I'm met with bemused faces. After an hour and a half of phone calls to agents and the like, it transpires that the former manager signed our contract then promptly left without telling any of the staff about it. Anyway a contract is a contract so we do the gig. Now in our experience this always means a cheesy dosshouse with no sheets or hot water, and, yes indeed, this was no exception. By this time it's 1am and we're considering driving back into France for the relative sanctuary of a Mister Bed or one of those other prefabricated roadside McHotels.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Sort of Arian god crossed with Billy Connolly, this guy is a one in a million and we love him to death for his boundless energy and chaotic sense of fun. The gig was just a makeshift barn when we got there but by about ten minutes before we were on he'd glammed it all up and relocated the reverb unit etc etc. Thanks to the rather more orderly skills of Hans Peter on the sound and Kristoff's resourceful light show the whole thing was as near as dammit a pro affair, and it can only get better.