081 – Sacre Noir Summer Tour 2014

Saturday 2nd August – Day Off, London
For our final day in London we went out early to make the most of our time; Celeb spotting in Soho without even trying over a coffee… Peter Capaldi (Thick of It / Dr Who), a picnic in Soho Square, an hour in Bar Italia for apple juice and a catch up with KMT (The Penny Black Remedy), free chocolate at Choccy Woccy Doo Dah (mmmm) and a chat with Ann in My Art Invest (an art share idea from Paris – investments coming soon) before heading over to Whitechapel for dinner.

Last Day Triptich 1

We had made a reservation at Café Spice Namastae which is the restaurant run by Cyrus Todiwala (The Spice Boys / Celebrity Masterchef) and was possibly the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten. We started with the homemade chutneys and popadoms (all excellent, but the crab apple was the most unusual) before our ‘real’ starters arrived, then the Thalis for main, all washed down with mocktails and lassi – it was a perfect 2 hours of chatting, eating and being looked after by the fantastic staff. We left feeling very luck to have experienced such original, freshly prepared food in a fantastic atmosphere on our last night in such an exciting city.

Last Day Triptich 2

Sunday 3rd August – Travel Day (London – Edinburgh)
We had a lazy Sunday morning with coffees on Pitshanger Lane before the ritual of packing, un-packing and re-packing on a travel day. Then it was off to Euston Station for our traditional meal at Ed’s diner before leaving London once more. We’ve had a great time in London staying with the super-cool Joe McG (one time flatmate of Robert Plant / designer of Black Sabbath LP covers / daughter who works at Vogue etc etc). We’ve had so much freedom whilst being looked after at the same time; BBQs in the garden and limitless tea and wee-fee… we love staying at Ealing Towers and hope we can show Joe a good time in Edinburgh if he makes it up for a show or two during the Fringe.
The train journey home was painless – no delays or problems with luggage and we arrived as expected into the madness that is The Fringe Festival.
Home Sweet Home

We still have a few shows to play & a video to launch this month, but it feels like the bulk of this tour is done and dusted.

Paris was amazing!
Thanks to; TT – for the great apartment / Pierre, Juliette, Laetitia and all the staff at La Dame De Canton / Teresa, Chakal & all the staff at AbracadaBar / Vincent and all the staff at Au Chat Noir / Dave, Lea, Ben, Leatitia & Tom for being cool / Victor at Midnight Special Records / Popper Must (Be) for a great set at Au Chat Noir / Aubry at Madoro Music Management for being the nicest person we didn’t meet (you really helped loads and we’ll be forever grateful to you for being so cool and professional) and most of all our new best friends Chloé, Ben, Ablass, Dan, Charly, Damien and Robert from AsOne – by far the best band in Paris!
Extra thanks to Chaval for the fantastic pics and to Sithara Ieng for the amazing video of our show at AbracadaBar from his “j’ai filmé pour vous” series.

London was fantastic!
Thanks to; Joe for the run of Ealing Towers / Martin / Andy Docherty and all the staff at The Village Inn for letting us hijack your acoustic show / all the “open mic’ers” we met in Putney & Ealing / Barry & Ray / Lisa & Bob / Phil M / Muir V / Tinderdust / Grand Bassam / all the staff at Power Lunches (especially their amazing sound engineer) / Andunemir for filming the show at Power Lunches and to Tom, Charles, David & Ben (dressmaker) for all their support.

NEXT SHOW
Summer Tour 2014: Gig 9 Wednesday 6th August @ The Central Bar (Gateshead)

073 – Sacre Noir Summer Tour 2014 (gig 4)

Sunday 20th July @ The Duke’s Head, Putney – London
The weather was beautiful in London today so we decided to relax in Ealing then headed over to Putney for something to eat before our gig. The venue for tonight’s acoustic show is in a lovely bar just beside the Putney Pier called The Duke’s Head. It has 3 separate bar spaces and a lovely outside seating area where you can watch the world go by and the boats sail along the river.

Putney

Our evening of music was really great! Before we played there was a singer / guitarist called Sonny who played a bunch of covers including ‘American Boy’ by Estelle and ‘Bump & Grind’ by R. Kelly, which were both great, and the act after us was a local songwriter called Steve who entertained us with a few original tracks. To finish the evening there was a fantastic slide guitarist / singer who played a mixture of blues and country covers and a few originals – this guy was great. His performance was amazing, technically his playing was on point and his delivery was very relaxed, not contrived or ‘put on’ in any way. He really created a fantastic atmosphere and everyone seemed to have a great evening.
And that concluded our little promo show in London in advance of our gig at Power Lunches in Hackney on August 1st. We headed back to Ealing after a few drinks having avoided the little rain that appeared earlier and were feeling pretty pleased with how the new tracks sounded; ‘Rebels & Loners’ in particular seemed to make an impact.

nothing’s shocking

NEXT SHOW
Summer Tour 2014: Gig 5 Thursday 24th July @ La Dame De Canton (Paris)

072 – Sacre Noir Summer Tour 2014

Friday 18th July
After the excitement of having Dressmaker & Terminal Gods in Edinburgh, we were feeling very tired but thankfully we didn’t have much to do before we hit the road tomorrow. We managed to fit in lots of packing (and re-packing) of clothes and stage clothes, stock, posters, promos and musical gear.

Saturday 19th July
Today we’re off to London!

Ready. Set. Time to go…

There were no delays or problems at all on the way and even though it was raining for the entire five and a half hour journey, when we arrived at London Euston the sun was shining and everyone was suddenly very stylish. When we arrived we headed over to St. Pancras to send the large drum bag to Paris via Euro Despatch and then it was time to head over to our lodging in Ealing.

Sacre Noir in Ealing

We have a show at The Duke’s Head in Putney tomorrow evening, so decided to have a meal at lovely Italian on Pitshanger Lane and enjoy our first night in London.