The Stagger Rats

14/04/12

Day 6 of the tour: Arras, Saturday.

Arras is a very grand French town, with beautiful main squares, an old Cathedral and some very grand surrounding buildings. When we arrived at The Blue Devil it was closed. We wondered around for a bit trying to find somewhere to stay but the youth hostel had closed down and the cheapest hotel was about 75 Euros a night. Luckily we met this friendly group of young French locals Patrick, Debora and Laura and they jumped in the van and took us to a cheap hostel out side town (10 Euros a night.) They were great we gave them an EP and invited them to the gig.

The Blue Devil was run by Hiver; an old Rocker who was obviously renowned for putting on live gigs. Our friends from earlier turned up with a gang and seemed to have a great time, they all bought t-shirts (big thanks goes out for that). The gig went down really well, the venue was small but it was filled with about 60 people. Every one of them was wearing a Stagger Rats badge. The Blue Devil looked after us well with cheese and ham toasties soaked in the local beer and free drinks till 6am. We had a great laugh. The fiery Sambukas were also in no shortage.

Stumbling out at about 6am Jazz (who had been asleep in the van all night) drove us back to our cosy hostel.  When I say cosy the first room had a double bed with a bunk above it Kai and Craig shared the double, Jazz was in the bunk. The second room had Daniel in the bunk, me and Callum in the double and Terry on the floor….Happy Families!!

Bonanza Xx

15/04/12

Day seven of the tour: Arras, Sunday.

We had a well deserved lie-in, some juicy hot dogs, a wee donder, some sight seeing, collected the equipment from last nights gig and we were off following our new friend Hiver on his massive Moto Guzzi to a gig he invited us to the night before, “The Jancee Pornick Casino” (check them  out on you tube.)


We walked into a converted shack, a biker hang out which was decorated from head to toe in biker memorabilia not to mention the hundreds of old dusty cowboy boots hanging from the ceiling. There was a log burning stove and a very relaxed friendly atmosphere. The gig was great the band were an interesting mix of Russian-American referred to as “The Rasputin’s of Rock”.

The Stagger Rats saved the day when the band realised there bass guitar was on the blink luckily Terry came to the rescue and lent Vladimir his bass which ended up in some Russian-Scottish style whisky drinking at the end of the night.

Bonanza Xx