BLOOMINGTON!

Wednesday was a long day…

We all met at Damon’s around noon, Brian picked us up in a big black Sprinter van and we went to Disappears’ practice space to load the gear in the back of the van. Disappears have been immensely nice to us, letting us ride the same van as them to Bloomington, Indiana for our first show. Brian drove the van with Tony the sound guy by his side, Damon, Jonathan and Steve sat behind him, and us French kids took the back seats.

  

It was a 5-hour drive from Chicago to Bloomington. The weather was beautiful, we made a stop at Fair Oaks Farms for sandwiches, went past Gary (home of the Jackson family), rode along fields of windmills, and by the time we arrived in Bloomington, it was raining and we had lost an hour because of time difference.

It was 7pm local time, and the evening was to start at 9pm, so we quickly got into The Bishop, Disappears set up the stage, did a couple of songs for soundcheck which already sounded awesome. We’d already seen Disappears in three different countries this year (Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam), and we were very much looking forward to seeing them perform in their own country. The fact that they booked us with them for this show was the most wonderful gift. And not only did they let us ride in their van, but Damon lent us his powerful bass amp and Steve his marvelous drum kit. Yes, Disappears are great musicians and great human beings!

So all we needed to do was to plug our bass and pedals, change the hi-hat and crash cymbal on Steve’s drums, add a pad linked to an iPad to launch a few effects, and we were ready to soundcheck too. We tried a couple of songs, helped by Tim at the console, and then we all went to a nearby restaurant called Farm (the sign said they had “real food” there), accompanied by Darius from local labels Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian and Dead Oceans. After dinner, it was time for us to return to The Bishop and start our show (watch video on top of this page).

After the show, many young people studying at the Indiana State University, and also third band Tammar’s very nice members came to us, saying our show was awesome, asking if that was really our first show EVER, and curious to know how we ended up playing our first show EVER in Bloomington.


Disappears' show was a loud addictive blast. They played lots of new songs that they are going to record for their new album in October at Echo Canyon studio in Hoboken, NJ. Including this one:

Disappears always leave you wanting for more, which is lucky because we were going to see them again three days later at The Onion A.V. Festival at the Hideout Inn in Chicago.


We also met Richard Bowser, a man who lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who drove 4 hours to see us play and meet us, and as Steve told us, who’s been in a band called Violent Apathy, once shared bills with Steve’s own band Crucifucks back in the 80’s, and that Thurston Moore liked very much… We were extremely happy to receive such a warm welcome. We even sold a few copies of our tape!

We took off at midnight Bloomington time, hit the road in the night and somewhere before Chicago, made a halt at a gas station for snacks and 5-hour energy drinks. SuperBrian sat behind the wheel for 10 hours round trip… SuperJonathan had his own trip playing with our iPad in the van, where Lenny Kravitz was mentioned for the third time that day, as well as Santana… We got back to the practice space to drop the gear around 5am Chicago time, SuperSteve and SuperDamon carried the heavy bass amp up to the 3^rd floor in the staircase, and we all said goodnight. Still, we were hungry.

Stay tuned for our next show report: we're playing Detroit, MI next Wednesday!