Recent gig stats:

Days      - 3

Gigs       - 3

Miles     - 1224

You may notice that we have a pretty poor gig:miles ratio and a similar days:miles ratio. Once again, our attention was drawn to our van.

We were wondering what it might be like if we pimped it up massively:

Cream/white tires and HUGE chrome alloys on only two wheels for example.

Can anyone beat that for stupidity?

Hey Floodlies

You can click HERE for a TBF interview with UlsterMusic.com. There’s also a gig review to let you know how the Easter Belfast show went down. Please note that the song referred to in the review is in fact called ‘I Kissed The Dirt’ - not ‘I Kissed A Boy’!!

Enjoy,

TBF x

To be fair to the French, their motorways are fantastic. But then, so is a £500 foot massage.

Having gone hungry on our way to Switzerland after being forced to line Monsieur Sarkozy’s pockets with 20 Euro notes every ten miles, it was time for a rethink. For the return leg, we tore up the history books and decided to side with the Germans. So we bombed it up the Autobahn (a debut for our trusty ex-postal van) through west Germany, tip-toed our way through Belgium (the birthplace of Rock n Roll) and finished off the manouevre with a stealthy entry from the north east into France and on the boat before anyone could say ‘J’ai mal à la tête’.

In reality, we were stuck in Calais for some 3 hours and let me tell you, it ain’t a pretty sight. The ‘cafe’ was a dodgy machine serving cafe cremes sans la creme. It’s amazing what fun you make for yourself when forced to, though:

There were a group of French school kids (again, never any English school kids on the Dover ferry, no wonder our children isn’t learning) milling around the car park. One of them, who could make a good living impersonating smooth R&B lover-boy susperstar NeYo, was being coaxed into giving the class some kind of musical rendition over their bus tanoy. After about 15 minutues of playing demure, he stepped up, and the crowd drew their breath. We were expecting him to spit some fearsome bars of the grittiest Gallic grime but instead, in a really rather meek voice he trembled, ‘My life is brilliant, my love is pure…’. We nearly choked on our Pringles.

Anyway, back to what we did in Switzerland on our final two days. On Thursday we went to a beautiful town called Fribourg in the French speaking part of the country.

We began the day by dropping in on Radio Fribourg for a quick interview and a live acoustic set. It was all conducted in English/French and the presenter, Amaëlle (pictured below… and frankly, who we all fell in love with), handled the situation perfectly by switching between the two languages and managing to somehow coax reasonable answers out of us at the same time.

Somebody was bound to let the side down at some stage, though, and I will never forget making my European radio debut with the words, ’sorry, what?’. It was at that point I decided I am going to dust down my GCSE French books and knuckle down to some learning for next time. Not a bad way to spend one’s time in the tour bus actually. Now there’s a plan! More productive than doing this kind of thing.

The gig that night in Paddy Reilly’s was a stormer and we played THREE 45 min sets, a TBF first! It was very encouraging to see some familiar faces from Burgdorf who had made the trip down after seeing us the weekend before for the first time. People coming back = we must be doing something right. See video below re. this concept. (especially from 1:05, although the rest is gold too!)

Our final stop was in Interlaken. Now, I gotta tell you, the photos don’t do this part of the world justice. I have never seen anywhere so beautiful in my life. The town is tucked in between two massive lakes and surrounded by the Alps shooting miles into the sky. Truly breathtaking.

Our final show of the tour was a riot as usual and the celebrations continued very late into the night. It’s a rather nice feeling having a room full of people who have absolutely no obligation to pretend to like us chanting ‘The Brent Flooood’ (as opposed to ‘Flud’). Nailed it.

The tunes after were provided by none other than Roger, one of the hotel managers. L.E.G.E.N.D.

Take a look at this ridiculous picture and imagine the kind of night it was…

But all good things… and all that. We honestly didn’t know what to expect when Dan presented the idea of a Swiss tour a few months back. If nothing else, it’ll be a bit of a holiday, right? The reality is that it really couldn’t have gone much better. The gigs were mostly fantastic, audience reactions were extremely positive and the word on the street is that we will be making a return journey sometime around September. I must mention the generosity and hospitality of the people of Switzerland. Everywhere we went we were fed with wonderful food (admittedly, mostly cheese) and a special thanks to Laura and her house-mates for letting us occupy Villa Schmid at all hours of the day and night. It can’t have been easy having a bunch of smelly Brits taking up your time and space! Seriously, thanks.

So, where next? Northern Ireland. Let’s do it. I’m off to crack open a Burgdorfer.

Ed xxx (keepin’ it Swiss one last time)