Two Days in Paris: The Cure and The Cure…! 

Hey,

I sincerely hope you’re doing well! I’m back on a plane on my way to Tokyo, a city we’ve been visiting at least once a year ever since Alex stepped foot there for the first time back in 2007…! I just watched the movie Elvis, and I’m a little shaken and saddened at the moment, as I grew up in a house where Elvis’ songs were played over and over again, so I thought the moment was well chosen to share a little more about our very short trip to Paris for Alex and myself! I’m now listening to Before The Flood, a Trent Reznor and Mogwai collaboration motion picture project. 

So many things and situations have happened to Alex and me in the past few days, and I’m not even sure where I should start! It has all just been an insane run and I feel like I’m still catching my breath sitting in that plane right now. So many emotions, starting from being so excited to go back to Paris, to becoming really mad at everything related to Air Canada from near or far, followed by watching one of my favorite bands live in one of their favorite cities, then reaching higher grounds spending over 9 hours in a meet & greet at the Bataclan, to sleeping only 2 hours prior to heading back home and ending this trip being even madder at our airline; Air Canada. We could make a movie out of those past 3 days, I’m telling you! :)

Paris, ville lumière, has always been a very unique and particular city for Alex and me ever since we started touring with our band Your Favorite Enemies back in 2007. We played in Paris even before playing in Montreal as a headlining band, which is quite unique by Canadian music history standards. I will never forget that evening of October 2007 when, after our concert at the Point Éphémère, we decided to invite everyone to join us at the Eiffel Tower to make sure this evening would never end. As we were all there, the entire band and all of our friends who attended the show, we were all silent looking at the tower, slowly coming back from what had been an unforgettable musical evening.

Alex came to me, grabbing me strongly by the shoulders, with tears in his eyes, looking at me straight in the eyes saying: “Bro, can you believe it?! Our music brought us to the very foundation of the Eiffel Tower?!” and we both cried in silence while looking at this, having a hard time understanding all of what was happening, as we both come from very humble and poor backgrounds, in which traveling wasn’t even a dream, especially not thanks to music. Every time I have the chance to go back to Paris, this moment always comes back to my mind, and it always brings back those exact same shivers I felt when I was there that night in 2007. 

So, with that in mind, Paris was an easy take as a place to go back to when we decided we needed a European capital city for us to go and ship all the packages for “Winter Is Coming In”. The plan was so simple: I was invited to Milan’s Linecheck Music Festival and we wanted to go to Japan early in December. That gave us a 3-day window to hit Paris and we quickly discovered that one of our favorite bands, The Cure, was playing on the 28, and great news, I have a friend who works with them and was pretty keen on having us on the guest list, so guess what? We got to building everything around those dates: ship the packages, go to the show, have a few meetings, and organize a meet & greet with our friends. That was the original plan! Easy!

DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL

Here we are, leaving Montreal for Paris, the day after we came back from Milan, with 6 luggages, 5 of them containing those packages we needed to ship, and one with Alex’s and my personal stuff for the trip. Arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, at the luggage zone around 11 o'clock in the morning, we waited and waited and waited for our very important luggages to arrive! “Oh,” says Alex, “Here’s one...!” And then “Oh,” says Alex again, “here’s another one...!” Then… silence. I’m going to go check in the oversize luggage zone to see if, for whatever reason, our luggages would have arrived there. 

A nice lady then waits for me there and asks what my luggages look like, as she’ll call her crew to check how long it would take before they arrive. How clever and nice of her! After an hour of “it should come soon”, that very same lady comes to us and tells us that all the luggages have already arrived, and the rest should come in tomorrow. WHAT!?!?!?! “I am sorry sir,” she says, “this is beyond our control…” I really hate that sentence! It kinda resonates like, I know you’re pissed, and you should be, but don’t be, and be nice to me, as it’s not my fault. And she’s right! But it has to be someone’s fault, don’t you think? :) So here we are, with no packages to ship. I’m mad, Alex is nice. Good cop, bad cop!

We left the airport at 3 o’clock in the afternoon after we had managed everything, hoping we’d get the rest of the luggages the following morning at around the same time, as the lady had told me should occur. We’re both disappointed, exhausted, and stressed like crazy since we’re heading back to Montreal in less than 48 hours. But at least, good news, or comforting news in the circumstances, I should say, we’re going to see The Cure tonight! We went directly to our rented flat in order to drop off our things, take a quick shower and head to the city hoping to forget this crazy situation, and enjoy some of what Paris has to offer us before the show...! The concert was incredible! Three unforgettable hours of The Cure which truly made us forget about the fact that the main reason we were there, to ship the packages, couldn’t happen, and this was completely behind us, in the “We’ll deal with it later” compartment of our heads.

We arrived at the guest list place, and to add to this crazy trip, our names were not on the list, of course. How embarrassing! I had to tell the person who added our names on it (I’ll tell you more about this at some point since it was even more embarrassing for me), and while the lady at the counter was gone double-checking on those two Canadians who, in her mind, were simply trying to get a free pass for the show, we noticed our journalist friend from My Rock magazine, Pierre, hanging out with all those press people! Pierre has been the very first media from France to cover our 2007 concert and we’ve been amazing friends ever since!

It was so amazing and so cool to see him there, which added a lot to those crazy few days in Paris, and also made the wait for our names on the list feel way shorter! Finally, our tickets arrived, and Alex and I could simply walk toward what was about to become a memorable evening in a city we both love so much… How blessed and fortunate we are! We went to bed at around 3am that evening, walking on water, as Robert Smith sang with passion and dedication that night!

DAY 2

7am alarm rings for me. I’m not sure where I am and why my alarm is ringing that early in the morning. It didn’t take long before my memory of those luggages kicked back and I very quickly remembered that I needed to call Air Canada and the airport, hoping our luggages would arrive at 10am, as I’d have to get ready and leave for the airport at 9am latest. I sit on the bed, grab my phone, dial the number, and explain our situation to the lady who answered. She asks me to politely hold the line while she’ll go and check this out! Three minutes passed and she came back saying: “Mr. Beaulieu, I’m very sorry to inform you that your luggages will only arrive tomorrow at 10:30am.” I almost cried – or threw my phone on the wall. “We have an 11am flight back to Montreal tomorrow,” I told her, “It’s impossible for me to catch those damn luggages in time.” She then replied: “We can ship them to a location of your choice in Paris if you’d like.” I’m like, ok cool… But to whom??? And what a cool thing to do to a friend! Hey buddy, here are 4 huge bags filled with packages for you to go and ship, thank you!!! PS: I love you!

Guess what the rest of my day looked like? And we had an organized Q&A session at the Bataclan which was supposed to be a meet & greet but since 50 people had confirmed their presence, Alex thought it would be cool to start our Open Conversation project. (I’ll explain what that is later on...) The event is scheduled to start at 5pm, and I’m not ready for my Q&A at all...! I rushed to a café with Alex, Les Enfants Terribles, and spent my afternoon making phone calls and sending emails trying to figure out which of my friends could go to the airport, pick up the luggages, and ship them to you as quickly as possible. No fun at all! :) 

4:30pm rings. I have to leave. I’m already exhausted, burned out, and drank way too much coffee, but Alex is really thrilled and excited about this moment that is about to happen, at the Bataclan of all places, as we wanted to celebrate life as much as we could. I need to be in the same vibe as him! The event was supposed to occur between 5 and 8pm, with one hour of welcoming chat with everyone, one hour of Q&A, and one hour of thank you for coming, hugs, and more personal conversations before heading back home. So, there we were, Alex and I, chatting with our unbelievable friends who came from all over the country, places like Bordeaux, Marseille, Bretagne, but also Belgium and Germany in order to attend this memorable gathering. We were stunned, amazed, thankful, and truly blessed…! It was incredible to see this many people who traveled for hours and even rented hotels to hang out with us!

I was about to start the Q&A, which I spent my afternoon getting ready for in between phone calls and emails, when I heard someone screaming: “All right everyone, please get ready to leave, we’re closing!” What kind of place closes at 8pm in Paris?! But then I realized it was already midnight, and all we had been doing was talking with everyone non-stop for 7 hours! How amazing is that?! We had such a great time with everyone; no one wanted it to end and to move on to something else. Incredible! We then decided, as if it wasn’t already enough, to go somewhere else and keep this moment alive as we headed deeper into the night...! We found a place a few meters away, and closed the place as well, still sharing and having amazing conversations until the 2am bell rang...! This is literally 9 hours after we got started! 9 hours!!! We never did anything even close to this ever since we started back in 2006!!! Paris, je t’aime!

It was 3am when we got back home! We had to leave at 8am for the airport, which meant up at 7! We got back to our flat with so many gifts, we had to already make sure those would all fit within our two luggage out of the 6 we were supposed to have! Yes, this situation isn’t over yet! We went to bed at 4am! No Q&A, no shipping done, but an incredible concert from The Cure, and 9 hours of what matters the most to us; conversations with people we love! Just insane! :) 

DEPARTURE

We left for the airport not without a huge thanks to our incredible friend and band light engineer Valentin and his amazing life partner Chloé for driving to the airport that morning, picking up the 4 huge bags, and shipping all of what was in there to all our European friends…! Isabelle and Stephanie both woke up at 3am, or didn’t sleep at all, in order to help them go through this all after Alex and I boarded our plane around 10:30am! We had the confirmation they had the luggages right before we took off for Toronto! The feeling was so nice, we were both so relieved, and made a great toast, shortly before noon, to the infinite boundaries of friendship! Cheers to Valentin and Chloé!

We then arrived in Toronto after a 6-7 hour flight, exhausted, but still flying knowing your packages were on the way. I met a Canadian customs agent who thought it was weird for me to go to Paris for less than 3 days, and who wanted to see what was inside my luggage! It’s a 90-minute connection, and here we go! Our 2 suitcases were supposed to be picked up in Montreal, but now, I have to go to the very end of the biggest airport in Canada and watch an agent move his fingers around all my personal stuff! Fun times! :) He quickly realized I wasn’t a liar, gave it back to me, told me to rush back through security, that he’d make sure my luggage gets on the same flight I was on… How kind!

Guess what happened as we hit the Montreal luggage terminal? Alex says “Here’s my suitcase.” Then… wait...! I could feel the same frustration I felt in Paris multiplied by 1000000000000 come up my spine…! And I was too tired and exhausted to even have the slightest desire to control this feeling! Here I was again, at this terrible luggage desk, dealing with my missing suitcase. Thanks, Air Canada. Thanks, Canadian customs agents. Unbelievable...! All I had in mind was “I’m leaving for Tokyo tomorrow, more of this nonsense I’m sure…”

CONCLUSION

I still can’t believe all of this happened in only 3 days! This is insane! I’ll have this Q&A with Alex later on for sure! You have my word! But to see him laugh, hug, receiving encouraging words and gifts from so many people we love dearly until 2:30am was simply priceless to me and to us all at the Bataclan that evening! The cure to every possible bad news there could be! This is what's most dear to Alex and me, and we will forever be thankful to you all for making this journey so incredible and priceless no matter what we're about to face!

Still six hours out of fourteen to go on this actual flight! I hope my suitcase will make it this time! 

I’ll close my eyes a little... You take good care! I can’t wait to share about this trip in Tokyo with you next week! 

There’s no limit to life! 

Your Host and Friend, 
Jeff