MORE LUNATIC THAN CALM
It’s 11.15pm, December 1997, on a bitter night in North Western France and the streets are awash with amped up rowdies. Onstage a brass band play acid house cover versions and we stare in slack-jawed confusion.
Just two days ago we were in New York City after three chaotic weeks on the road. It’s a blur that began on the West Coast, took in the featureless flatlands, the industrial north and the tropical South. We are beyond exhausted. We just need to raise our game one more time …
“There’s a wealth of experience every time you get off the bus - the vast girth of the bullish truckers eyeing us with caution; the open-armed warmth of the Southern Belles; the rugged, streetwise cool of the blue collar lakesters; oily shoe-staining puddles; birds of prey encircling the lush marshlands; vast, towering bridges suspended atop impossible water-flow; downtrodden inner city slums filled with sadness & longing; towering chrome future-scrapers caressing the clouds; outstretched arms to embrace you in bar-rooms; a nationwide love of the English accent (and a craving to know more); Ma Bell and the lifeline to reality; the speckled neon glamour of the big city light; head-carving hangovers; spit’n sawdust rock’n roll halls of fame; the sweeping arid badlands of the cornfield plains; the harsh & rugged spirit of the icy North; endless concrete runways - some gridlocked, many untouched by the reach of Motor City.”
Re-entry to the UK was tough. A sleepless flight back from New York was only manageable in the knowledge that we had a pitstop hotel booked en route to our first French Festival date… but on arriving at Heathrow we discovered our bus had broken down and we then had to endure an increasingly desperate 10-hour wait, followed by a bitterly cold 12-hour drive through the night. We arrived at our hotel at 7.30am with just enough time to shower and get back on the road.
There are serious soundcheck dramas when our ADAT tape becomes jammed in the machine, frozen solid after 18 hours in the van, and it’s only through ingenuity, patience and the unexpected help of a hairdryer that we manage to unfuck the machine.
It’s 11.30pm. Showtime. “Bon soiree Rennes! Ca va bien??”
There’s a sudden surge of energy.
From *somewhere* we find reserves we had no right to find.
Despite a lousy onstage sound and a few mystery dropouts from the hyperthermic machines, it’s a killer show, once more infused by a punk rock spirit.
This recording of ‘Roll The Dice’ is the sound of that show.
It’s rough, it’s savage, and it’s definitely more Lunatic than Calm.
