Thursday vs Saturday (or London vs Paris)

Sept 9 - London UK

Sept 11 - Paris FR

Sept 12 - Middleburg NL

Flanking the End of the Road Festival date (see blog entry above), were the little cities of London and Paris respectively. Not a bad way to close out the tour.

In the lobby of the Borderline in London, I was proud to see our poster up beside Blue Rodeo's. Anyone from Canada knows how huge Blue Rodeo are, and any fan would be excited to see that they were going to play in such a small and intimate venue here. Last time we played the Borderline (on a Saturday night) we sold it out. I'm sure Blue Rodeo will pack a lineup down the streets of Soho to see them.

It is a Thursday, and slightly before school season, so this time it was close, but not a complete sellout. That's ok, we'll do it again, and next time it will be with a few more UK festivals and a new album under our belt. I'd imagine we could even jam a bigger room.

Ok lets contrast that with the Saturday show in Paris. Last winter, we came to France and did about 12 winter festival dates around the country. That really helped us out there, and on our only French date this tour, we received some of the payback. This Sept 11, BROOD fans came to Paris from as far away as Zurich, Lyon, Dijon and Grenoble to see us. We pretty much oversold the show. I tweeted a couple pics (www.twitter.com/Doots_Mayhem), one that showed the opening band's drummer playing essentially my old suitcase kick, another reflecting a tasteless but timely defacement of our poster. The club was packed like sardines in a can, and shortly there was no dry stitch of clothing within the band. People were singing along to our songs, which I find really validating especially in far away places.

Lastly, I can't neglect to mention Middleburg NL, the friendly town in a slightly more conservative province of the Netherlands (ie no 'coffeeshops'). We ended the tour here on a Sunday night. Our host here, Doug was a super dude, as were the rest of the staff. This night was a bit of a challenge, being literally our 12th in a row, and the next two days brought a massive undertaking: teardown/return-the-gear/fly home/drive-straight-to-Eastern-Canada-all-within-two-days. We had just rocked Paris, and End of The Road Fest in the two nights previous. How could Middleburg compete? Good question. Anyways, we closed out the night with a couple of drinks down the way at the only open bar in town, with many of the same people who we hung out with last time in Middleburg, back in Feb '09. That in itself made the last date really fun, and underscored our oversees friendship with those folks.