My French Diary #2 - Montpelier to Cannes

YEAH! I was off to the sunny south of France, travelling all over by plane, trains & automobiles for the second leg of my France tour with my hero, Carl Cox!  Ok, it wasn’t that sunny, in fact it was really grey & rained nearly everyday… but who cares!  I was out of London, travelling first class, staying in the top hotels, eating the best food, playing in the best clubs, to the best crowds alongside one of the top Dj’s in the world!!! So I can’t complain that the sun wasn’t shining can I???

First stop was lovely Montpellier (apart from the grey skies), got to the beautiful hotel, dropped off my stuff & went for a walk exploring the city which is so pretty, with lovely little cobble stone streets & I came across a kind of new age hippy part of town with cool little shops, now this is my kinda place.  Bought a few gifts & then back & got ready for the first gig at “La Villa Rouge”.  Now how can I describe this club?  It’s small, holds about 800 people in the main room & looks like a Chinese takeaway with a red theme & two big Ming vases glued to the front of the smallest Dj booths in the world!  It was cool!  I was up first so after the initial shock of people coming in seeing this new female Dj warming up I soon had then shouting by the end of my set which was nice, just 1 hour, short but sweet!  Next up was funny guy Mr. Tom Pooks, this guy is hilarious, he did a great set & had the crowd totally ready for Carl.  Villa rouge is usually a gay club so there was a really cool mixed crowd there, which went bezerk when Carl rocked up!  The Dj booth is right down with the crowd so there were people everywhere swinging out of the Dj booth trying to touch Carl, the place was packed & I finally found about a 2 inch corner of a podium to dance on & spent the whole night trying not to fall off it, but it seemed like the safest place to be.  Another wild night!

Before every gig we go to each club early to install Carl’s new Vestax PMC-CX mixer & do a sound check & each time I learn a new little trick with this mixer, as there’s loads of cool stuff on it.  This time Carl showed me the Matrix system on it, which means you can assign each channel to a different track or you can have the same track playing out of the three different channels.  So you can have the track playing fully out of one channel & cut in & out with effects on the same track on the other 2 channels which is really bloody cool!!  I haven’t seen any other mixer that can do that!  Very very cool!

The next day I went to the beach for lunch with Laurent, the owner of the club & our driver Florent, both lovely people & I felt like I was in Ibiza!  After that we all jumped on the train to Toulouse!  That night was the huge Inox Electronic Music Festival in the wicked club “La Dune”.  It was here that they broke the news to me… “Tonight Clodagh you will play 4.30-5.30am after Sasha and before Carl Cox!” … I was like …what?!!  Ah well, all I could do was my best eh?  So I had myself totally psyched up for it plus my very cool sisters Maureen & Michelle & 3 friends had come all the way from London to support me so I was determined to rock the place!

I got to the club about 4am & the promoters were very excited saying there was 6,000 inside & the place was electric!  When I got in the Dj booth I had 15mins to soak everything in, saw my sisters & mates in the crowd, Sasha was rocking the place using Appleton live, then it was my turn! & these people really wanted to PARTY! I got so caught up in the atmosphere & played my heart out with my most pumping electronic house music! It was fantastic & was my favourite gig so far! The crowd really went crazy even though they hadn’t a clue who I was & think they all expected Carl to play after Sasha so it really was amazing. The hour went so fast, Sasha’s sound engineer was laughing at me, I was soaking because it was so hot, he said you're completely mad & I said “YEP!"

Then it was the big man’s turn who everyone wanted to see & they went even more nuts! After my set I must have signed about 50 autographs, it was so sweet & everyone asking who I was!  That was so cool!  Carl played so amazing, just kept the tunes pumping out one after another after another in between signing about 1,000 autographs, tickets, money, clothes, mobile phones???

Blackstrobe & Alter Ego were playing in the second room but I couldn’t find it, but it didn’t matter ‘coz the main room was pumping!  Tom Pooks & me were having a good old stomp on the dance floor as Carl was playing everything from techno to electro to house! Wicked wicked wicked!

Next day we jumped on the train to Marseilles.  The promoter Charles told me they had presold 1,300 tickets & the club could hold 2,000. When we got to the club “Le Bazar” to set up I looked around & laughed, where in god’s name will you fit 2,000 people in here as it looked pretty small, but there was a very cool outside space as well & the sound system was pumping so I had a good feeling this party was gonna go off!  When I arrived for my 2 hour set the place was rammed! Ok ok I think there definitely was 2,000 people in there, I had to squish my way through the crowd & the place was BOILING!!!  No air-conditioning!!  I started playing & straight away the crowd were shouting, so I kept them in a 2 hour pumping groove, as it was so hot I didn’t want to kill them before Carl arrived.  It was so much fun, the crowd were CRAZY!  By the end of my set I was completely exhausted & soaking, I must have looked a right mess & Carl burst out laughing when he saw me!  "Ah well at least we’ll lose some weight", he said!  I was pooped!  But Carl got up & did his thing again & the crowd went even more crazy, it was a full on serious party for a Sunday night! Really excellent!

The next day we had a day off & so we chilled out in Marseilles in the coolest hotel which had a wicked outdoor pool beside the sea & mountains & the sun actually came out for a few hours so I was swimming around enjoying the view & thinking how lucky I was!  That evening we went for a very nice dinner with all our new French friends & the promoters of the south of France tour, MK3.  Great food & great people & there was this very nice band playing the best chilled out electronic lounge music I’ve ever heard, they’re called “Jaya”.  It really was perfect!

The next day we were driven to the final leg of our tour, which was the Cannes Film Festival!  It rained so heavy here!  Unbelievable!  We checked into our mad funky hotel & went to the club for the sound check but had to return 3 times before we got it fully sorted!!  This party would be completely different to all the others, as there would be a very different, more ‘beautiful’ crowd, that definitely wouldn’t want to sweat, & maybe not even want to dance, so I had to do a very nice but mellow 1 hour warm up house set, which I really enjoyed too, short again but sweet.  The VIP club looked amazing, very very posh, everything in white leather, lots of podium dancers & lots of beautiful people with a very funny revolving dancefloor!!  It was hilarious watching the people go round & round & round!  Carl played a really wicked house set, it was perfect for the night & the crowd & just proved to me what a true Dj he really is as he can play & rock any type of crowd from the full on banging techno set he played in Bordeaux, to the mixed up techno-electro-house set he played in Toulouse to the funky groovy house set he played in Cannes! & he ROCKS it everytime making people have the best night out ever & making them go home happy! That’s really special!

As it was my last night I danced my socks off which wasn’t too hard really because the music and vibe was so good!  So this was the end of my unbelievable France tour with my hero Carl Cox!  I thought I’d be really sad that it was finished but I’m not (yet) as I had such a fantastic time I still have a big smile on my face writing this & I still can’t believe I lived my dream & played all those fantastic parties & made lots of new friends!  So Merci Beaucoup France, Merci Beaucoup to Ian Hussey (Carl’s tour manager for the good company & the laughs) & Merci Beaucoup Mr. Carl Cox for letting me be a part of your Tour & all the good times! Let's hope it won’t be the last! Au Revoir!! XXX