Avec Sans – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the electro duo, Avec Sans, talk about some of their crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

ABORTED LANDING – We were flying to SXSW last March and Alice isn’t too keen on flying. Takeoff, turbulence, and landing freak her out. She doesn’t cry or anything but she does try to sleep as much as she can to maximize unconsciousness on the journey. We usually celebrate take off with as many complimentary drinks as we can get our hands on. We were landing at Houston at night and it had mostly been a smooth journey. Alice has a tendency to close her eyes for landing and doesn’t look out the window. We were coming in as expected then suddenly when only a few meters from the tarmac the engines just suddenly kicked in with a force I’ve never felt before. We were pushed back into our chairs and started to climb rapidly. Luckily for me, I’d watched a vlogger go through a similar thing and knew this was a “go around” where the pilot for whatever reason needed to do a loop then retry the landing. So there I was as the engines are blasting us at a crazy steep angle into the sky again and I think “I should reassure Alice that this is perfectly normal and she doesn’t need to panic.” What I didn’t realize is that Alice was actually asleep and unaware that any of this was going on. So I shake her “Alice, Alice, It’s ok” as she comes round it would appear she is living her worst nightmare as our plane is making a massive roar, pointed directly up at the sky and I am trying to comfort her in her last moments on earth. She grabbed the armrest, eyes like saucers heart in her throat and awaited death. Then the flight attendant came on the intercom to say we were just doing a loop and it was all good. I was not in her good books for a while after that.

NO TOILET – Whenever we stay in America we always Airbnb. It’s cheaper and we get to meet some awesome people and stay in real communities. But as everyone who uses Airbnb knows every now and then you get a place run by someone who is just a little sketchy, a little too vague with their emails and you can tell they are avoiding being direct with you. This was the case with our place in Williamsburg for CMJ. Our apartment we were supposed to have to ourselves was actually also occupied by a mother and son who didn’t speak a word of English and were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. We came back twice late at night to find the front door wide open and freaked out thinking all our equipment and passports would be gone, luckily they were there still, the pothead landlord just kept wandering in and out and leaving the door open. When we did meet the landlord properly, he plied us with rum as a way to avoid talking about the other occupants.

Then one day we come back to find our toilet on the stoop of our building. Not ideal. We went upstairs to find the landlord had decided to renovate the bathroom. When we asked him what we were supposed to do if we needed the toilet, he said he also looked after the apartment downstairs. He gave us a set of keys and said to just go down there. So we did. We grabbed the keys walked down and tried to open the door. The key didn’t seem to turn tough. We jiggled it, tried lifting the door while turning, pulling it. Then I tried pushing it with my shoulder as I turned. All of a sudden a pretty pissed guy shouts “are you trying to break into my apartment!?” Shit. We explained that our Airbnb landlord said he owned the place. Turns out he didn’t, he owned the flat two floors down. We got a lot of stink eye from our downstairs neighbor. He spoke very loudly to his friend the next day as we passed him on the street about “those assholes who tried to break into my apartment.” The shame.

ABBA KARAOKE – Being an electronic band, when the laptop is fucked, you’re fucked. This was the case at The Great Escape last year. We were on a great lineup, at a great venue at a great time of day. Everything seemed perfect. We’d even invited our lawyer to watch us play for the first time. So we get on stage after our epic intro music finishes and right away Alice’s mic doesn’t work. We have to wait 5 minutes stood there as the sound guy changes the mic cable. Great, we’re back in business, we jump into the first song of the set and things just aren’t right. Things are cutting in and out, synth sounds are appearing and disappearing. I look at the laptop and the mixer is going crazy on the program Ableton which I use to run the live performance. I stop the song, apologize and Alice chats to the crowd as I check all the wiring. Nothing is fixing it. I say to the crowd I’m going to need to restart everything but that’s going to take 5mins. At first, Alice handles it like a total pro. A good bit of banter, a few jokes. Then it gets a little awkward. The conversation runs dry. Then one guy shouts out “sing us a song!”. Then Alice utters the words which she will now forever regret “Which song?” The reply comes. “ABBA!”. Alice obliges. “Take a chance , take a chance, take a chance, take a chance” Casually throwing daggers over at me as she feels the world swallowing her up. It’s all taken in good spirit by the crowd as they sing along with her. Luckily not too far into the karaoke rendition the laptop is back up and running! We’re in business! I press play and we launch back into the set. And then about 20seconds in the laptop goes crazy again. We have to stop the song and walk off stage having sung more ABBA songs than our own.

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