Oui Love! On tour with Team Ghost and Anoraak: Part 2

After a highly successful and very fun show in Bristol, the gear is loaded up, the box full of promotional Team Ghost/Anoraak condoms topples comically all over the floor, and the bus is boarded for the first of many rounds of Sonic Youth sound tracked PES battles between the French and the English. Alternative entertainment is provided by Team Ghost’s Pierre Blanc and Nicolas Fromageau, who, at the other end of the bus are indulging in a new-wave DJing session, which, I have to say, is absolutely brilliant.

As all of this is happening, the bus is weaving its way from Bristol to Birmingham for the next step of the Oui Love vs. the UK tour, and towards the home of musical legends such as Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest and of course…Duran Duran. After some hearty english breakfasts and a chat about the scandal surrounding arrested French figure Dominique Strauss-Kahn, we head to Birmingham’s Hare and Hounds to prepare for the show. Due to lack of promotion and the fact that the gig is taking place in a venue that is also playing host to a Pete & The Pirates concert tonight, the turn out’s not great. Despite this, the Oui Love family play storming sets, with a gloriously energetic and playful show from Anoraak and Team Ghost as poignant, passionate and solid as ever – held firmly together by the hooded, intimidatingly powerful drummer, and thoroughly lovely chap Félix Delacroix.

In extremely high spirits and fuelled by a fair amount of tea, whiskey and beer, the lounge of the tour bus is turned into a discothèque for the journey from Birmingham to Manchester, the next stop of the tour. Stage-diving, a form of break dancing that I suppose could be classed as European, but probably more precisely, just drunk and rubbish is cracked out to a soundtrack of Manchester music as the bus approaches the north eastern corner of England. As the bus pulls into the city, blaring from the windows are the sounds of Joy Division as we come to realise that today’s show, the 18th May, marks the 31st anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis.

Unfortunately, due to previous commitments, this journalist was dragged away from the tour before the Manchester and Liverpool shows, but following in-depth post performance reports: “Manchester was AMAZING, Liverpool was rubbish”, I rejoined the groups on Friday for the show at London’s CAMP Basement. Looking a lot more tired than when I last saw then two days ago, the bands are still in very high spirits as we set off deep into East London to find some vinyl for major music fan Benoit De Villeneuve, also know under the moniker Villeneuve – creator of 2010′s brilliant Dry Marks of Memory – and Team Ghost/Anoraak producer. A busy boy indeed!

It’s Anoraak’s turn to headline again tonight, so Team Ghost are first to take the stage. Their sound seems to reach a little further than the knowledge of the sound technician, who for the first few songs, struggles to figure out how to incorporate the band’s electronic sounds into the mix. After the second song, however, the sound gets much better and Team Ghost, although a lot more tired than at the start of the week, produce a truly beautiful performance with the achingly gorgeous ‘High Hopes‘ and ‘A Glorious Time’ once again mesmerising the crowd, and bringing Team Ghost’s time on the Oui Love tour to a very fitting, very touching close.

The last set of the night belongs to Anoraak whose unfailingly high spirits lead the end of the tour into the DJ set of French DJ Don Rimini. Anoraak crack out crowd pleasers such as ‘Crazy Eyes’ and ‘Cloud Rain Love’, once again stirring spectators into an entranced, rocking mass with their infectious electro style, which has proved a live hit at every twist and turn of this tour.

A very busy week has been had by all. A joint rave review in France’s La Libération, the highly debated arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, six shows, one big pink bus, about 10 England/France PES battles, a quest for vinyl, a tour bus disco, a lot of beer and a disgraceful amount of whiskey later, and Anoraak play the closing notes of the final track of the tour. But what a week it’s been, filled with wonderful music and genuinely cracking human beings. How can we sum up the Oui Love tour 2011 then? A Glorious Time. J’adore cette chanson. Stage-dive.

Thanks to Fred for the photos.