven by another Transam driver called Pusher he is a Legend at Transam and I think was working with the Quo before i even had a driving licence, well when we came to load in to the venue we discover that the ramp is to steep and that the trailor is going to rip off the mud guards on the unit,this is a problem !!

OK so what now !!! the tools come out and in no time at all the mud guards are removed and the load in continues as normal Panic over.We then move on to Toulouse ,Poitiers,Cann, Clair-mont Ferrand not sure of the exact order of each gig and I appologise for any inacuracys, but to cut along story short I complete the French Tour with out incident, the tour was brilliant the support act, was a band Called Willie and the Bandits a trio from Plymouth with a very original Reggy roots sound, excellent bunch of lads really hard working gigging at every opportunity. When we where having days off laying in the French sunshine they where off playing little gigs on route to maybe 70 or 100 people then the next day they are in front of 2 or 3 thousand as the support act for Status Quo. They where great fun and I have kept in touch with them since I returned and they are doing well and will be coming back out on tour with The Quo later in the year, I look forward to catching up with them. So French tour is complete and I am nervously waiting for the phone call from the office lots of nail biting is going on!! and then the call Ring RING... Ahh!! Hello .... Oh they would be happy for me to come back and to be there regular backline tour driver... no problem that would be great ... lovely Thanks...WOOhoo that's it I am on tour with the QUO, I scream to anyone who will listen and so here we are next stop Sweden and three weeks of gigs that will take me to Denmark The Netherlands and Switzerland ......... Bloody Marvelous.