Transmusicales Festival

The mysterious aspects of our band

This was a fantastic day. There was a festival called the Transmusicales Festival here in Rennes, with a bunch of bands playing. We had been invited to play this festival; that’s why we were here in Europe in the first place! So tonight we had 50 minutes to play, but no soundcheck. The place was tiny, and it was only Mouse On Mars, us, and Long Fin Killie – and it was packed with 400 people, someone said. When we got up on stage, the crowd was packed to the front of the stage and when we played a couple of people started dancing!! But I think the crowd really loved us. A guy with white hair who was standing on the stage while we played ran up and begged for another song after we finished, and the audience gave us an encore! After our show, upstairs, we met the guy; he was the promoter of the festival. He brought us champagne after the show, and then we had 4 interviews! Two TV shows, a press conference, and a radio interview that was translated back and forth between us and the interviewer. The interviewer for the German TV show wore a black and white zig-zag striped zoot suit. I wish I took a picture of him. I wonder how big these TV shows are; it’s impossible for us to know who these guys really are. 

one of the tv crews with their scary big camera!

French interviews are so awesome. The first question from this one was “Tell me about the mysterious aspects of your band.” We didn’t even know how to answer that one. Also there was a question, “what are you trying to say by using a TV set in your songs? What does TV mean to you?” or something along those lines, something that allowed us to go on a tirade about the commercialism of TV and where you are actually getting the “news” from; who is actually PAYING for it? etc. etc. I wonder how much of that translated back into French!

Also, I guess our show tonight was the deciding factor of whether or not we “got a TV for our Paris show”, our label representative told us. I thought she meant we were going to get a TV set for our Paris show next week, but she meant that we would get to be on a TV program. Anyway, she told us we’re going to get to be on a TV show, we get to play 4 1/2 minutes, and it’s going to be LIVE!!! YIKES!!! We’ve never been on a LIVE show before, playing! Maybe it’s like the french equivalent of the Conan or something!!

And after our show Christof (in charge of City Slang, our label over here) told us we could come back to France and tour with Les Thugs next March. ALL MARCH. Reaction from both me and Rick: we spit out the drinks we were drinking at that moment, comically.