An account of brilliant gigs, drunken nights & cheese in Paris, by the Rock Maestro. Ok, I had to mention the cheese for the obvious reasons. France is wine, cheese we knew that but it’s also rock….and lots of it…. And I swear to you this was exactly what we found. The amount of cheese consumed by the bands was incredible. Gloria Cycles the international winners were invited by us to rock Paris along with Autovaughn from Nashville. Mind you these two bands have been traveling around the UK all month supporting the sold out tour of Cage The Elephant in 1000 capacity venues. Anyway, getting back to cheese…Catering aside, the bands had a chance to taste not only the local music scene, but lots of wine (and I mean lots) and cheese with the local musicians (kindly offered by french musicians). Everywhere we went there was an air of party and everybody was in a festive mood, but let’s start from the beginning because this is a long one….so: Day 1 was a gig at le Gibus on Wednesday night, a club that has a 40 year history. We rush to the place to find drunk teen agers holding wine cups….brilliant! Many clubs have come and gone around the world but this one is up there with the best and still kicking. I could smell the history in the place. The crowd got involved by clapping and cheering to music they’ve never heard before…..Our American Guests from Nashville, Autovaughn got amazing reception as well but the “best bit” was just around the corner….. After the gig? Yes, red wine and cheese with the American dudes (got to bed at 4am, not bad). Day 2. Thursday was important day as the Emergenza showcase was in place. Shake, was a showcase so successful that there were 500 people there. Imagine this: a gorgeous art space over 3 floors. The Espace Kiron is composed of: space for photography, sculpture and other mediums, it also has convention rooms for book signings etc but the best part was the actual television studio. Yes friends….The gig was actually done in a television studio with an audience so eager that had to be told not to step on any equipment. The studio, which holds about 200 people, was rammed with good looking, well-dressed Parisians that wanted to see what the fuss was about. What? bands from overseas? Yes. As I was wondering why the young sound-guys in that place were actually better than a lot of “old school” boys I’ve seen in my time around the world, I noticed something: the place was literally kicking. I couldn’t move and I nearly fainted from the cramping. Kids were clapping to every song by Gloria Cycles. The Brighton based band was a huge success with the crowd. Because they were all sitting down, or on top of each other (very romantic thing to see by the way) what they were doing was stomp their feet really loudly and clapping their hands to every beat. They were won over by our British heroes and ere screaming for every word that Kenny, the singer was saying. Never seen anything like it….what? no cycnicism? No absolutely none there. Almost every person in the studio were clapping their hands ad it wasn’t the fact that there was 4 television cameras there…. it was genuinely a Parisian thing. Lovers of good music unite!!! The same went for our American guests. After this surreal gig the Merch table was attacked by eager new fans wanting to buy the t-shirts or the Cd with the obligatory autograph. There were picture taken with the musicians and personal requests….” Can you please sign: to Sophie, with love…..” it was like this was their new favourite band (remind you of anything?). The night proceeded to the arty area were we all gathered to drink red wine and eat cheese (really? No joke mate…). After the beautiful hospitality and chatting to various French publishing people and A&R reps we left the Espace Kiron and headed out to the Bastille. Myself, 8 brits including Gloria Cycles, their label reps and Alex from a reputable British booking agency that I can’t name because he would lose respect fr