On the go go go: Pt 2

Eyes aren't quite being held open by match sticks. Busy day Friday which ended up with our friends Sue and Dave coming round for supper before we headed over to Avoine for a rock gig at Le Temps des Crises. It's a community run space which has entertainment on all year round. From the outside it looks like a church hall. Inside there's a small foyer and then behind a door is the space, which probably can hold 200 at anyone time. There's a little bar at the door end and a proper stage and lighting rig at the other. Then there's an outside area, which on  a hot night like Friday was just great to be able to escape to. Quite often there'll be small tables and chairs laid out, but for the Monkey Junk gig on Friday it had been cleared out, except for a few high tables and chairs round the sides. We'd seen Monkey Junk - a Canadian band - last year in Chinon at Café Français. They were just brilliant live. So when we saw they were in France again we just had to go. Thought Sue and Dave might be interested in them and the space so invited them along. Also a Canadian/American couple, Chris and Moira, who we've got to know and who are based in Seuilly. They've bought a huge old place and spent a year in France, starting to get to grips with the repairs. Late in July they go back to the States and then do the six months a year arrangement  as we did until April. They love it in France as much as we do. Chris's brother and sister in law had arrived from Canada earlier in the week, so they came too.  Brilliant night. Monkey Junk just excelled themselves. We all loved them and they clearly loved the audience and Les Temps des Crises otherwise we wouldn't have had five encores. One of those nights that leave you buzzing the next morning. Think we got to bed around 2am.

Le Temps des Crises by the way is a play on words from the French song Le Temps des Cerises. It was written in 1866 by Jean Baptiste-Clement as a sentimental love song and was then set to music in 1868 by Antoine Renard. But the song took on a whole different meaning when the Paris Commune emerged in 1871 and the workers governed themselves and their interests. Clement was a revolutionary and fought in the final battle of the commune known as Semaine Sanglante/bloody week. The song was dedicated to an ambulance nurse called Louise Michel. It was at this time that the red cherries were used to symbolize the blood that was shed and the colours of communism and socialism. The song is littered with metaphors and has remained closely associated with political struggle. It's extremely well known throughout France and has been recorded by all sorts of people including Yves Montand, Charles Trenet and has even had the hard rock treatment from Noir Désir in their 2008 recording. Found a you tube compilation of various interpreters and their interpretations, which obviously took some time to put together.