Chromeo Day 11, Drive to Ireland

Today was filled with quality van time. We left our hotel around 1pm to drive to the ferry port. The van rides have been getting more interesting though... I continued Dave's Metallica lessons and we invented a game resembling bocci ball that is playable in a moving vehicle, made interesting with the addition of mobile obstacles. Not so bad...

The ferry itself was a throwback to the 70's. The probably haven't changed anything on board since the maiden voyage. The chairs were pretty rough, the food was nasty, but it was only 2 hrs, so we survived.

Once ashore, it took us about another 2.5 hrs to get to our hotel, which is actually really nice. Too bad most of the staff isn't... The Citywest Dublin concierge and front desk staff refused to help us out in any way, even for things as simple as ordering a pizza. We arrived after the hotel restaurants were closed, there was no more room service, but they claimed they would not assist in bringing in outside food as it would affect their business. But, they did offer to charge us €10 to sell us pre-packaged sandwiches that had been sitting at the bar all day... Nothing but the best.

But, we found a way to get through. There was a huge pub in the lobby and there was a huge crowd, so we ventured in. The authentic Irish Pub experience is pretty wild. We all had our first pint of Guinness in Ireland and listened to the locals sing songs we couldn't understand. One James Joyce befriended us, that is until he passed out and one of the guys had to put him in a cab... At one point he was "playing" songs on the piano in the lobby for us, but then a security guy showed up, and without a word, shut down the piano and took the man's drink away... Rough. By the end of the night though, we ended up making a number of temporary friends, it was a pretty good time.

Chromeo Day 10, St. Agnes, Cornwall, UK

Today is going to be a little bit on the long side. We have to leave the hotel around noon, and there's nowhere to go except the festival site, and our set is at 11:30pm. There are worse things that could happen... I will say one thing about the hotel last night - despite the abismal sleeping conditions, the staff was really nice, even serving us breakfast about 2hrs after the kitchen was closed.

When we got to the festival, it wasn't so bad, just on the small side. There were maybe only 8 vendors, so we went through them pretty quickly. Eventually we stopped by the paintball booth to shoot a few rounds, and that was one of the highlights. One thing we ended up discovering, unfortunately a little late, was that we were a 5 min walk from the Atlantic Ocean. I went for a walk for about an hour, found some old ruins/settlements from tin miners, took some pictures and eventually made it back to the festival site.

At that point, we still had about 3 hours to kill, so, still riding high from seeing Metallica a few days ago, I started teaching the guitarist, Dave, how to play some classic Metallica riffs. It was kind of funny. He's never liked Metallica but he was totally in to it. And that pretty much brought us to the show. Small festival, small crowd, but whatever, it was fine. After it was over, we drove about 2.5 hrs to a hotel so we could avoid staying at the same one as last night.

Chromeo Day 9, Drive to Cornwall, UK

We actually leave London today. Wild. We had been there so long that we had become regulars at a couple places. We were known in the hood. It was kind of cool...

The drive today was really painless. Unfortunately the hotel is making up for that. Apparently there's nothing else around here. We're pretty sure the last time this place has been deodorized was sometime in the 40's. It smells like a public washroom, beds are small and uncomfortable, there's nowhere to go. Literally the middle of nowhere, but they have a bar and the bartender is... interesting...

We ended up driving in to the nearest town, Redruth, to get some dinner that wasn't half bad and the village actually looked like it would be worth exploring more, but alas, back to the hotel we go. If nothing else, at least we get to watch Quizcall...

Chromeo Day 8, yup, London, again...

Third day off in London in a row. We haven't been doing too much, trying to keep costs down, etc... but it's hard. Bottom line is that as soon as you walk out the door, it's gonna cost you. A cheap breakfast is at least £7, which is $14. It's just no good. Even just buying groceries instead of eating out costs a lot.

For dinner we found a spectacular Vietnamese place, which was unfortunately lacking in quality service, but finding good food here is priceless. The rest of the night included work via email and packing the suitcases as we're back on the road tomorrow, heading towards Cornwall.

Chromeo Day 7, London, UK

Again, we kept things on the low key side during the day. Daytime excursions included finding surprisingly good coffee and going to a "Mexican" place for dinner that was ok, but definitely not Mexican. Some things are a little funny on this side of the ocean, food being the major thing... What the hell is Ale Pie? How about a Flavoured Bap? When you find out, let me know.

For the evening, I went out to hang out with one of the Morcheeba guys who I had toured with earlier this year. He showed me around the town a bit, met some people, had a good time, and before we knew it, it was 3am. I headed back via one of the most expensive taxi rides I've ever taken and crashed.

Chromeo Day 6, London, UK

Today was another day off in London. It sounds pretty cool, but London is a pretty expensive city. When you look at price tags, the numbers are about the same as the US and Canada, but the actual cost is double. It's kind of ridiculous but you don't have a choice in the matter. The next 3 days are off and it's gonna cost some coin.

We kept it low key-ish today. We met friend, tried to get some food but it was a bank holiday and almost everything was closed. It was something of a miracle that we were even able to get a drink at a pub. It was a good one though. There was a dude who looked exactly like Lionel Richie, if he were homeless, and he kept playing Shania Twain on the jukebox. It was pretty funny. I also learned today that there's a Guinness Red. I recommend sticking with the original.

Once back at the apartment, we noticed a fox running around outside. We tried to scare it out of the bushes so we could take a picture, but that never really worked out and it proved to be a futile exercise. And so the first day off was killed...

Chromeo Day 5, Reading, UK

Today is the other biggest festival in the UK, Reading. It's a sister festival with Leeds and they keep the same lineup for each. The bands that play Reading on Friday play Leeds on Sunday kind of thing, and vice versa. We considered ourselves really lucky as we were on the Metallica bill, so today is our second chance to check them out.

Again, the show went well, much like Leeds. We packed up pretty quickly after so we could make sure we saw the start of Metallica. It was going pretty well until our tour manager locked the keys in the van. That was pretty amazing. We spent the next hour and a half looking around the festival site for things we could slide through a small crack in the window to pull the keys out. It took some time, but we made it happen. We also missed the start of Metallica, but I suppose worse things have happened...

We did get to watch about 8 songs before we had to leave though and it was great. They played loads of old stuff, only 1 new track. Awesome. It was with some regret that we packed up and headed out about halfway through the set. If we had waited any longer, we risked getting stuck in traffic with the other 70,000+ people about to leave.

On the way back, we did make one decent stop though. There's an amazing kebab place called Cafe Helen not far from our base. Just from the smell of the place we knew it would be amazing and it did not disappoint. We slept well.

Chromeo Day 4, London, UK

Today was a day off in London. We were so tired from yesterday that I only got up at 3pm, the others around 6pm. It was bad. That kind of thing can really mess up your time zone adjustment.

We didn't do a whole lot today. Just went out for dinner at a decent Indian place down the block and watched some Olympics. We developed a liking for the BBC commentators; they're pretty crazy and highly entertaining. We also invested some time watching a terrible show called Quizcall where people call in to win prizes by filling in the blanks of a given phrase. It's absolutely brutal, but so bad it's great. Good times...

Chromeo Day 3, Leeds, UK

Technically Leeds is only a 3.5 hr drive from London, so we thought we were being smart by allowing 5hrs. That didn't work out so well. Traffic was terrible the whole way, bumper to bumper parking lot style, and we found out right near the end that it was because of idiots rubbernecking over a flat tire. It was amazing.

We literally pulled in at the last minute and threw our stuff on stage as fast as possible. It's kind of fun that way. Sometimes festivals can be really long when you just wait around all day for your turn, so it was sort of cool to just be able to jump right in to it. Turns out the British kids like their Chromeo. The stage area was packed and it went over really well.

We were pretty burnt by the whole day so far once the set was done, so we jumped in the van to leave, unfortunately having to miss Metallica, who was headlining the festival. Not the end of the world because we have another show with them in a couple days, but too bad nonetheless. On the way out we stopped at the catering tent to get a free meal, looked at the food for 10 seconds and decided it wasn't worth the price tag so we hit the road and made our way back to London.

Chromeo Day 2, London, UK

Today is our first show, and it's a weird one. A corporate gig for a beer company in a dance bar. Can't wait. They wanted us there at 11am. We got in at 2pm and they were nowhere near ready. We patiently waited, got some food, waited, got coffee, waited... and eventually things started happening. To pay them back for making us wait, me and one of the guys played a single Metallica riff over and over for about 20mins, driving people absolutely mad. It was great.

After soundcheck we disappeared for a bit for dinner and got back about an hour before the show. The place was way overcrowded and it was nuts. Capacity was 1300, and they had given away 2500 tickets for the event, so there were some pretty long lineups outside and people were packed like sardines inside. We had to fight our way to the stage through the crowd. Once everything was setup and we were ready it got crazier.

We had to delay the show for about 40 minutes because people were pushing through the barricade and falling on to the stage. It was actually pretty dangerous for the kids up front who were getting trampled in all this. After the 3rd time, security turned on all the house lights and started making announcements threatening to cancel the gig. Soon enough things calmed down enough so we could start. It was still pretty nuts and they had to get extra security guards to make a human chain across the front of the stage to keep people off. It made for a pretty great show, but it was nice when it was over.

We had to wait awhile before we could get out, but once we did we went back and crashed pretty fast. Have to get up to drive to Leeds tomorrow to do one of the biggest festivals in the world. We need our rest...

Chromeo Day 1 - 8-19/20-08

So back to the airport I go. That part was pretty painless. Got to JFK no problem, got in line, checked in, etc... It took a little while to go through everything, checking in with a few roadcases is always a bit of a hassle... Once getting through all the crap, we stopped for a quick bite on the way to the gate but almost missed the plane because of it. Just squeezed through...

The flight itself was ok. I tried to get some sleep, but that never works. The flight to London is just long enough to be tiring, but not long enough to get any meaningful sleep. It's funny how flying 5 hours west only puts you off by 3 hours, but 5 hours east puts you off by 5 hours, which leads to how to adjust to a new time zone...

We landed at London Heathrow at 6:30am on the 20th, which felt like 1:30am to us. Through trial and error, we've found that the only real way to beat the jet lag is to stay up all day, crash hard that night and wake up and be as close to normal as possible. So I started with a double espresso at the airport coffee shop, which is actually pretty decent. And I also had the privilege of remembering how painful it is to spend British Pounds. My coffee and croissant cost me the equivalent of US $7. Welcome to the UK...

So anyways, I have my coffee, we meet our tour manager who came out with the van to pick us up, and then we went to pick up one of the guys who flew in the night before, as well as another guy who landed at Gatwick this morning. Sounds easy enough, part 1 went as planned, and then we went on the wild goose chase.

It takes about 1hr to get to Gatwick from Heathrow, and we got there a little before 9am after all was said and done. The guy we were meeting didn't have a UK cell phone, so we were just kind of hoping he'd be waiting in an obvious spot. So we pull up to the airport, I hop out to find him and look all over the airport. 3 times. Even in the bathrooms. We had announcements made, checked with the airlines, everything. No signs. After 2 hours, I sent him an email to let him know we were heading to town, hoping he might be able to get online, and we left, thinking he may have found another way in to town.

So we drive the hour and some back in to London to the apartment where we're staying, and as soon as we park, I get an email back. Turns out we missed each other at the airport, so the poor weary traveler left behind had to take a train in to the city and ask people for directions to get to our place. We felt for the guy... It's a rough way to start.

Once we were all together, we were all of the same mindset. Just have to stay awake. So we started walking around the neighbourhood checking stuff out, had a couple coffees, got some food, checked out a handful of pubs and before we knew it, it was 11pm (closing time at British pubs) and we headed back to the apartment and crashed. So far so good...

Chromeo 8/10/08, Baltimore, MD

Today is the last show of our North American run, and we're doing the Virgin Festival in Baltimore.

Again, we're playing first, but today is in a dance tent, which is significantly different than a main stage. But whatever. It wasn't so bad, and it was packed, so it made for a good show. We hung around for most of the afternoon after the show. The backstage area was awesome and we all had some friends there, so it was good to relax for a bit and catch up with people we hadn't seen in a while.

In the early evening, around 6ish we decided to head out, and it turns out it's a good thing we left then. The normally 2 hour drive took 6 hours! It was bumper to bumper the entire way up the 95. It was ridiculous, we totally didn't expect that. It got long pretty fast when it became obvious that there was no end in sight. When we got in to town it was pretty relieving. It was also great to be done and out of the van. Now we have a real break for 9 days before we head over to Europe for a bit. Burn the van, death to U-Haul, bring the sleep.

Chromeo 8/9/08, Jersey City, NJ

Back at it today after 3 show-free days. We're at All Points West festival in Jersey City, which being right beside us in NYC is pretty convenient. Or is it...?

We started the day by going the opposite direction out to Long Beach to get the van back in order, packed up and ready to roll. That took almost 2 hours. Then we started the drive to the festival. If you've ever driven a van and trailer across NY, you know what we're in for and can skip the next few lines. If not, don't ever do it. We should have stayed in Jersey the night before.

The thing about NYC is that you can't take trailers on any of the convenient roads/parkways, only on expressways/interstates. So, instead of a simple one hour drive across Brooklyn and Manhattan, we had to go up to Queens first. Sounds simple enough. If you live in the city, you know we're screwed. That adds another hour to the trip to begin with. Then add traffic, which grows like weeds in your garden, a tunnel that doesn't allow trailers and a temperamental GPS unit, and we're cooked. Took 3 hours to get to a festival that was 25 miles away. It was awesome.

At least once we got there things were good. Huge stage, great crew, great gear. Even the catering was good, once they let us in... And Radiohead is playing tonight, so that alone was worth the drive. The downer was that we played first, so we had to hang out in a park in Jersey all day to see Radiohead. We made it through and it was worth it. Nevermind everything else during the day. Radiohead was mindblowing. The light show was ridiculous and it sounded incredible.

Unfortunately, we had to leave during the encore to beat the traffic out. We get to drive to Baltimore tonight. Lucky us.

Chromeo Day 16, Drive to NYC

We got up in Cleveland this morning, because, well, why not? We're headed back to NY and one of the guys lives here, so it made sense to stop I guess. We grabbed breakfast at a place called The Place To Be, which had great t-shirts and I regret not buying one, had good coffee at Phoenix Coffee and hit the road.

It was a pretty smooth drive til we got to New Jersey. We were just driving along, minding our own business, when around the bend up ahead we saw a fireball shoot up from the road. Traffic stopped pretty fast and we inched along for a bit. When we came around the bend on the interstate, there was a vehicle on it's roof totally engulfed in flames, surrounded by a few smashed cars. There were just a couple cops that had just showed up, no fire trucks or ambulances yet. It was pretty surreal; looked just like an action scene in a Hollywood blockbuster. And the flames were *hot*. We felt them pretty strongly as we drove by, only 10 feet away. We researched it the next day and found out that the guy was driving in the other direction, someone changed lanes without looking, hit him, he flew over the median, got hit head on, flipped and exploded. Dead on impact. Pretty crazy. We had an idea that someone was probably inside at the time we passed, but it just seemed too weird. We were definitely awake after that, a little freaked out too.

Eventually we got in to the city and it felt great to get out of the van. No shows for the next 3 days, just details to take care of, so it's almost, but not quite, like a day off. What a concept.

Chromeo, Day 15, Chicago, IL

We dragged our tired bodies back in to the van this morning for the early drive in to Chicago for Lollapalooza. It hurt. We all hate the van. Thankfully it's a good festival and we were looking forward to that.

We pulled in and got parked fairly easily, were able to get setup early, so we had time to walk around a bit and get some food. It was actually a pretty relaxing day. The show itself was nuts. There were probably close to 30,000 kids watching the set. The big stages are always fun.

Afterwards, it was just like any other day, just a little earlier. Had a chance to grab some dinner but then had to head out. Just because we haven't been driving enough lately, we hopped in the van and headed to Cleveland. Awesome.

Chromeo Day 14, Drive to Chicago Part 2

So we're starting to lose our minds a little. The hours tick by pretty slowly on a 36 hr drive. There's only so much music you can listen to, movies you can watch, jerky you can eat, etc... before you want to jump out. But, we keep on trucking.

The highlights of today's drive were stopping at Cracker Barrel for breakfast, a classic, and stopping by Guitar Center in Davenport, IA to buy guitar polish. We really searched hard for a reason to take a break, as I'm sure you can tell... The fun part was the guys are on the cover of the Guitar Center magazine this month, so on the way out, a guy from the drum dept. ran out and asked for autographs, claiming no one that mattered ever stopped at the GC in Davenport, IA. We believed him without question.

We hopped back in the van and made it through the final leg of the journey. Took about 36 driving hrs, maybe another 4 hrs of breaks to make it to Oak Brook, IL, which is still 45 mins outside Chicago, but we didn't want to go right in to town to fight for hotel rooms. Everything was jammed because of Lollapalooza.

So Oak Brook it is. We found a Giordano's Pizza place for dinner, a place to hang out after and all was good. Again, not too late, we have an early day. Have to be at Lollapalooza around 10am to check-in. Should be amazing...

Chromeo Day 13, Drive to Chicago Part 1

So we drove from San Diego, left around midnight. We have 2 days to get to Chicago. We hired 2 drivers to slug it out for us. The bonus is we don't have to drive. The downside is we're in the van, and no matter how nice a van can seem, it gets old fast. We have a flatscreen tv mounted in the ceiling, so we can watch movies, dvds, etc... but still... And this is a non-stop trip, so that means sleeping in the van, rather uncomfortably, rest stops at the finest truck stops in America and no showers, so we got the thing pretty stinky pretty fast. It's what we call "living the dream".

It's not all bad I guess. There's some nice scenery in Utah and Colorado, including a truck engine that caught fire, which was pretty wild, but we just want to power through and get to Chicago. Soon...

Chromeo Day 12, San Diego, CA

Today we're at the House of Blues in San Diego, another classy place ranking up there right behind the Fillmore. It was a fairly painless afternoon, after surviving the early morning drive, and before we knew it, we were sitting on a patio eating some Mexican food. Another really good Mexican place that I'd been to before and has yet to disappoint. After dinner, where we ate way too much yet again, we rolled back to the show.

It was another sold out show, more crazy kids, and to top it off, it was one of the guys' birthdays, so we brought out a cake during the encore. Everything went really well again.

After the show we had a little hang time tonight, maybe 1 hour, so we went to a place down the street. Not many people were there, which was good for us, and the bartender ended up coming over to chat for a bit. Turns out he used to live in Ottawa, Canada, where I grew up, where he played semi-pro rugby, and bartended at a place called The Duke of Somerset, where I spent many thousands of nights when I used to work at Barrymore's Music Hall a couple blocks over. It was pretty wild.

After spending a little time there, we got called back to the van so we could start the 36 hour non-stop drive to Chicago.

Yes, you read that right.

Chromeo Day 11, Los Angeles, CA

Another early morning for another long drive. On paper it doesn't look that bad, but in California, vehicles pulling trailers are limited to 55 mph, and they enforce it actively. It it what it is, showed up a couple hours late, but what are you gonna do?

We got in to the Fonda Music Box, set up, soundchecked and went for dinner. There's a great Mexican place called El Compadre, on Sunset, and they never disappoint. The only regret was eating far too much. So we rolled back to the show...

Another sold out show, and it was good. Had a couple crazy kids jump on stage so I got to play security guard and drag them off. That's actually happened a couple shows in a row now, so I asked for a raise for security duties... Again, not much hang time after the show. Have to get up early to head to San Diego.

Chromeo Day 10, San Francisco, CA

I got up this morning with a sense of relief. I know where the good coffee is, and it's close. So I shower quickly and get out the door and start walking. I make it to the Blue Bottle Cafe in no time at all and place my order - a macchiato for myself and a double espresso for my road roommate. And I'm denied. They won't give me espresso drinks to go. I beg and plead, I don't care about the cup, I won't tell anyone anything about it, but to no avail... So, in defeat, I order my macchiato to stay. While ordering, I see breakfast fixings for waffles on the counter. It's 11:05am, still breakfast hours, so I order a waffle. And I'm denied. I ask why, because I see the cook and the waffle maker and the batter. I'm told I'm 5 minutes late, and he throws everything away. So, with resignation and bitterness, I drink my macchiato and leave. It's unfortunate. They really do have great coffee, and had they just given me an espresso to go and a waffle, I wouldn't have mentioned their piss poor attitudes and shitty service. I now question if it's worth walking through the neighbourhood of drunken/overdosed street people to get to the place.

All is not lost though. Tonight we're at The Fillmore, my favourite club in the US. They just know how to do things right. Great staff, great food, great gear, great shows. It's great. And tonight is sold out, which means the band is honoured with an in-house designed poster which will be mounted on the walls next to other legendary posters of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, etc... The Fillmore show posters are some of the most legendary music artwork ever, so the guys are in good company. Everything went well all day long, except they were sold out of venue t-shirts. Oh well, guess I just have to come back sometime...

After the show we didn't hang out too much. There's a long drive to LA in the morning, gotta get some sleep...