Fuck The Bass Player - TIC in New Orleans

FRENCH BASTARDS U.S TOUR
EPISODE 6 : NEW ORLEANS
Date : Nov.2011
Location : U.S.A
Mode : Bastards

New Orleans : soul and power to live happily after Katrina

Sorry for the delay! But, between the return from the United States, the end of the recording and the mix of the album in Belgium, we've been very busy these last few days. But we had some rest and we ate some local products… so it gets better! Even if we're now back at home, we want to share with you all our adventures, these landscapes and this particular feeling we had in U.S.A.

After the first part of the tour, we decided to have a week off in New Orleans, in a hotel run by a priest and his community... in this country ruined by the hurricane Katrina, this guy helps to relocate people who have lost their homes, in the rooms of this huge hotel build in the 19th century, in exchange of some work for the hotel. That's a great idea, and it makes us think about the power of solidarity between the Afro-American and Creole communities in New Orleans.

In the meeting room where there is usually some seminars for neurotic executives - that's what happen in hotels Mercure (a hotel Mercure, it's like a hotel Ibis, but with the cable, knowing that a hotel Ibis is just a hotel Formule 1 but with Canal+), we will see a traditional celebration with mamas singing gospel, or how to give goose bumps with love. All these ladies were sixties, they're very humble and they all sing like Sharon Jones, or better. With all the respect we have for our French singer like Izia or Olivia Ruiz, who are supposed to be good singers, if we compare them to these ladies… the best we can do is to head down and avoid the subject.

Malcom is in the back and… "drink" the scene, he "soaks" it. We will respect their moment and won't take any picture of this worship place turned into a concert hall! The joy, the cheerfulness and the optimism that we can feel here, compared to all the problems they had after Katrina, is an incredible example and a good lesson for us, poor European guys who are only afraid of our 25-years loan contracted to buy a crappy house on a former farmland, away from the city, just because we have to stimulate this sick expansion politic. These people have nothing, materially speaking, but in fact they have everything, happiness, hope, joy, faith in life and therefore in the others.

We have spent three days in this incredible hotel (where the cleanliness and the antiquated installations are not the best we have seen, but we don't give a f…) where a young couple with their children are partying in the lobby to celebrate the birth of their second child, talking with customers from all around the world. The Reverend is a young man with kindness in his eyes, he bought that place to revive his community, and he's doing good. Dress like a priest, he answer to the customers before running off to join the mamas in the meeting room, transformed into a room for joy. One of our highlights of this U.S trip!

We don't stay so much in the French Quarter, an ultra tourist area. For French people like us, coming from the countryside, it tastes a bit like a place of consumerism for American tourists. Kind of like Quebec in Canada, a beautiful city, but where people are too much about selling, selling and selling again… it becomes boring and soulless.

We leave New Orleans with a heavy heart, thinking a lot about the power of this community… they're maybe ruined, but they're ok and alive for centuries and centuries. Amen. Oh, no, sorry… Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Jesus is good, oh Lord!