Carnival Collective does Abbeville France, 8-11 Jan

I've just been on my first trip away with Carnival Collective to Abbeville in north France to play several gigs for a British film festival over there. I had an absolute whale of a time!

It started off in the early hours of Wednesday morning with a coach to Dover. A few swigs of brandy helped me along. The first gig we played was outside the Office du Tourisme. The crowd were a bit comatose but they lightened up when the dancers grabbed a few of them for a tango. We paraded across the small town into the cinema where the festival was taking place and played a set there.

After a gorgeous meal then a heavy night of drinking, smoking and me DJing back at the hotel we went, the next day, to play at a college. We paraded in and got a good crowd who were really into us. Apparently this was for French national telly and there were lots of press there getting shots of us doing our thing!

More food provided by the college and then on to another school to play two gigs to two age groups. The younger kids really got into it and the dancers really got them involved. At the end we all stopped playing and Dave pretended to start us up like a motor-boat engine! Great fun! The older kids were way too cool to get up and dance so it was much more hard work for us, especially after just having done a gig with the younger ones.

Then we went on to Abbeville to do a gig at the train station. No-one there really so bit of a shame. I was getting really tired by this point.

That night we had more of an unplugged session back at the hotel. I tried and failed miserably to sing Oasis' 'Cigarettes and Alcohol'! Did 'Norwegian Wood' OK though!

The next day, after not much sleep, we got up and did a gig outside the market. Despite being exhausted and it being early in the morning we still managed to pull it out the bag. We paraded to the town centre and did a gig there, once again to no-one in particular. This one was really good fun. The brass section played from the other side of the road and then the rest of the band decided to run away! We then started playing hide and seek as we were still playing! When the brass section had their solos, I heard Dave's trumpet solo coming from behind me, turned around and saw his trumpet sticking out of the phone box he was in! We also did the 'Voulez vous...' break to great effect!

I spent the rest of the day vegging out and kipping, but was up for it some more on the night. We went back into town for a meal and then back to the hotel for a party. More DJing, jamming, scratching, smoking, dancing drinking and debauchery until 6 in the morning!

All in all I had an amazing time! I still can't quite believe that I'm in the band and that all this is happening to me! There's more to come too with gigs in Scotland in a months time! Watch this space!

Thanks to all in CC who made it a tip top week.

Playing to the crowd in the cinema (that's me bottom-left with stick poised to whack!)

Parading into the college

Sandy & me on the ferry on the way there

The older school kids that were too cool to dance

On the way to our last gig in gold costume