Being on tour with a hot indie band involves waking at 4am to throw up from motion sickness only to find a toilet so brimming with piss that you’ll get splashed if there are any turns up ahead. This, like everything else on tour, is played out beneath the soundtrack of a stuttering download of Southpark season 13 and a stoned sound-engineer summarising Anvil! The Story of Anvil!

I joined The Virgins (hot New York indie band) for a few weeks in France - on the last part of a tour which has been going on for 18 months - because Almost Famous is my favourite movie. The following is my recount of life on the road and a celebration of the end of an error. I mean era. PTJ! (Private Tour Joke - there are lots of those.)

On our first night in Paris we stayed at the super swanky Hotel Amour, owned by Parisian ‘it’ boy André Saraiva aka Monsieur A. aka the dude who does graffiti on naked chicks aka Uffie’s husband aka the guy who owns the super swanky Hotel Amour in Paris. Every single room is decorated totally differently at this place – crazy right? I got the disco room, which had a ceiling covered wall to wall with mirror balls. That evening before the show the band and I all stood in a circle holding hands gazing up at the glittering lights, listening to “One More Time” by Daft Punk.

Music’s got me feeling so free.

The next morning we got dropped off at the bus and it was time to hit the road. That’s Kevin, who drums in the band but isn’t in any of the press shots or interviews because the other members are scared he’ll let slip that he’s a Muse fan.

This is Tom, The Virgins’ Scottish tour manager. He looks a lot like Paul McCartney. We spent a lot of time deliberately excluding ourselves from the yanks, getting stoned and watching British comedies every time we felt uncomfortable because the band were talking about song structures and ‘vibes’. Save it for the studio, douchewads. Hey Tom, pass the doobie, Mighty Boosh is starting!

This is us backstage in Lille. We got onto the subject of what career paths Donald and Wade will take if the second album doesn’t take the world by storm. Donald, who gave up acid at the age of thirteen decided he’ll be King of the Universe. “If I was a fascist dictator I would run the world as follows: So what are you working on Spain? Cure for cancer? Cool, do it. What about you over there? Holy war? Nah, that ain’t cool. And so on and so on.” Inspired. Wade’s going to take up chocolate calligraphy:

Good time wasting, Wade! Now there are only three hours till dinner.

I lent Donald a King Missile t-shirt in Angers that my mum wore whilst I was in untero. My first concert! The crowd were so appreciative that night that Don got carried away and threw it into the audience. He didn’t realise the sentimental value until I made him go back into the pit and beg for the shirt back. Everyone took the piss out of him, but personally I don’t think there’s anything more rock and roll than respect.

This is Sarah, Kevin’s girlfriend. She would fill the quiet tour moments with her Jewish rap act, which is really vulgar with lots of drug references.

When we were done taking side-stage photos of one another throwing up the sign of the horns we headed into the crowd and walked around with an air of superiority, trying to score blow in the audience. The Virgins’ fan base has a mean age of nine though, so it didn’t really work out. Look at them, no drugs here.

“Oh I just came.” PTJ!

We had a late bus call in Brest, so we decided to go totally crazy and hit the town - which was full of Glaswegians and fat girls. The bassist, Nick, was vibing out with a quiet beer and people watching. He really likes to just sit back, get real, and see how the fans live. He feels totally comfortable hanging out with non-creatives. SNAPS! (PTJ!)

Wade played a film trivia game on this weird machine while the rest of us pretended to enjoy ourselves. After a while we all crowded round to watch and started shouting answers and arguing over who got the next turn.

My last night was back in Paris where we’d begun. We’d been to Lille, Angers, Brest, Nantes, Bordeaux and somewhere else I can’t remember the name of. I learnt so many valuable lessons about the different strengths of cheese and the vintage guitar market on eBay. I’m going to miss sleeping in a coffin-sized bed and spending long drives wondering when I can get off to have a shit. That night I blocked the toilet with my puke. Rock on.

BILLIE JD