Feb 28 Coffee House Sessions: Week 2 Recap

The Coffee House Sessions tour is now over…! It’s crazy to think that it’s been 10 days already, and 25 gigs. In 25 different universities, most of them in different cities. And acoustic performances in radios. And interviews. Over the phone, in radio stations, for local newspapers… We’ve traveled lots and lots already, and it’s far from being over!

This second week of the tour was mainly in the northern half of England, as well as in Scotland (where we are as I am writing this – it’s our very first time being in Scotland and it makes me super excited!) Everything is so super beautiful everywhere, it’s simply breathtaking!

One thing we’ve noticed the more we go up North besides the beautiful sceneries? The accent! The accent becomes more and more pronounced… It’s harder for us to understand them, and harder for them to understand us as well. I never thought I’d be lost in translation in England, to be honest… but it’s really happening!

Water? No. It’s Wah-tah. And the first time you ask them for water, they ask you to repeat it…

Pretzels? People don’t seem to know what they are. For many people, especially in Europe, they’re a type of bread. But for us in Canada, they’re a snack, just like chips would be, in a bag. But no matter how many people we’ve asked in Sheffield, nobody had a clue what pretzels were. I’m sure if we would have written it down, it would have been easier.

Caramel? No, no! It’s Kyaramal for you, dear! Said with our French accent, caramel seemed to be a rare resource on a distant planet somewhere in the galaxy in the eyes of the poor lady who heard it… (And yes, it was as bad as this!)

Bournemouth? Careful, you don’t pronounce “mouth” in that word the same way you would for the mouth that’s in your face. Why? We don’t know. But it’s like that.

Nottingham? Don’t you dare pronounce the H! It’s there, but you just don’t say it. But in every other word in which you see a H, you have to pronounce it.

Keighley? No, it’s Keefe-Lee. Why is it that in this very specific word, the GH turns into a F? Because it’s a Welsh word. Obvious. We’re only so very far from Wales!

At some point, it reminded me of our first tour in China, when we were new to this country… When we were told that Shanghai was pronounced Shan-hai, that XinXiang was pronounced Shin-Shiang, that “OU” was only pronounced “O”… and that we were given toilet paper trying to ask for a receipt in a supermarket. Yes, it’s that kind of lost in translation. Ok, I’m exaggerating here. Only slightly, only slightly…

And even though we have a hard time being understood at times, people seem to really appreciate our accent! The fact that we’re French Canadians give us that very unique and noticeable accent, and it intrigues every one we see. To be honest, there’s not one university where we haven’t been told that our accent was lovely…!

But the more we travel and meet people all across the country, the more we notice how different this country is. Not only because of the language. But it’s also a whole different culture, that we’re learning to discover more and more through the people we meet everywhere we go. And everywhere we go, the moments we share become eternal memories, a new part of our history, of who we are as individuals. In each and every campus we’ve visited, we met incredible people. And even though we’ve been with them for only a few minutes, the conversations & smiles we’ve exchanged will remain with us forever. Be it students who interviewed us for their newspapers, radios or tv stations, the people who worked at the different venues and helped us make sure everything was perfectly fine for us, the people who attended the acoustic sessions, because they knew us before and wanted to see us live, because they just wanted to hear a free concert, or completely by accident because they happened to be there when we played… There are just as many stories as people we’ve met, and I think that this is the true miracle of these Coffee House Sessions. 25 universities. 10 days. and 1 ongoing story.

We were talking about this all together a little before leaving on tour. We had parted opinions about the Coffee House Sessions. Some of us were highly enthusiastic at the idea, while some others weren’t very warm to it. We all had our own reasons for it. But when we agreed to do it, we agreed with one same heart, and we agreed on doing it all the way, giving it everything we have – as there is no such thing as a half-hearted effort with Your Favorite Enemies. There has never been, and there will never be. And I think that we all have been blessed by everything that happened during this unique acoustic tour… And if you would ask any of us at the moment, we’d be ready to embark on another one… but on one condition: that it be much longer!

Here are a few pictures from the last week! 🙂

We will be driving back to London tomorrow, where we will spend a few days, rehearsing, and “switching our acoustic brains to our electric noisy brains” as Alex likes to say! We are really excited at the idea of playing electric gigs again, to travel across the UK once more, to meet even more people… and to enjoy that very unique type of let go the 6 band members have when they are together on stage!

Here are the dates where you’ll be able to catch the band live!
Something not to miss!!!! Trust me on this one! 🙂

March 5, Milton Keynes – The Craufurd Arms
March 6, St. Albans – The Horn
March 7, Bedford – Holy Moly @ Esquires
March 8, Bristol – Thekla (Top Deck)
March 9, Nottingham – Rescue Rooms
March 12, Edinburgh – Sneaky Pete’s
March 13, Glasgow – King Tuts
March 14, York – The Duchess
March 15, Wakefield – The Hop
March 16, Keighley – The Exchange
March 17, Liverpool – Korova
March 18, Sheffield – Corporation
March 19, London – The Barfly

See you guys very soon!
– Stephanie

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