Pont Of Few, Plod @ Le Sporting, Saint-Étienne FRA 26 December 2000
The protagonists of this story are Point Of Few consisting of: Martheun aka de Bolle – guitarplayer and troublemaker; Jop – bassplayer and “Que Pasa” master; Rik – drummer and supervising coffeejunk; Marco – vocalist and novice photographer. Then the drivers: Eva – also stylist and singer for Makiladoras, and Michael – also tourmanager/shitworker and drummer for PCP/Shikari. And last but not least, our 2nd home: the Cavia Express. A six metre long white-ish Renault Master with bed and kitchen. We are the guardians of the van and equipment. Almost 24 hours a day keeping an eye on our beloved yet wilful vehicle.
Monday 25/12 (departure) Hoogeveen is 60 km from Groningen. It’s cold and slippery. The landscape is covered with snow. To give the PoF crew a foretaste of southern approach, we arrive 1 hour too late in Hoogeveen. The van gets not-so-economically packed but soon enough we’ll get the hang of it. Our boys are truly prepared. In Dutch style, the van is stuffed with domestic food and drinks. We’re impressed! We leave around 3 pm, drive a straight 1100 km’s and arrive without any problems in Saint-Étienne at around 5 am. We’re welcomed by Sylvain, member of the “La France Pue” collective and one of the gig-organizers, who usually takes care of the touring bands. Even at this time it was no problem for him to fix us a sleepingplace. Great!
Tuesday 26/12: We’ve been to this city numerous times and it’s getting quite familiar. The concert bar is opposite to the bar where they used to do concerts years ago (L’Entrepots). Catweazle played there one of its best shows and with Sin Dios we had a very memorable time. Also One Day Closer did the place together with Dropdead somewhere in 1997. There’s lots of drugproblems in this neighborhood and we regular run into (not-so-annoying) crazies who buttonhole us. We meet with the Vömit För Breakfast guys and molest them to play as well. We have a coffee in Mistral Gagnant, the bar where they usually organize concerts and are impressed by the flyering for this concert. They’re everywhere! Plod plays experimental stuff with a cello and violin. I escape backstage to discover Bolle and Marco serenading Eva 90’s style with an acoustic guitar. Meanwhile the place is getting packed, around 100 people. PoF have bad sound, are often out of tune and play sloppy, but the crowd is moving. Jop does a song announcement in fluent French. After the gig it’s dinnertime and they made a special vegan plate for Jop. PoF gets interviewed on camera for a video-fanzine and we hit the sack around 3 am.
Organizer: Befa/Vömit För Breakfast & Sylvain/La France Pue
Point Of Few (Hoogeveen, The Netherlands)
Plod (Lyon, France)
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