La Fête de la Musique

Hmmm, I still haven’t written about the Fête de la Musique? It must be because I was so tired afterwards I couldn’t make it to the computer the day after. We left the apartment around 8:30, just after a quick thunderstorm that probably chased all of the real amateurs off of the streets (there were still plenty—about one band/DJ every 100 feet). Then we walked all around the city—about 3 times. (I don’t know how far it was, but let’s just say my feet felt ready to fall off by the time we got home.) We started off alone. Jube was band-hopping, searching for that elusive beast: a French heavy metal band playing at the Fête de la Musique. We found two to agree on. One was a funk band with a great guitarist (“His guitar is a Vigier, it must have cost like €1500!”) and the other was a band of 3 preteens who made us laugh. Afterwards we walked from one place to another without staying more than 10 minutes. We bought one Kronenbourg beer from a 24 hour epicerie to share and then headed back to the Place St Anne to see who was there. It turned out to be a cover band—but what was more important was that all of Jube’s Lozerien friends were there as well! We joined up with them when, lo and behold, we saw yet another friend, one who had sublet his apartment to us for the month of July 2003. He is now living in Ireland, but is back for vacations with his new Montpellieraine girlfriend. We left him there to go trekking to se other bands. We ended up at yet another place where we met Igor, another of Jube’s Lozerien friends. By this time it was about 1:00am and everyone was feeling tired, so we split up to go home. On the way back, what did we find? FRENCH METAL! (Jube’s excuse for leaving was a headache, which was forgotten in the realization of his METAL dream.) We stayed for awhile, listening to the “singer” (perhaps I should say screamer? hurler? I’m not sure how to describe that kind of aggressive, heavy metal grunting). After two or three songs, Jube remembered that he had a headache and we walked home.

Since then it has been, to put it simply, HOT. There are heat warnings out for practically all of the French départements, including ours. They recommend that no one go out, which is certainly something I can handle. Supposedly the temperature will drop starting tomorrow. I will keep you updated.