#sofarsessions

Oct 5th  NAMUR, HOST: Jacques; Chez Jacques et famille.

We wake around 9:30am, and begin what will become our daily communal ablutions for the next 10 days…. I have a lovely catch up with my dear friend Geraldine, who I have known since I was 7! She nips out and grabs us our first breakfast of the tour…. Delicious French croissants and my favourite… chausson aux pommes! (I’m obsessed). After happily munching we head back to our van and off we go… my first road and I’m on the wrong side luckily it was a one way road and that was the first and last time I do that on this tour! We head through France and head to Belgium to Namur, a place I have been visiting nearly every year for the past 16 years. So this is almost a “coming home” gig for me.

We arrive at Jacques home and are greeted by Valerie who has helped translate and organise the gig with Jacques. As we walk into Jacques home the delicious smell of chocolate fills our nostrils it’s the home baking by Jacques’ wife, Anne. She wears an aprons and layers over a smock, with an antique feel, she seems like she has been cut out of a romantic vintage post card. We are welcomed into the kitchen which resembles a scene from Hobbiton with tea and cake (which was delicious) and met his children before we all load in.

The room we are going to be playing  in is full of antiques, an old wooden grandfather’s clock empty and full with old books, old photos of the family pinned on a cork board. So much character in this room and all made and placed with love. The whole family helps us load in, the chef, yes a chef arrives to make the evening food for the guests. Tonight people have paid a flat fee for a 2 course meal and an evening of music!

The chef made a delicious mushroom risotto and salmon lasagne for a second course... which at this point I couldn’t eat for nerves! (Left it for later!). Once everyone had eaten, the tables were moved out the way and the room filled with chairs so people could sit and watch the performance. The performance started... and the audience were so attentive in hushed silence they watched and listened, yet sung loudly, stamped and clapped - I knew some of the audience as many were budding musicians so we had that on our side. A couple of minor mistakes from us but the energy was invigorating!

At the end of the show everyone called for Jacques the host to do a song so him and Valerie played and sang, Alannis Morisette’s Ironic, whilst Collette and I backed them on backing vocals and percussion. Was a wonderful evening and I nearly ran out of merch!! It really encouraged me to think people still love listening to music and to be a part of something more. Was so nice to meet so many new music lovers. Even Stan from MBM told her dad to come and visit and see the show and we had a good long chat!

After everyone helped load the van again we 3 headed to my best friend, Jonas’ mum, Ariane’s house!! I have been going there for many years so it feels like home, so nice to see and spend time with my Belgian Mama!! We are greeted by the cats and we make our way upstairs... I think yay we get a lie in tomorrow but just before I go to sleep I realise that actually it’s an earlier start to tomorrow’s gig….. so nope we leave at 9am SHARP!

Nightly ablutions.

Head hits pillow.

Sleep.

You can watch the video of the full show here