Felipe frome Barcelona used to play the drums in the Fresones Rebeldes and is now part of Cola Jet Set,, both bands being Spanish and quite "Calamités"-like...
Starting from "Toutes les nuits" up to "Vélomoteur", he tells us how Les Calamités influenced his life, from Madrid to Dieppe, through Toulouse and Andorra...

I saw Les Calamités at a gig in Toulouse, I guess it was Easter or summer 1985.

I was at Lloret de Mar in a rather ordinary Mod gathering when someone mentioned the gig. Riding my Vespa and three other scooters, we went to Toulouse (about 400 km away). We were freezing and starving when we arrived shortly before the concert. They invited us to the backstage to eat big sandwiches. The gig was great: very funny, with good dancing music and that really Mod, young feeling of "total living". Unfortunately I lost the pictures from that magic night (with Les Calamités and the sandwiches).

Les Calamités were no great players but they had the grace and the rage to play pop-rock the way we did ten years later with my band [Los Fresones Rebeldes, one hit wonders in Spain in 1998 with the very "calamitic" song "Al amanecer"] featuring three girls on the front stage, another guy and me as the drummer.

Some time later, I found their A bride abattue album and the record by the Snipers in Andorra, and another Bride for a friend of mine when I was waiting for the ferry in Dieppe in 1992. Friends from Madrid gave me the Vélomoteur single and they even covered it with their band, Astrogirls ["Velomotor", released in the bonus CD of the fanzine Zona de Obras issue number 13]..

I remember also a European TV show with Frankie goes To Hollywood and possibly the "Toutes les nuits" video, but I'm not really sure about it.

Thank you! Les Calamités!