Welcome back to Man About Town, a European tour diary from PremRock. When we last heard from PremRock he was drinking something called Zero Zero Juice in France and partying well past sunrise. Now fighting off a cold, he's in Bordeaux, staying alert with a concoction called Russian Cocaine.
I arrived in Bordeaux late as per usual and lost as per usual but was finally at the venue. It's one I have played before, WunderBar, and remember it as a great den for daring drunks and proper hi-jinks. This small music-packed town lies in the SouthWest of France and about 5 hours South of Paris by train. A fantastic sight aesthetically and a hell of a place to find trouble if that's what you're after. Lots of Punk and Garage Rock comes out of this city and promotes high energy and open-minded shows. Plenty of love for hip-hop as long as you sweat a little. Check out Iceberg a great collective of music-makers from Bordeaux.
Upon arrival, I was greeted by Mika (my gracious host) and Elise whom had hosted my show a couple years prior and immediately felt at home. Elise and Pierre, another Wunderbar employee, will be certain to keep your mugs full and also provide Curry Wurst to soak up the madness. A local French crew “L’arme Des Mortes” and really brought some great energy and the group of kids in the house were a blast to rock out with.
WunderBar features a German emphasis and provides some interesting choices of poison. The feature of the night happened to be “Russian Cocaine.” This dangerous mix, was a Vodka shot lined with a coffee and pop rocks encrusted Lemon. My, oh my this was trouble. The kids basically bought them out until we were left with only Rum for our troubles after the bar turned into a speakeasy. They usually kick everyone out about midnight to create this environment and like to see how drunk they can get me. It worked yet again. It’s really funny how much the language barrier disappears after a few cold ones together. You kind of nod and expressively understand each other much better. The bouncer Norbert, happened to speak great English which he learned from watching TV as a kid. He also doubled as a pretty well-known French wrestling announcer. You don’t meet these kind of people staying local, trust me on that.
We drank till close to sunrise and stumbled back to Mika’s house as I attempted to sleep off my cold and successfully streamed (www.firstrowsports.eu for INTNL streaming) my beloved Eagles beating the hapless, punch-less, tooth-less and pathetic Giants the next day. I rested as much as I could and prepared mentally for the long journey to Lyon and shortly I’ll be crossing the UK border which is notoriously cold to un-documented US artists. I say undocumented in the sense that I didn’t fill out and apply for a work visa in order to perform my shows there. If I did that they would take a healthy chunk of my money as well as taxed my merch or simply denied my entry and sent me home. I’m a bit stressed but I think I got the right amount of karma on my side but until then… fingers crossed eh?
