Trip to France

So this month I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine and see the greatest band in the world, Sonic Youth, as they perform at the La Route du Rock festival in Saint Malo, France, which is on the northern tip of the country right next to the UK.

After 9 hours on the train from Germany and riding my bike all around Paris looking for the train to Rennes, I finally arrive in the city. It was a pretty nice costal town. Small and quiet, but pretty diverse. Probably because of the big festival held in the city every year. There were plenty of Brits there and even a few Americans from the nearby University of Saint Malo. Anyway, I get the concert and it's nice. I walk in just in time to hear the last of Maximo Park's set. After sitting through The Polyphonic Spree and some Yo La Tengo, they finally get to the main event, Sonic Youth. I have to admit that after the initial shock of seeing my favorite band left me, I felt that they sound better in the studio. I've seen plenty of live stuff on video of them, and it's possible that this could have just been a bad show. They played plenty of old stuff, and new stuff from Sonic Nurse. They opened with Pattern Recognition, which is what they did a lot in 2005.

They confiscated my digital cam before I went into the fest, but I managed to get some pictures with my cell phone. Here's one shot of Lee Ranaldo and the gang coming out and about to jam. So after the show I realized that in all my excitement to see the band that I didn't think to aquire a place to sleep for the night. I had no choice but to sleep at the train station, outside, in the middle of September. It was pretty cold, but I wasn't the only one which kinda made me feel better. I managed to actually sleep for a few hours before daylight. The trainstation opened around O' dark thirty and I caught it back to Paris.

The highlight of the entire event would have to be who I saw when I was coming off the train at the platform in Paris. Non other than Thurston Moore, the leader singer and guitar player of Sonic Youth. I was start struck man. I didn't know how to act. I walked up to him and shook his hand and had him sign my copy of "Neuromancer." I told him I was his biggest fan and that the show was worth the trip. He was mad cool too, one of nicest people I've met in a while. But I figured he probably had a plane to catch or something, so I made it breif and left for the main station in Paris. I wonder what he was doing riding the train like a regular person anyway? But that was my trip to France