Arriving in Greece was pretty nice for us: 19 degrees and some sun is better than the icy, windy, rainy weather we had left behind in the Netherlands. The first night we were invited to play a sort of secret show for a smaller audience in a rehearsal studio. It was small and intense and extremely warm but very cool to play there. Jack from Despite Everything (great band!) recorded the whole show with his studio-gear. I have no idea how we must have sounded (loud as always I guess) but I was having a cold and Willem was recovering from a cold. All in all we had a great evening on our first friday night ever in Greece.

On saturday, our host Apostolis’ roommate Drossos (“even for Greeks it’s a weird name” he said) showed us around Athens. It’s nice as a tourist to see the ancient Greek parts of Athens. It’s hard to figure out how heavy ass it must have been to make such structures without all the possibilities and heavy constructions stuff we use these days to build things. What’s strange to see for me as a european in another european country was all the police walking around all day and night. It sometimes gave me a feeling of discomfort being there. Of course there is a lot going on about politics and the eurocrisis but I can understand that a lot of young people don’t like all the police walking through their city fully armed. It just gives you a feeling of being uncomfortably ‘safe’ sometimes..

The show in Athene went well on saturday night: we had a great time playing and meeting a lot of new people and for me personally seeing new bands. Then sunday morning we had to travel to our show in Volos, but to be honest (and we also told the audience later on) we had no idea where and what Volos was. So Riekus got his macbook out, ran Volos through wikipedia and google maps and SHABAM we knew what to expect from the city.

I believe it was a 4 hour drive from Athens to Volos. Sitting in the van with Wish Upon A Star from Athens, we got the extra touring guide information about what we were seeing from the roads we were on (and holy shit do Greek people talk loud!).

The show in Volos went well. I actually heard from some people that they liked the show in Volos most. It’s always tough for me as a musician to compare shows with each other but maybe they were right. After all, the show felt good and I was not feeling so sick anymore in Volos. So that was Volos. One thing I will never forget was the ENORMOUS teddybear at the sleeping place in Volos.

So that was that! Back to Athens airport on monday morning and trying to get some sleep in the plane. No flights were delayed this time. A big Thank You goes out to Apostolis for inviting us and putting up 3 shows for us! I’m very grateful for the possibilities we got for playing over there and hopefully we can go back to Greece another time soon.

Pictures or it didn’t happen!

From the back of the van, June 14, 2011

I’m typing this down on our way from Austria to Budapest. Yesterday we played Wiener Neustadt, the last show “on our own”, without Boysetsfire and Letlive. It was very nice to see a lot of familiar faces and longtime friends before we enter the realm of anonymous crowds, dealing with a tour manager and people only waiting to see BSF. On the other hand, we have been looking forward to this a long time, so we can’t wait to start this second chapter of the tour. We are very curious what to expect, whether the people will be interested in us or not and how touring in a “less-DIY-way” is. It might not be too different; yesterday we got a last minute email the Prague show has been canceled. Happens to the best apparently. And one advantage of our own “DIY community”: we managed to get a new show (on our own, not with BSF) on that same evening, at Cafe na P?l Cesty, in Prague. Below the statement from booker and venue:

“We have bad news. Unfortunately we have to cancel BOYSETSFIRE´s Prague show that was supposed to happen on Thursday, June 16th, due to a massive strike happening there that day. Not only will there not be any public transport, but also blockades of the main roads, so it would be questionable if the bands would even get into the city or people to the show. According to a news report they´re expecting the city to be totally paralyzed. We´re really sorry about this.”

Torn between solidarity with the workers, ignorance on getting through Prague and the eager to play we decided to try to go to Prague and play. No Boysetsfire, but free entrance/donation instead. See for yourself.

From the back of the van, June 19, 2011

The second part of the tour has surely begun! The first show with Boysetsfire and Letlive was on a huge boat in the Donau in Budapest. Really cool show, playing after Deez Nuts who were last minute added to the lineup. At the second show in Poland there were two local bands playing so we were playing 3rd in front of quite some people again, nice! Good responses, but we had to get used to the different dimensions of the show and the sound in Poland didn’t work in our advantage.

Even though the show with BSF and Letlive in Prague was canceled we got an alternative show offered. We played one of the coolest venues, in one of the coolest locations ever: a café selling vegan burgers in the middle of Pankrac Park in Prague. Benches outside, a front porch at the entrance. The place was packed with 40 people. Different dimensions, great evening though! I hope the strike and blockades helped the workers to get what they deserve, it didn’t affect our movements at all. The next day was going to be hard. 2 shows on 1 day, no shower the next morning. Good times. The first show was a festival in a small town in the Czech Republic, which wasn’t too crowded, but nice. 12 year olds buying our shirts. The second show a completely packed show in Zwiesel, where we had been before and that showed. And again a lot of young kids, there is a future and it is bright!

Last night we played Leipzig, the biggest show in Germany and sold out, 1000+ people. And Conne Island, what a venue! Including a nice skatepark outside, food grills in front of the venue and a nice biergarten. It was already quite full when we started playing and the crowd apparently enjoyed us and vice versa. Today we have our first and last off day of tour and tomorrow the third part of tour starts: a non-stop run of shows with BSF and LL; no more off days or shows on our own. But first: BBQ at Hotel Kötti in Regensburg!

Some footage from the show in Gorizia (IT)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B94F5CF8F3C720E2

From the back of the van, 25 June , 2011

For a European band touring with a North American band is one of the best things that can happen to you. Or at least, that is what we heard from other bands. North American punk/hardcore bands draw a bigger audience than the average European punk/hardcore band. North American bands are more exotic to most people and come from the countries where most punk and hardcore bands and labels originated from. Whether the difference between the attention for North American and European bands is fair or not I would gladly discuss with you another time! But touring with Boysetsfire and Letlive indeed gives us the chance to play in front of more people than we do when we tour on our own. Some of the stages on this tour are bigger than the venues we usually play, go figure. Even though we are very happy to also see familiar faces from “our own shows”, it is a nice challenge to play in front of people who are into the same kind of music, but initially didn’t come to the show for us and generally don’t watch DIY shows or European bands.

So far we are doing well I think. For this tour we play mostly as the 1^st out of 3 bands. To make sure people catch our name when they enter the venue during our set we even made a backdrop. At some shows there are more bands playing before us, and the last part of tour will be only BSF and us. We get to play 30 minutes, which results in a 9-song-nur-hits-setlist and enough time left for futile revolutionary talk in between songs. Even though the crowd isn’t complete yet when we play, we get great responses after our songs and show and we do well on merch. The reactions on our site and facebook are proof! What struck me was that at first we were the only band selling actual albums. Letlive later received CD’s (no vinyl) but neither BSF nor LL sell LP’s. How old-fashioned of us to sell our complete catalog on both CD and LP.

So far our “on/front-stage” experiences of this tour, next chapter: off/back-stage!

From the back of the van, July 1, 2011

When you take into consideration that our tour through Russia is the last tour we did before embarking on this tour, there couldn’t be more differences. Of course, as previously described the audiences are bigger. But besides playing in front of bigger crowds there are a lot more differences between this tour and our usual touring. Preparing the tour was not business as usual for us. All shows with Boysetsfire have been booked by Destiny Bookings so we didn’t have to do anything to get the shows. So that’s easy. But since BSF is touring and sleeping in a nightliner we still have to arrange our own sleeping places. No problem, because we appear to have plenty of friends all over Europe! Something else: at the first show in Budapest we are being introduced to some people from the national TV. Apparently they want to do an interview with Boysetsfire and the support bands. It is a nice little interview, with some big lights and more and less obvious questions. I’m very curious if we will ever see the final result of it.

Another “win-win situation” of this tour is to be found in the backstage. Since we share most backstages with BSF and Letlive we get the same luxury treatment as them. From sandwiches at our arrivals to our own exclusive backstage bar in Budapest. Snacks and drinks until you drop. Whatever is left at the end of the night (food and drinks) we put in our bags and take to our van, they make nice snacks and drinks on the road the next day. Cheaper than the average gas station.

You know those plastic backstage passes some bands make for themselves proving they never tour, whilst trying to prove they are on the road all the time? They appeared necessary on this tour, I learned the hard way. On our show in Frankfurt I really couldn’t get past security without showing my pass or paying entrance. So I started wearing the damn thing.

Another security measure I started to understand when it got explained to me are the barriers in front of the stage. At some shows there are barriers “protecting” the band, or the audience, I don’t know what their official function is. And it always feels weird when a band decides to play behind barriers. Why so distant? But in some clubs a band will be held responsible for any accident happening without barriers being put up. But if the barriers are there, the club will take full responsibility. For a band, and an American band in particular, insurance issues always are difficult (health insurance anyone?), so I understand why bands choose “the easy way” and decide to put up barriers. On top of that all German shows on this tour are sold out and having around 1000 people in a packed club is something else than the 100 people maximum we usually play in front of …

At most shows we can use BSF’s backline. Guitar and bass cabs that is. They remove their drum kit from the drum risers so we can put up ours, which is a little nicer than putting our own drum kit in front of the main band’s kit. The same goes for the backdrop, we can hang it in front of theirs. At some of the shows the support bands weren’t announced at all so it was nice to inform people who we were.

Towards the end of the tour we get to know BSF and their crew a little better. Even though they travel in their nightliner, spend a lot of time in their dressing rooms and might be “a little older than we are”, we also have some time together. Especially the after-show-BBQs in Gorizia (ITA) and Antwerp (BEL) are awesome. Both the band and the crew are extremely nice and easy going. The tour was a great experience for the band, but the people involved made it a nice personal experience as well.

Photo’s or it didn’t happen!

Before writing the report we would like to thank Sergei and Vladimir from Play It Loud Bookings for getting this tour together and Aleksey from Angry Chuck Records for releasing and promoting our new album and tour in Russia. They still have a lot of our albums and T-shirts up at their distro.
In case you have videos or pictures of our shows in Russia, please email them to us. We would love to have some proof of people going crazy at our Russian shows!

Logistics

Touring overseas or far from your own home usually means flying to your destination resulting in not having your own van and backline there. When touring Europe we have our own van (including beds) and backline, we book most of our own shows and have riders making sure we know what to expect. This all makes it fairly safe and comfortable for us to tour Europe, and this way manage to tour extensively. When we toured the USA we always toured together with other bands whose backline and van we could use for the tour. So even though it is not your own stuff, you at least know what kind of equipment you can expect each night and what vehicle will get you to your sleeping place and next show.

When in Russia, you don’t. For us, coming over to Russia meant having no clue what to expect at all. No idea what kind of transportation and backline we get, where we sleep, if there is food and drinks at the show, how the shows are and in general how people react or communicate with us. Not only do we use public transportation for the whole tour, but all local bands use public transport to get to the shows. In Ryazan’ we play with three touring Russian bands and they actually rented a tour (mini)van and driver. For the first 3 shows we travel from and to Moscow, staying at Vladimir and his friends’ flat every night. This means walking to the metro with a guitar case, bass guitar case, merch suitcase and our personal stuff. And after that taking several Moscow metros for an hour, keeping our eyes on all our gear. After the metro comes an additional train or bus to the city we play. And the same on the way back home.

After playing Schekino (Tula) we find out there is no bus going back to Moscow that night and it seems we are stuck in Tula until the next morning. Since arriving in Moscow and getting to your destination by day takes more than 2 hours because of all the traffic, we decide to take a taxi back to Moscow that same night. Financially irresponsible in Europe, over there the ride was less than 40 euro, taking the 4 of us for more than 200 kms. By the way, in Russia everybody is a cab driver. Just raise your arm like you are hitch-hiking and a car will stop and drive you wherever you want for the amount you agreed on. This way we became the subject of a lot of “you will never believe what I have in my car right now”-conversations over the phone, and we managed to get a ride on what some may consider typical Russian transport: an oldschool 1970’s Lada!

Using local transport avoids getting pulled over by the police, as so many European and American bands have experienced and warned us about. And thanks to Vladimir, Sergei and Aleksey travelling with us, we have no trouble communicating with drivers or buying tickets. Public transport is quite relaxing since everything is out of your hands. Even though the seats in Russian vans and buses are rather cramped. In a van where in Europe only 9 people fit, in Russia they squeeze in 20 people easily. We were actually looking forward to flying on the plane, having space for our legs (!). A lot of Russian buses and trucks are second hand, bought from West-European countries. We actually saw an old Connexxion bus with it’s old destination still on the board: Hoorn (Netherlands). The roads in Russia are the worst we have seen to date. Cars and buses can’t drive on full speed most of the time because the state of the asphalt doesn’t allow it. Belgians, take notice!

Backline

Touring by train or bus means you can’t bring more than a guitar, a bass guitar and some drumsticks. And the local bands don’t bring amps or drums either, even the band that rented a van didn’t bring a backline. What are you gonna use then? In Russia the venues provide a backline for all bands. Every band uses the same gear (the opposite of Belgium, where literally every band uses all their own stuff) and the gear is not top of the bill or is worn a little. But despite my expectations playing a Crate solid state combo isn’t all that bad (or is it the vodka that makes it sound good?). The best amp I play is a Marshall TSL tube combo, the worst a brand-less transistor combo.

Most of the nights the sound and the backline are OK. Only in Vladimir the gear and the sound system get the best of us and we don’t play at our best. For Riekus the quest for gear goes a little further than for Tim and me, because the drumkits in the venues usually don’t include a snare, kick pedal and cymbals. On the plane we couldn’t bring those because of weight restrictions, which results in a begging 101 course for Riekus to get his stuff together. Thanks to a lot of generous Russian drummers, this never leads to problems.

The shows

The biggest difference between shows in Russia and anywhere else is the enthusiasm of the people. There was not 1 show without circlepits, stagedives and crowdsurfing. Even though more and more foreign bands tour Russia and people are wearing all the cool and hip band shirts, all hell still breaks loose when a foreign bands starts to play. A little head-nodding from the crowd can be very rewarding playing in Holland or Belgium, in St Petersburg we were actually chased back onto the stage because it was too wild playing on the floor. When your drummer is being crowdsurfed during your own set, you know people are having a blast. When at every show there are people who know your lyrics even though you have never been there before, you know people care about going to see bands and getting to know their music.

Russian people tend to come off very distant and inaccessible when you walk in the street or ride the metro. It isn’t until you personally meet people at the shows that you experience how friendly and warm Russians can also be. A grumpy face turns into a smile turns into ecstasy after you’ve played. I never polluted more pictures with my face and merchandise with my signature than in Russia.

At the shows we usually play with 4-5 other bands. To avoid a late night, shows start rather early, around 19h. It is 21.30h when we step into our taxi after the show in Veliky Novgorod. In Italy the promoter would not yet have been at the venue by that time.

One thing that really has to be a cultural difference is the Russian interpretation of rhythm and beats. Where we are used to clapping our hands on the 2nd and 4th beat of a song (on the snare hit), in Russia people lay accents on the 1st and 3rd beat (bass drum kick). Quite funny once you notice it. Quite hard to play along to.

Life in general

The Russian language appears to be completely incomprehensible when you first see it. But when you start learning the alphabet and get to know what Russian characters (and numbers!) resemble western characters, you can translate about half of the words into English, French or German. ????? = garage, ??????? = ‘magazin’ or shop, ???? = sushi, ???????? = ‘products’ or mini-shop etc.. ‘Learning’ the Russian language turns out to be a pretty nice pass-time!

Commenting on the standard of life, I wouldn’t simply dare to say Russia is a poor country. It might be better to say there is a huge gap between those who benefited from the post-communist society and those who didn’t. The standard of life and health can often be measured by the way people walk and the condition of their teeth. And for some reason I noticed quite some young people limping or having bad teeth, which says something about health care.

When you drive around the country, outside of Moscow you will see a lot of old impoverished houses and buildings and cars and trucks that seem a hundred years old. On that same road you will see Porsches, Ferraris and stretched limousines (especially in Moscow) driving around. But then again; no working lights on your car? No problem, just drive with your alarm lights on! Car no longer working? Just leave it on the side of the road. No more room for garbage in your house? Just donate it to the side of the road. Compared to Russia, Naples looks like a hospital room. If they could make condoms out of old Russian car tires on the side of the road, AIDS would no longer exist …

We played huge cities like Moscow (10+ million people) and St Petersburg (5+ million people) but also small towns and villages. At least that is what we thought. When Russians refer to their small town or village it still might have more than half a million inhabitants, but not more than 2 or 3 punk/hardcore bands. We are from Nijmegen, one of the 10 biggest Dutch cities, with a little over 160 thousand people and dozens of punk/hardcore bands in the area. What different standards?

Some trends we picked up in Moscow: Short, clear blue skirts are hip. Kissing and making out in public too. High, HIGH heels the same. Getting married must be the national sport #1, brides and grooms everywhere. Oh, and for those still wondering: Russian vodka is pretty O.K.!

I hope this report gives a little insight on how we experienced Russia: amazing and mind-blowing. We had the best time ever in Russia, great shows, meeting a lot of new friendly people and doing all this together with our great friends from Play it Loud and Angry Chuck Records. We will be back for sure!

Last but not least: a big thank you to Jeroen ‘bookhooker‘ Brom and Nederlands Fonds  Podiumkunsten / Performing Arts Fund for supporting this tour.

Pictures or it didn’t happen!

Wednesday the 26th of May @ Haus der Jugend, Freiburg (Germany)

Woke up, kissed my girlfriend goodbye and took the train to Nijmegen, where we would meet to take off for our longest European tour so far. We started good with the longest drive on tour on the first day. Did some quick shopping and left for Freiburg. During the ride we encountered heavy rain, lots of traffic jams and when we finally arrived in the city of Freiburg we discovered that the Dutch national footballteam was playing against Mexico. In the massive traffic jam (2 kilometers took us 45 minutes or something) we made some Mexican friends.
When we arrived, we unloaded the van in a storm, scheisse! We met Christian, the promoter. His mother cooked us some amazing food! Christian’s band Far Off The Zoo opened the show with some nice punkrock tunes and some cool intermezzos. We were up next. During our show somebody yelled “Optiefen ouwe graftak!”. It turned out to be Marius who we met before in Rastatt. I’m still wondering why we teach foreigners “Neuken in de keuken” when there are so many better options!
After the show we went to Christian’s place. Drank a beer, drank a whiskey, listened to good music and went to sleep. Tomorrow we would have a nice drive ahead of us, which would take us through the Schwarz Wald.

Thursday the 27th of May @ PMK, Innsbruck (Austria)

We had to be in Innsbruck at 5 PM, so we left pretty early for a long drive on small roads that took us through a beautiful landscape in South Germany. We crossed the border at Lindau and the first thing I did in Austria was buy a bottle of Almdudler, best drink ever! Drank it as a kid on holidays in Austria, and still buy it every time when I’m in Austria. When we arrived in Innsbruck, the venue was still closed and it was already past 6 PM when the promoter arrived. Promoter Maurice turned out to be Italian and had to drive from Bolzano to Innsbruck. We got some Italian pasta, like! On the bill were three bands. The first one was U.C.D.T. From Italy. The played pretty loud hardcore music. We were up next. Played a bit shorter than the day before, because after our show it was up to Traktor from Sweden to finish the evening. They played some rocking hardcore screamo mixture. Pretty awesome! After the show there was going to be a party until 5 or 6 in the morning, but I was so exhausted that my bed in the basement was the best option. We were planning to have a long sleep, but the promoter and his friends woke us up because we had to leave early. We headed for the supermarket where I bought millions of vegan sausages and of course, ate them all in one and a half day. Bought some fake Almdudler and we continued our way to Poirino, Italy, where the sun always shines!

Friday the 28th of May @ MT Beer Festival, Poirino (Italy)

Today would be the day that Rudy finally did a number two. Sorry Rudy! After a few stops and a search through the van by the financial police (huh?) we arrived in Poirino, where we would play the MT Beer Festival. An outdoor festival with a stage with no roof. We soundchecked the drums and afterwards it started to rain. We covered the equipment and were hoping the rain would stop. But no, the rain turned into a storm and the weather turned out to be the worst I’d seen in months. We got a real nice pizza, we got drinks, but we didn’t get the chance to play the show. The rain continued the whole evening. Second show in 7 days that we couldn’t play, damnit! Good thing was that while we were watching some episodes of Dutch TV show New Kids in the van, we learned the Italians who were watching with us what “Stoma” means. Another fine piece of the Dutch language. Dario, the promoter took us to our sleepingplace and we had a good night sleep. Next stop: Milano.

Saturday the 29th of May @ LeonCavallo (Dauntaun), Milano (Italy)

Leon Cavallo is a huge building in Milano with lots of different venues in it. Our show today was in the basement, while upstairs in the big hall some kind of rap contest was held. On our show there were supposed to be 5 bands, but due to some miscommunications, Total Abuse was no longer on the bill tonight. We played with Kontatto. Some d-beat stuff with hardrock influences, which was pretty cool. The other two bands played more rock ‘n roll and hardcore stuff. I think all bands played pretty nice! What was not so nice, was the fact that the venue served cans of Oranjeboom, the worst Dutch beer ever. In The Netherlands, you can’t get it anywhere anymore, but here in Italy they still had it. The people at the bar claimed it was the best beer ever and one guy was actually thinking about getting an Oranjeboom tattoo. Dude! We all drank one can, decided it was really bad and moved on to other brands of beer. After the show, we were taken to our sleepingplace inside the building. In our sleepingroom, I accidently stepped in or on a snale. Leuk! The next morning we had to get up really early, because there was only one person that could open the gate for us. We waited for two hours and when we were still locked in the area of Leon Cavallo, we kinda broke out. Good to have an ex-squatter in the crew. Makes it easier to get out of a squat. After breaking out, we had to drive for almost 30 kilometers, what a distance!

Sunday the 30th of May @ Spazio Milk @ Melegnano (Italy)

After leaving Leon Cavallo, we went into the city center of Milano. Parked the van pretty cheap and strolled around like tourists. Drank some coffee, saw the Duomo and relaxed in the park. The weather was really nice, so it was a real relaxing day.
After checking out the city, we continued our way to Melegnano, where we would play at Spazio Milk, what looked like some kind of library. Tonights show was organized by Ste, from our Italian label No Reason Records. His girlfriend Sara made the best food ever! She even made vegan yogurt pie for dessert, yeah!
First band tonight was A Theory Of Justice who played hardcore with a male and a female singer. After their show, we played second. It was a strange place to play, but we had a great time. The last band played some more experimental punkrock music. Thought they were really good! After cleaning up we drove to the office of Dami of No Reason Records and we spent the night there. Playing stupid games with bandnames and drinking a couple of beers. We all had a good sleep and a freezing shower in the morning. For some of us, it was the first shower on tour. Imagine how the van smells right now! We said goodbye to Ste and moved on to Bologna, where a show with The Cute Lepers was our next stop.

Monday the 31st of May @ New Lazzaretto, Bologna (Italy)

Mondays can be really hard for shows, but hey, bands don’t tour only in weekends! Fortunately we had a show in the town of Bologna with The Cute Lepers, with members of The Briefs. When we arrived at the New Lazzaretto, we were wondering what this building used to be. Some of us thought it was a lighthouse, some thought it was a flower shop and some thought it was a UFO that landed here and never took off again. For dinner, we had pizza again! I like it when we have the local food! We killed some time drinking beers outside the venue, having conversations with some lepers. First two bands of the evening both played some punk ‘n roll, which really matched the sound of The Cute Lepers. Guess we were the odd one on this show, but there were some people that came for us. Again I saw some people singing along. One guy knew that I was the new guy, because the old bass player screwed too much. Sorry Rudy! After our set The Cute Lepers played. I was really exhausted, so I watched it sitting on a cabinet. They played a nice set of punk ‘n roll. After the show we left together with Claudio, to sleep at his studio. Riekus and I decided to sleep in the van and have a romantic night. Problem was that we parked the van somewhere where it was illegal, so I had to get up early to park it in a better place the next morning. Problem with sleeping in the van is that you can’t go to the toilet. You don’t want to know the solutions I came up with when someone needed to do a number 2. Luckily I could do it in the morning at the place where the others slept. After a while Claudio picked us up and took us to the music store and we grabbed a coffee with him. We explored the city center of Bologna, the towers that are leaning over and enjoyed the nice weather. Tonight would be the last Italian show of the tour, so we headed for Vittorio Veneto.

Oh yeah, for those interested, the venue used to be a vegetable shop.

Tuesday the 1st of June @ Spazio Mavv, Vittorio Veneto (Italy)

Vittorio Veneto is a small city in the Northeast of Italy. Actually, tonights show would be in Tarzo, an even smaller city, but the promoters moved it to Vittorio Veneto. Tomorrow was a holiday in Italy, so a lor of people came out to the show. Who said that Tuesdays are bad for shows? Again the Italian promoters, Patrick and Tomas, gave us Dutch beer. This time it was Royal Dutch beer. Never had that one before. The food this night was amazing! We had some salad with tomatoes and bread and after that we had probably the best pasta I ever had. Those Italians know how to make a pasta! We drank a coffee and after a while, Gargantha opened the show. I never heard of these guys before, but they were fucking awesome! Best band we played with this tour so far! Some parts reminded me of Satanic Surfers, like! The venue where we played was really big, but still really hot. Might have been the hottest stage of the tour. After our show I spoke to some guys who saw us at Groezrock and drove down from Verona to this show. Really cool to see that people do that for a band like us! We were taken to a youth hostel, drank some beers with the Veronians in the garden and got some good sleep. There was a great shower, so I finally could have a shower after Freiburg. Think I smelled really bad.

Wednesday the 2nd of June @ Club Baza, Ajdovš?ina (Slovenia)

Today we would leave Italy and their crazy drivers again. Next country on the list is Slovenia. First stop is a city called Ajdovš?ina (easier to type than to pronounce). On our way we were talking about that you have to put your lights on when you’re driving in Slovenia. Willem told someone that while driving in the UK, it’s illegal to drive without the wipers turned on. Sorry Thomas, but what goes in the tourreport, stays in the tourreport!
Todays show was done by the guys in Real Life Version, who I saw in my hometown last December. Great band! Because of some strange new laws in Slovenia, it is getting harder to do ‘legal’ shows and because of this, the guys made it a ‘private party’. We were the only band and I was afraid that no one would show up for a show of an unknown band in a small town on a Wednesday, but I was wrong. I think about 30 people showed up and they seemed to enjoy. After the show we had some nice talks, a few drinks and we loaded the van in heavy rain.
Jani and Aljosa, the promters, took us to the house of their drummer where we could sleep in the rehearsal room. Some people had a jonko, some people had a beer, some people had the internet. Satisfied we went to sleep to get up pretty early the next morning. After a quick breakfast we left for the capital, Ljubljana.

Thursday the 3rd of June @ Tovarna Rog, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Around noon we arrived at Tovarna Rog in Ljubljana. We found out that the Cockney Rejects were playing at Metelkova tonight. Might not be the same kind of punk we play, but it sucks that there are more punkrockshows on the same night in the same town. We walked to the city center where we had some coffee and sandwiches. I love the Thai Sandwich at that one place in Ljubljana (don’t know the name of the place, but I know where to find it!). Since we’ve been to Ljubljana before, but no one of us ever visited the castle on the hill, we decided to climb the hill and enjoy the view over the city, awesome! Hanging around for some time, we took the train downstairs and ran into a roommate of Dario where we would sleep that night. That resulted in some free beers, yeah! Pretty bummed out that the organic store was out of vegan cornetto’s I ate some vegan magnums. Back at the venue, Dario arrived pretty soon with delicious food! A mixture of goulash and chili. Before we played, there was a puppet show in Slovenian and French, but I had no clue what it was about. I was not really interested because there was some catching up to do with Dario and Shaggie of In-Sane. I also met Rita, a Portugese girl that made a shirt design for us. There were not that many people at the show. I guess there was 1 paying Slovenian guy. Other people came from The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Canada. Strange… Riekus had the best snaredrum sound ever, so tonight was still a good one! We loaded the van, got some Burek and veggie kebab and left for Dario’s place to spend the night. Last time, their dog was 20 centimeters high, this time he was big, BIG! We immediately fell asleep and had a wonderful shower and breakfast in the morning with rucola from their own garden and good tea and coffee and homemade bread with some spreads and vegetables. Touring is so much easier when you have mornings like this! Although I had quite some beers and a bit of Slibovic, I felt pretty fine. We said goodbye to the guys and continued our way to Oh Vienna.

Friday the 4th of June @ EKH, Wien (Austria)

The drive from Ljubljana to Vienna was the longest of the remaining drives this tour. So getting to the next show is getting easier and easier. We arrived at the EKH squat in Vienna, a really big and awesome place! We brought our equipment in and did some relaxing in the garden. We found out that there were some people from Amsterdam and even an Austrian girl that spoke Dutch with an Amsterdam accent. During dinner, one of the best lasagnas I ever had, we had conversations about squats and squatting, which unfortunately is illegal in The Netherlands since this week. Although it’s really bad news for culture, underground music and everybody that is hoping for affordable places to live, we’re pretty sure that “Kraken gaat door!”, squatting continues.
The show was a benefit for the Anarchist Black Cross. Always nice to contribute to a good cause. First band with promoter Andy played doomy crust with keyboards next to the guitar violence. Pretty cool! Second band, Pistole played more oldschool hardcore like Youth of Today and Circle Jerks. We played last and during our flughafen, someone told me I had good looking shoes. Nico van Montfort, leest u even mee? After the show we went to our sleeping place and we found out that Propagandhi played this venue in 1996, sweet! The next morning in the computer room we found out that RKL played this venue in 1992 or something, sweet! We had probably the best breakfast I ever had on tour, holy shit! After breakfast, the rest of the gang occupied the internet while I was reading a book in the sun on the roof. Touring is not glamorous? It shure can be relaxing! The ride today was less than 90 kilometers so there was no rush. We took it easy and left for Payerbach somewhere in the afternoon.

Saturday the 5th of June @ EntroP’s, Payerbach (Austria)

Todays show was supposed to be at the new EntroP’s Extended in Wiener Neustadt. I heard from some Neustadt friends that there were problems with the local authorities concerning live misic, so Oswald, the promoter moved the show to EntroP’s in Payerbach, where there were problems with the neighbours instead of the local authorities. Guess Brat Pack would have been the perfect soundtrack for tonight, because the neighbours started to complain. Payerbach turned out to be a village where a lot of rich people from Vienna had their second home and they’re there for some weekend a year and they start to complain when the local kids have a show 2 times a year. Anyway, we had some chili and beers and then the show started with Second Effort who I played with before in Wiener Neustadt. These guys really improved since the first time I saw them. Same goes for the second band BHF. I saw them almost 3 years ago and today was the last show of their singer. I think they played some cool hardcore punk. When we played, Dominik, the drummer of BHF joined us on Testimony by playing keyboard in the bridge of the song. That was a really cool experience! It was also great to see that some Neustadt people came to the show in Payerbach. Always great to see some people again!

After the show, we headed for the EntroP’s Extended, where we would spend the night. Second time in Wiener Neustadt today. In the afternoon we already went for shopping (vegan wurst and Ottarocker beers), getting cheap gas and cleaning the backside of the van. Anyway, we ended at the venue where the show was supposed to be, had a few beers and crashed on the floor. The next ‘morning’ we woke up Oswald, who was kind enough to offer us beer and sake, but we thanked for that. Did get some Fritzl Cola and Jägermeisters and took off to our next destination where we would run into an old friend. Next stop: Sankt Jorann im Peru.

Sunday the 6th of June @ Casino Rockbar, Sankt Johann im Pongau (Austria)

Ever seen the movie Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone? Never mind, I tried to make a cliffhanger at the end of Payerbach’s day. We had a nice drive through the Austrian landscape and arrived at the place of the drummer of Killing Oma, where we would meet Luk, tonight’s promoter. When we entered the building, we were welcomed by our old friend Lux, who used to play guitar in Rentokill. Lux quit the band over a year ago and tonight he was playing with his new band Igel Vs. Shark. After delicious food, some kind of vegetable wrap, we went to the venue, the Casino Rockbar. We unloaded while there was Rammstein on the speakers. Mmm… Igel Vs. Shark did the soundcheck and I was already blown away by their hardrock! Like! We had a couple of beers while catching up with Lux and Julia and found out that there wouldn’t be a large audience tonight. Guess Sundays in small towns are hard. Anyway, there were some people that came to the show which made it nice and cosy. I was really surprised by Igel Vs. Shark. Too bad they didn’t have a record yet. We played last and it was good to see that some people were amused. After the show, we drank a couple of beers while enjoying the music in the pub. Rammstein was replaced by Queen, Dire Straits and Ricky Feestje. YouTube turned out to be our friend, or enemy. Genohot!
Luk fixed a sleepingplace at the Killing Oma rehearsal room in the basement of his house. The next morning he gave us a good breakfast and some wonderful band and crew pictures with the great Austrian scenery in the background. We waved Luk goodbye and left for Graz, city of Schwarzenegger!

Monday the 7th of June @ Sub, Graz (Austria)

I’d really like to advise you, to say the bold sentences out loud, like Arnie would do. Come on, do it!

We needed to get out of here! We got to the chopper! We headed for Graz, city of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. When we arrived at the Sub, we met Klaus who booked the show, together with Robert. They made awesome food with chickpea curry and salad. Yummie! The other band tonight would be The Frantic Arts. I never heard of them before, but they sounded great! They played a None More Black cover as their Flughafen, supertoll! There were really a lot of people for a Monday show and fortunately, they stuck around! It was great to see so many people that came from far. My buddies from Soey were all there and there some other familiar faces. I really enjoyed this evening and I think it resulted in one of the best shows we played so far on this tour, although it was hot as hell inside, AAAAEEEEHHHHWWW! After the show we had a couple of drinks and said goodbye to our friends and to the people from Graz: Hasta la vista, baby. We’ll be back!

Willem drove us to Puntigam where we stayed at the Puntigang house. The dog almost ate my hand, we drank some beers with Klaus, Hirschi and Dominik of Soey and crashed on some nice beds. A good sleep this night would be really welcome, tomorrow we would have quite some driving ahead of us.

Tuesday the 8th of June @ Jugendcafé, Zwiesel (Germany)

A long drive through the biggest part of Austria and through Bavaria in Germany, took us to Zwiesel. We arrived at the Jugendcafé in time and since there was some time to kill, we decided to watch “Backstage Passport” by NOFX. Thomas promoted himself to be our manager on this tour, so we thought that Kent of NOFX would be a great source of inspiration to him.
The first band was Punchers Plant from München and they played a cool set of melodic punkrock. Today was even hotter than yesterday, so at the end of our set, I had to take off my shirt. Sorry ladies! Sorry boys! Immediately after the show, I threw water over myself which resulted in a wet boxershort. Sorry me!
Afterwards we had some drinks outside and heard that our friends in Sweet Empire had played the Jugendcafé a couple of weeks before us. A girl there told us about their favourite German word. Can’t remember it. I know that mine is Gummiüberziehe and that Fahrvergnügen is Riekus’ favourite, and he can’t even drive! When everybody left, we watched some more Backstage Passport while the local Bram van Montfort-clone was sleeping outside in the cold. We tried to wake him up, to no avail, then put a blanket around him and went to sleep. During the night, he woke up, closed the door too loud a couple of times and woke some of us up. Next morning the soundguy came to lock the door after we loaded our stuff. We tried to get some cheap gas and left for Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, my first Czech show ever!

Wednesday the 9th of June @ Putika Club, Hradec Kralóvé (Czech Republic)

On our way to Hradec Králové we passed the city of Plžen, where they invented beer. We also drove through Prague, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and finally we arrived in Hradec Kralóvé. We found the venue and stole some wifi outside. Tonight there would be two bands and a debate about the Palestine-Israël conflict. Too bad this was in Czech language, because I’m really interested in the subject. Instead of listening to an unknown language for one and a half hour, I stayed in the van. After the debate, the first band, Just For Being, opened the show. These guys played some nice poppunk songs, and a great Rancid cover. When the bassplayer broke a string, I gave him a spare bass. Later I realized, that the strap that was attached to it, had the worst smell ever. Sorry Rudy! There were not so many people at the show and I was a bit grumpy at first, but in the end we had a good show.
We went to the promoter’s small house where we had to sleep with 7 people and a dog. After a weird night with possible Hylco-Douwesjes, we packed our stuff and took off to Poland. Breslau was up next!

Thursday the 10th of June @ Wagon Club, Wroc?aw (Poland)

Today we would play at the Wagon Club in Wroc?aw, a place I had been before. The venue is not easy to find, but I recognized it from a year before. Promoter Lukasz was already waiting for us and prepared us wonderful food. We went to the supermarket to buy us some beers too, really nice! Lukasz showed us an old train and we had some talks about Wroc?aw and the history of the town, being German, Polish, German and Polish again. From what we heard, Warsaw still owes Wroclaw quite some bricks.
The other band tonight was All Wheel Drive. They reminded me of some old Ignite and old AFI. I thought they were really good! Although the show was not that crowded, people seemed to enjoy our show and there was even a small moshpit.
After the show, Lukasz took us on a trip around town. We had a nice tour with beautiful sightseeing of the city by night. We were also looking for pizza, but all places that sold pizza were closed. What is wrong with these people! After being stopped by The Man, we ended up at the sleeping place, ate some bread and salad and decided to grab a pizza for breakfast.
Next morning, Lukasz told us he was gonna kill Riekus. I guess sleeping next to him is not a treat. We went to the pizza place and had a great breakfast indeed. We bought some water, because the temperature was killing us, waved goodbye to Lukasz and took off for Berlin, city of vegan food vreetpaleizen!

Friday the 11th of June @ Subversiv, Berlin (Germany)

Imagine there is only one highway in Poland. Imagine it goes from Wroc?aw to Berlin. Imagine there is one point where that one highway turns into two highways. Imagine your GPS doesn’t know this point. Imagine there is no Berlin or any well known city on the signs. You’re fucked! Ofcourse we took the wrong way and ended up somewhere at the German border, where we had to take small roads to make it to Berlin. When we entered Berlin, we had a good view of the city center. Subversiv is pretty close to Alexanderplatz and all of Berlin Mitte. According to Basti and the guys over there, we were in time and there was no hurry. We got delicious pasta salad, but best of all, we had some soysteaks. Man were they good! I think I had a million of those! We drank some cold beers and had a great night. First, Tiger Youth played a set of acoustic songs in German. The guys had just moved across the country from Ibbenbüren to Berlin and played a show in their new home bar. Cool stuff! After them, Smile And Burn played. They might have been the best band we played with on tour. Dammit, I saw so much awesome bands, but these guys really blew us away. They ended with a cover of the Baywatch theme song. Leuk!
Somehow, Riekus managed to break a cymbal stand and ended up pulling a Nico van M on stage. Willem and i played a great show. Loop maar door! After the show we had some more beers and Basti showed us the sleeping places. The room was small, so I could sleep in his bed. Yeah! Next morning I had a good shower and for breakfast, there were more soysteaks. Sweet! We drank some coffee and jumped in the van to score a vegan burger at Yellow Sunshine, in my opinion Berlin’s best vegan vreetpaleis. I had a double chicken vegan burger and the rest ordered some drinks. Seeing me enjoy the burger, everybody ordered some food and I took a double wheaty cheese vegan burger. Or something that sounds like that. Man, I was stuffed! But I’m not in Berlin everyday, so I had to eat it all! With a full stomach we ran to the van and left for the last German show of the tour in a small city called Holzminden, somewhere between Kassel and Hannover.

Saturday the 12th of June @ U-Rock, Holzminden (Germany)

The drive to Holzminden took us, again, over small roads. We arrived in time and when we got close to the venue, we found out there was some kind of a wedding going on. Were we really playing a weddingparty? Thought punkbands only played Bar Mitzwah’s. The party was upstairs, our venue was in some sort of basement. Four bands on the bill today and it started pretty late. First band played more than an hour I think. Think they played a New Found Glory cover. They sounded like NFG too. Call Me Names and Enesty were the other two bands. I watched a part of their sets and I was hanging out outside with the guys and David and Sabrina from Fair Trade Merch. They drove from Bielefeld to Holzminden, to deliver our new shirts. Everytime we order merch, we just put them on the guestlist and they show up with the merch. Cheap shipping, haha! David is a really friendly guy and he is working on the artwork of our new album right now too. I saw some parts of it and I must admit he’s talented!
We played last and by that time, there were boys and girls from the dance school party upstairs. No wedding, but still it was nice they showed up. Rudy was filming some songs and I hit him or his camera with my bass. Sorry Rudy! We got a couple of beers from Specki and the people at U-Rock and went to the sleepingplace. Next morning we woke up to the sound of a woman speaking German through speakers. There was a health convention going on in the building next to us. We tried to thomas a German flag, because the World Championship of football started. Football that is, soccer to Yankees, no fake Rugby. We got in the van and it felt kinda strange to me. Tonights show would be in Heerlen, Netherlands. Although I can’t understand anything people in Limburg speak, it’s “our” country so it feels a bit like going home.

Sunday the 13th of June @ Café Bluff, Heerlen (The Netherlands)

We drove straight to the German Ruhrarea and entered Limburg. When we arrived in Heerlen we found café Bluff pretty easy. We unloaded and Max, the promoter, showed up. I’ve known Max for quite some time, but today I would finally see his eurohousehappyhardcorepunkrockzwakkmosh project: Ravedigger! I was stoked as hell! The last three days of tour, we’re playing with Hot Water Music, Down By Law and Ravedigger. First band was Bronson. They sounded Limburgian to me. Hardcore with some MOC influences. Not really my cup of tea, but they did a good job. Stetson from France were added last minute and they played real rocking hardcore music. Sweet! We played third and it was a decent set I believe. But we were just warming the crowd up for the almighty Ravedigger! With a videoclip projected on screen, drumcomputers, two guitarplayers, a female singer and the lyrics in the background, I was liking this band from beginning to the end. The “slide show” was absolutely briliant! BA Baracus approved. Best part is that my photo was in the video, during a 2 Unlimited song. BOAH!
When we ran out of drinking tickets, Marcel gave us some free beers and he bought lots and lots of our stuff. I must admit that he was a really friendly guy! Thanks to him there was a real nice atmosphere at café Bluff. Great place!
They only bad thing I can say, is that 34% of the people in the area of Heerlen voted for a racist party. Watsmetjou? Geef me je nummer! Of je MSN. Anyway, we tried to deliver a message how to see things in a more positive perspective. We were on a mission!

Monday the 14th of June @ Trix, Antwerpen (Belgium)

After a good night party at Max’ place with YouTube-leed video’s (Zanger Rinus? Anita en Ed? Wilbert? Zanger Bob? Tuut Chips? Ricky!) we crashed on the floor. Next morning we said goodbye to Stetson and we watched The Netherlands – Denmark in Max’ livingroom on a big screen. Ofcourse we won, moved our asses to the van, bought stuff in the local musicstore, found cheap gas in Belgium and drove to Antwerpen. Tonight we would be playing with one of my favourite bands, Hot Water Music.
We arrived at Trix right after HWM was done soundchecking. We built up our stuff and Break Of Day did a soundcheck as well. We got great food, prepared by Ursula, who I used to poke way before you had a facebook (no erotic poking intended). I was kinda nervous to play, because we were playing with HWM, my predecessor Yvo was there and I saw my girl again after almost three weeks. Break Of Day played a solid set, think we played okay, keeping in mind we were pretty tired from the last weeks. After us, it was up to Hot Water Music. I think Chuck Ragan is one of the friendliest people out there. I noticed George was not there but I didn’t know who was filling in, until I heard it was Dave Raun. Did I just play the same stage as a guy from RKL is doing a couple of minutes after me? Dave Raun destroyed his kick and had to use ours, but all geeks who are following Riekus on Twitter already knew that. We had a great night, which was supposed to be the last show of our tour. But, a couple of weeks before we left another show was added. Tomorrow would be our last one, playing in Arnhem, close to home, together with Down By Law and Bro Hymn Pack.

Tuesday the 15th of June @ Willemeen, Arnhem (The Netherlands)

Last day of tour, although I already slept in ‘my own’ bed in Breda. Next morning we woke up, did some grocery shopping, got some ice cream and picked up the van. We drove to Arnhem where we heard that Down By Law would be late due to a missing guitar at the airport. Brat Pack were also late, punkers! Brat Pack opened the show. I didn’t see them play for a long time, so it was nice to see one of the best Dutch punkrockbands again. Rock ‘n Roel broke all of his sticks and got a pair from Riekus. I think you can whistle to them! Think I played one of the worst shows of the tour, man I was so tired. Think I added a post-apocalyptic vibe to the show. Tried to point out some differences between us and Dave Smiley (Joooonaaaas, 2010) but the DBL guys weren’t there. Missed that opportunity. When we were finished, they still weren’t back from their hotel. Can’t really blame them after being awake for a million days (pun intended). I must admit, I haven’t been the biggest fan of DBL (I’m more the Counting Crows type of guy) but I enjoyed the show and especially enjoyed the Montfort Bros enjoying. When they played Values Here as an encore, I went berzerk. Great to hear that song with the ‘original’ vocalist. Had some smalltalk with Dave afterwards. Turned out to be a nice guy after all. Packed some stuff and headed for the train together with some Utrecht and Amsterdam folks. I was just in time to catch the last bus to my house. Fell asleep right away and woke up the next morning to the sound of my alarmclock. Tour was over, time to go to work.

I would really like to thank everybody who made this tour possible. All promoters and people that came to the shows. In particular I would like to thank Thomas and Rudy for driving our van, doing merch, “MA-NA-GING” us, hanging out with us and – of course – drinking our beer. Many thanks go out to Ste and Dami from No Reason Records for hooking us up with cool shows in Italy, grazie mille! Also thanks to Bas Adriaan Verheijen for using your basscab. Hope you enjoy the beers!

See you on the next tour! LEUK!
Tom and Antillectual

ANTILLECTUAL – TOUR REPORT – APRIL & MAY 2010

Ever heard of a band called High Five Drive from Canada? We did! These guys were aboot to tour Europe and kind enough to ask us to do a part of their tour together with us. It was supposed to be the last 8 dates of the tour, but a last minute addition to the MacBeth stage at the Groezrock festival in Belgium made it 9 days for both us and H5D. This year’s Groezrock had amazing bands on the bill like Face To Face, Bad Religion, Strike Anywhere, Sum 41, 88 Fingers Louie, Static Radio, The Bronx and a million more awesome bands. We all left for Groezrock on Friday and would hook up with H5D on Saturday. The travelparty consists of 9 people. The Canadian part we’re talking aboot are Greg, Marty, Steve the bassplayer, Steve the drummer and Randy. We are as usual Willem, Riekus and me. We brought our buddy Boris from This Routine Is Hell, to drink our beers and drive us safely on the wrong side of the road.

Friday the 23rd of April

Boris, Willem and Riekus took the van together with some Tarrels to Meerhout, while I was travelling with the Breda party crew. After arriving at Groezrock, we set up a tent at the camping and went to see great shows by Banner Pilot and Face To Face. Too bad the crowd at the Face To Face show was more looking for a fight than enjoying one of my favourite bands. Guess they needed some action after the Agnostic Front show was over. Anyway, Face To Face gave a brilliant show! Lucky for him, Riekus managed to snag a backstage pass and watched them from the side of the stage. Asshole! Back on the camping it turned out to be extremely cold. Ofcourse I forgot my jacket, good job! Drank a few beers and went to sleep early. Tomorrow the first show of the tour would take place.

Saturday the 24th of April @ Groezrock, Meerhout, Belgium.

Waking up was not that hard. Still a lot of drunk people screaming and after an arctic night the sun made the tent as hot as hell. I got up and walked to the van to get our equipment to the festival. Next to our little stage I heard a band play Gangster’s Paradise by Coolio. Must have been the worst cover ever. Even worse than the Final Countdown that’s on Youtube. Anyway, we played a short set containing some old and new songs and people seemed to enjoy. I was trying to show my football skills on stage and I kicked the monitor, which resulted in walking like a crippled for the rest of the day. After our show I’ve been watching awesome shows by Strike Anywhere and The Bronx. Sum 41 was a bit dissapointing and I missed 88 Fingers and Static Radio while paying a visit to the first aid. Got some bruised bones in my foot. Good start of the tour. While I was watching Sum 41, I missed High Five Drive, but I would get enough chances the next few days. Without watching bands like Bad Religion and Pennywise, I went to bed. Giving my foot some rest and trying to get some sleep. The next day we had to leave at 9 AM to catch the ferry to the UK.

(picture by imagehunters.eu)

Sunday the 25th of April @ Ryan’s Bar, London, UK

We were told that PJ Bond (unfortunately J is not for James) needed a ride to the UK, so we decided he could join us. He turned out to be a real nice guy who had been travelling around the globe for more than a year: from the USA to the UK, to India, mainland Europe and now on his way to the UK and back home, he played shows with his acoustic guitar where he could. Together we went to the house of Greg, the promoter of the show. Greg and his girlfriend cooked us wonderful food. Tonight we played with Apologies, I Have None, an awesome band that really reminded me of old Against Me! Me like! Really last minute, PJ Bond was added to the show too. Despite some tuning problems, PJ played some nice songs. It was nice to hear the man sing, who was in our van the whole day. Today was my first chance to see High Five Drive live. Man did they rock! I was really impressed by their playing skills and the way they tore up the place.
The next morning, a couple of us went shopping for breakfast. A real English one! We got baked beans, vegan hashbrowns and Linda McCartney vegan sausages. They were the best I ever had!

Monday the 26th of April @ The Swan With The Two Necks, Macclesfield, UK

Tonight, the show was set up by Dave from Winnipeg, who turned out to be native English and had never been in Winnipeg before. Alright! We entered the bar and set up our gear. Tonight we played with Dave’s band, The Shuffle. They played a really nice set of punkrock! We were up next and H5D played last. We decided to change the headliner each night and today was their turn. After the show we got a crate of beer from the bar, which was really appreciated! Too bad I had to drive. We discovered the bar had an online stream juebox that actually had some of our records. That was kinda strange. Anyway, we heard enough of ourselves, so Boris and I decided that Bon Jovi was worth a quid. We gave love a bad name!
Tonights sleepingplace was at Claire, who lived in a mountain village nearby. The nice drive uphill resulted in a beautiful view the next day. We spent the night having some drinks, getting lost in the big house and by the time I went to sleep, people started watching a movie I can’t remember. When I woke up, the movie was turned on again. We thought it was time to leave, so we loaded the van and took off. Next stop: Lincoln.

Tuesday the 27th of April @ The Library Bar, Lincoln

Last year, a show of my old band in Lincoln got cancelled a day before departure to the UK, so I was kinda anxious, but I know that Matt from The Living Daylights did our show today, a real nice guy! I saw Matt at Groezrock, but we didn’t have the time to chat, so we could catch up a little bit this time. The first two bands played some good rock and punrocktunes, but I forgot their names, sorry! During our set, there were some people singing along, that’s always nice! At the show, all the guys in The Living Daylights were there and it was good to see them again. Sam, their old singer had his birthday, which resulted in a drunk Sam and friends, which resulted in massive human piramides and licking beer off the floor. Strange guys, those English.
We decided to skip the after party and left for Matt’s house. Matt gave us some toast and some whiskey. Yeah! When the High Five Drive guys arrived after their visit to a bar, we all went to sleep. The next morning we woke up to the sound of The Living Daylights preparing for their rehearsal in Matt’s house. We could see and hear their new bassplayer/singer and their new songs. They really blew me away. Looking forward to the new record. After some breakfast and coffee we left for Manchester.

Wednesday the 28th of April @ Retro Bar, Manchester

We arrived in Manchester at the Retro Bar. I was hoping for a place like “Derrick”, the ’70′s, ’80′s and ’90′s disco I always go to in my home town. This place was different, but a nice venue in the basement. Tonight was my turn to drive again, so I drank some orange juices. While we were playing Raisedfistfuckyou, our anthem aboot homophobia, I was screaming from the top of my lungs and suddenly Dave from Winnipeg ran to me and started kissing me. Think I was so in shock that I didn’t hit any right notes anymore. I must admit he’s a great kisser though! Luckily for us, it turned out we were sleeping at Dave’s place in the worst neighbourhood of Manchester. We parked the van safe behind the guarded gates of a students appartment. We hung out at Dave’s place with Claire and Adam and James from Leagues Apart. These guys told us some good things to piss off Jordy, the promoter of tomorrow’s show in Peterborough.

Thursday the 29th of April @ Club Revolution, Peterborough

We arrived in Peterborough pretty late. Two reasons: the weather started to be English for the first time, raining like hell. The second: Marty Five Drive forgot his laptop, so we had to pick it up before we left Manchester. The show tonight had Andrew on the bill, a singer songwriter who sounded really good! The Alkaline Trio cover was a nice surprise. Next up was Sammy’s Fatal Mistake, the band of Jordy, the promoter. During our show I called Jordy a Newcastle United supporter, which resulted in some angry on stage phonecalls to Adam of Leagues Apart. I also mentioned his love for Sonic Boom Six which resulted in me being told to sleep outside that night. Fortunately we discovered we both loved “I’m Alan Partridge”, so I was allowed to sleep inside again. After our last UK show this tour, High Five Drive ripped again on their last UK show as well. During the show, I met Jonesy again, supporting the good cause for Sea Shepherd. We all went to Jordy’s place, had some drinks and watched an episode of Alan Patrridge. We didn’t get much sleep, the next morning we had to catch the ferry and drive through 4 countries on our way to Naaldwijk, The Netherlands.

Friday the 30th of April @ De Flaat, Naaldwijk

We woke up damn early and drove off. On our way to Dover, I decided to play Dookie by Green Day. Boris didn’t recognize it and when we told him what it was, he showed his disappreciation. Klootzak! On the ferry, we ended up in a bumpy boatride. I was hoping for an iceberg, but with no Kate Winslet around, it wouldn’t make sense.
When we arrived in Naaldwijk, we headed for the pizzeria, first pizza on tour! Unfortuantely we missed the first band, but when we came back, Sweet Empire just kicked off for their set of punkrock. These guys are getting better and better! After them it was up to Drunktank, with their skatepunk with some metal riffs. Same goes for these guys: better and better each time. Think we played a decent set and after us, High Five Drive nailed it again. This time they played an encore, The Trooper by Maiden, yeah!\m/
After the show, we drove to Breda instead of partying with the Drunktank and H5D guys. After a nice breakfast and a sweet kiss goodbye, we continued our tour. Next stop: Oostende.

Saturday the 1st of May @ OHK, Oostende

Oostende, home of Just Lick Your Mom. Last time I played Oostende, everything smelled like fish. This time was better! On tonight’s show was Go Rampage from Germany. I saw these guys in Utrecht before and I must say I was quite impressed by them. We played second and there were people singing and screaming along to our songs. It’s always nice when that happens! High Five Drive soundchecked with some of our songs, even from our new record that is not out yet. WTF? Guess Steve-O could play “Every Combat Is A Mortal Combat” better than me…
Hanging out at the merch after the show resulted in conversations in West-Flemmish aboot football. I sneaked out and left Boris with the Belgian guy. When we took off, we went to Casa Lick Your Mom, were Maureen gave us vegan paaseitjes and gave me a vegan Cornetto. Like! We found out that Etjen and Maureen’s dog is called “Parking prohibited” in Welsh. Good name for a dog. When we woke up, Etjen was already home from driving other bands around and it was nice to see him again. We left Etjen and Maureen and drove off to the last show of our tour in Le Havre, France, where I would finally meet the people behind the long awaited no-pants-party!

Sunday the 2nd of May @ MacDaid’s, Le Havre

When we arrived in Le Havre, the Canadians were already there. We got some help with unloading the van from them, Bertrand and the Rude Boys, the opening band of the evening. They played some nice punkrock and I especially liked their cover of American Jesus by Bad Religion with the drummers father on vocals. He had his birthday and this was a nice present! We decided to play second, bcause it was H5D’s last show in Europe. A lot of people came out to the show on a Sunday, awesome! People seemed to enjoy our set and luckily everybody stuck around for H5D, who played an amazing set again. Best part was some Canadian guys screaming along to our The Dog Ate It and some of us scream along to their Vengeance Theme. Bertrand bought a bottle of whisky and we collectively drank it, sharing the love with H5D on stage. Think that was a good start for the rest of the evening.

We all went to Bertrand’s place where we would spend the night. During the no-pants-party (I finally attended one) Riekus got married to Greg and changed his name to Riekus Rekus. After some good kissing (who wouldn’t want to kiss that moustache!) and one hell of a good party, I went to sleep. The next day we woke up pretty early, woke up the others who were still in some kind of a coma, said Bertrand ‘au revoir’ and left for Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport. Seeing the terminals multiple times, we dropped off Greg, Steve-O, Marty, Steve and Randy. Too bad we had to part in a few seconds but we continued our way home with our van and their car. The toll free way took us a few weeks to get home, but finally we made it. We had a full blast of a tour together with those wonderful guys. Seriously, I would do it again tomorrow if I had the chance.

Thanks go out to everyone involved in booking this tour, especially Joe Peter and all promoters. We also thank Randy and the H5D boys and of course Boris “Kankerband” Tarrel for driving us around, selling our merch and drinking our beer. You’re a sweetie!

Tom

We started 2010 with a tour to Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. We left at the end of January and came back on Valentines day. On this tour, we brought Dutch punkrock reporter Marnix and Belgian Sabam-friend Petit, a nice travelparty! As always, we met lots of new people and saw some old friends again, we had amazing food, troubles with the cops, hellrides, expensive tollways, beautiful landscapes, 18 degrees centigrade in Portugal, snowstorms in Basque country and most of all, good times! If you want to know what we did from day to day, here’s our tourreport! Hope you enjoy!

Fri. January 29th 2010 – Herselt, Belgium

Tour kickoff today at the Antillectual house in Nijmegen. I missed my train in Utrecht and when I arrived, the backline was already in the van. Marnix, who is joining us this tour was already there after getting lost in the town where he lives. Luckily we have a GPS this tour. We left for Herselt and arrived pretty early. Other bands this night were Timmy Hillfire, The Ignored and Second Base. In Herselt we hooked up with Petit, who is also tagging along on tour. We had great food made by Petit’s madamme, Karen. The West-Flemmish guys in The Ignored surprised me with New Noise, a Refused cover. Second base played some new songs that were really good. We drank some Juupkes and Orvallekes and left the same night because we had a 1000 kilometers to go to the next show.

The plan was to drive to a hotel South of Paris, catch some sleep and hit the road the next morning. When we passed the first peage, Petit found a nice way to thank the French. We needed to lose weight anyway. After midnight traffic jams, snowstorms Parisienne and a Hors Categorie drive to the hotel, we managed to get some sleep.

Sat. January 30th 2010 – Fumel, France

On our way to the South, we started with nice weather that changed into snowstorms again. If we wanted snow, we would tour Sörmland, Sweden! Why did we bring swimshorts anyway? We arrived at the venue and the other bands, Open Nightmare and Ivan Rebroff’s Armpits were already there. We had great food and had some nice conversations. The show was at Pavilion 108, a pretty big venue. The other bands played pretty well, especially Ivan Rebroffs Armpits blew me away. Too bad their drummer didn’t play with dinosaur bones. After the show we drank a couple of beers and went to the hotel, had another drink and went to sleep. Guess we were tired after a long day in the van. After breakfast, we drove to Toulouse, enjoy the beautiful French landscape. We went to Pierro’s place and again time for some relaxing.

Sun. January 31st 2010 – Toulouse, France

We went to the venue, a pretty new squat. Too bad I stepped in a dog turd. Too good, Marnix stepped in one too! Again, we had a great dinner. First band was Monsieurs de Fursac. They played instrumental noisy rock. Like! Second was Ivan Rebroff’s Armpits again. I was hanging out at the merch so I couldn’t see the show, but I guess they rocked as hard as in Fumel. Great band! Before our show, we were asked to play Ordinary, but I don’t know how to play it. Sorry Toulouse, next time I’ll be able to play it! Think we played a decent show. I saw people singing along, that’s always nice to see. During the evening, Marnix was attacked by a drunk French woman. Something with biting I guess. Kinky!

After the show we drove back to Pierro’s house and had a good sleep. Lovely breakfast in the morning and excellent coffee and tee. I can imagine why the people in our tourcrew that have been there before called this their second home. We left, got some gas, got some food and took off for Torelló, close to Barcelona. Weather seems good outside of the van. Have to get my swimshorts out of the bag! Yeah!

Mon. February 1st 2010 – Torelló, Spain

Driving thru the beautiful landscape, we found our way to Torelló pretty easy. The way to the venue was harder. We drove down some muddy roads, watched some episodes of the Dutch New Kids show and managed to find the way to the venue. This night we were playing together with our buddies in This Routine Is Hell. Show was cool. I didn’t expect that many people on a Monday, so that’s awesome! This Routine Is Hell played a lot of songs from their new record. Like! Poke! We tried some new songs too, worked out pretty okay I guess. Think the old songs were also pretty new for the crowd. After the show we went to Toni’s house. Stole the internet of the neighbours and some guys went to a bar. At night, Boris Tarrel stepped on my hamstring, ouch! Then he started snorring really loud. If this continues every night, I might have to think about some punishment. After saying goodbye to the house and the evil cats (the cats had discovered the whole house in shit the day before we were supposed to sleep there, nice!), we continued our way to Zaragoza.

Tue. February 2nd 2010 – Zaragoza, Spain

We arrived at the venue in Zaragoza and it turned out to be some hardrockbar. We heard that Adhesive and Hot Water Music played there too. We met with Luis, the promoter and his wife, some of the most friendly people I ever met. Not only did they book the show, they gave us food, a place to sleep but they also hosted our friends in This Routine Is Hell that had a day off. The show was opened by a new band called Skeptiks. These girls played some nice punkrocktunes. Only two bands on the bill tonight. At midnight I turned 28, eh… 18 and Bon Jovi sang to me while I got a Tequila. Thanks boys!

After the show we went to the sleepingplace. I was sleeping in a room with 3 cats that jumped on me all night. Guess I made some friends. Before we took off, Luis provided me with some good Spanish punkrock music. Got back to the van and left for Madrid.

Wed. February 3rd 2010 – Madrid, Spain

This is Madrid, not Barcelona. In front of the venue we had to wait for the promoter and the owner to show up, so we killed time with the remaining episodes of New Kids, verrekte mongol jonge! This night we would play with This Routine Is Hell again. The people at True Believers did a nice job. Again, great food and a wonderful looking venue with posters of great bands like AC/DC, The Who, Green Day, Ramones and Limp Bizkit. Did I just type that? Anyway, the show was nice, although we encountered some minor problems. Hey, it’s still punkrock! accidently called Madrid Barcelo… Sorry folks! Nab, a kid from Nice who booked us shows on some of our first tours, also showed up.

We loaded the van and drove to the sleepingplace. An awesome house in the outskirts of Madrid. Joris Tarrel destroyed a painting, I got attacked by a ferret, but we had fun. Playing some acoustic songs and went to sleep. Next morning would be early because we had to leave at 10.

Thu. February 4th 2010 – Day Off @ Madrid, Spain

First day off this tour. There are worse places to be on days like these. We took the metro to the city, which turned out to be a little disaster. We checked in, checked out, had to check in again. We didn’t check in enough, got stopped by security and we were only replying with “this is a 10 way ticket!”. Apparently, when you do that enough, it works! Took a little walk in the city centre, got some coffee and met up with Nab again. He took us to a Hare Krshna place. Not really our cup of tea, but they served great vegetarian and vegan food. Sweet! We said goodbye to Nab again and split up. Willem and Petit went for coffee and internet, Riekus, Marnix and me went for the Prado museum. Convinced that there were some Picasso paintings here, Marnix went to the reception and asked where they were. Wrong museum! Major lolz @ Marnix. Ashamed to stand next to him, we left for the Reina Sofia museum. I’m not really into this stuff and I was really amazed by a giant piece of poo with metal in it, the Dali painting of The Face of the Masturbator and some Joop Klepzeiker kinda Picasso cartoon with giant falli. Marnix and Riekus were impressed by the Guernica, some big painting that I could have made when I was 10 years old.

We got some dinner in the city and left for the van. We could sleep the night at Marga’s place but we were unable to park the van, unless we were paying 60 euros. We decided to get a cheap hotel instead. Sorry for the troubles Marga! When we were waiting on a parking space outside of the hotel, we met with the police. Four cars, 8 cops. They searched the van, searched our bodies, checked everying. I’m glad we could keep our pants on at 3 AM outside in the cold winter. There was really no reason for doing this, but I guess we had to respect their authoritaah. The 4 Skins were right after all, Acht Cola Acht Bier. We parked the van at the hotel and caught some sleep. Woke up, took a nice shower and left for Portugal. Never been there before, nice to see some new places!

Fri. February 5th 2010 – Day Off

Unfortunately we didn’t have a show this day, but our friends in This Routine Is Hell are playing in a squat somewhere near Setúbal and we might be able to sleep there as well. First we went into the boring city of Setúbal. Got some pizza, almost got hit by a car with no lights on so I decided to take off with no lights either. Oops! The squat had no address, but we were picked up by the boys in TRIH and went to the show. Don’t ask how we got there, but we managed. Hellrides, yeah! When we arrived, one of the dogs was friendly enough to pee on the van. Obrigado! The show started really late and some of us got some sleep. The rest watched some nice hardcore bands and saw TRIH play an awesome show. These guys get better and better! Late at night, we all went to sleep. Tomorrow LisBoah is the next stop.

Sat. February 6th 2010 – Lisboa & Mouriscas, Portugal

Today is gonna be a tough day. There are two shows, one in Lisboa and one in Mouriscas. We left for a one hour drive to Lisboa and when we arrived at the venue, Marnix realized he forgot his bag with passport, keys and other important stuff. What an ass! We unloaded the Tarrel-van and Marnix and me took it and drove back to Setúbal. Within less than two hours we were back in the city centre of Lisboa. It reminded me of San Fransisco with the hills, the trams, with the Golden Gate bridge and Jesus on the other side of the bay. Oh wait, I never been to SF. The show was organized by Joao of Infected Records, who put out Testimony. This was our last show with This Routine Is Hell on this tour. We played at some old theatre that looked really nice. People seemed to enjoy the show. Albert Fish played after us and released their new record this afternoon. By the time This Routine Is Hell started playing, we had to leave to catch the next show. Waved them goodbye and took off for Mouriscas

When we arrived in Mouriscas we were picked up by Xico, the promoter of tonight’s show. We entered a large community centre and got some spaghetti and letuce. Good food! We were harrassed by the local dorpsgek, but that was kinda funny. First two bands, Shake Shake And Show Me Your Pussy and The Wild Ones played some rokkerol tunes. Sweet! The third band, Defying Control played fast punkrock songs. I thought they were pretty amazing! At the time we started playing, it was really late, but there were still a lot of people that seemed to enjoy the show. Afterwards, a guy said that I screamed like a girl and Riekus didn’t have enough muscles. Thanks dude! I think we gave a million autographs and even Petit and Marnix signed tourposters. Rockstar attitudes among merchguys, pfff! After a quick bite we went to sleep really late. Guess we really needed sleep. Got up and got fresh fruit and home made soup by the grandma of Xico After saying goodbye we got in the van and continued our way to Porto, where we had to be early for another afternoon show.

Sun. February 7th 2010 – Porto, Portugal

We were pretty late in Porto, but in time to unload and build up the stuff. We met with promoter Ivo, who just started to book shows in Porto again. There were four bands playing. I forgot some names, but I really liked the voice of the singer of the first band. As third played Mr. Myagi, that reminded me of Dutch band Citizens Patrol. Thrash! We had some difficulties with the sound and feedbacking stuff. Anyway, guess we played pretty decent. After the show we had great dinner at Ivo’s place. We drank some exclusive wine and of course Port wine. We had a good night sleep and left the next morning for Oviedo, because we could sleep somewhere near the venue of the next show.

Mon. February 8th 2010 – Day off @ La Felguera, Spain

Holy shit, what a hellride! We had to drive only 500 kilometers, but we didn’t expect the Portugese and Spanish Himalaya. There were parts that we could only drive 30 or 40 kilometers per hour. We had to be in La Felguera at 8 PM, but we were there after 10 PM. Frodo and Patxi were so nice to wait for us. We got some food, drank Maredsous beer from Belgium and watched This Is Spinal Tap. Damn, I gotta modify my amp so it can go to 11. Next morning, we were picked up by Patxi to go to the gym!

Tue. February 9th 2010 – Oviedo, Spain

Patxi’s dad was friends with the owner of the gym and arranged that we could take a shower for free. You really get to know eachother in the shower. I dropped Riekus’ soap. Dunno who picked it up though. After some coffees, beers and cokes at the Irish Pub we left for the venue. Got a perfect parking spot and entered a beautiful venue. Too bad they had shirry Dutch beers. We skipped the Heineken and gave Marnix a bottle of Buckler. Is that shit still around? Je zuipt of je zuipt niet!

The show was opened by Mr. Lafleur, with Patxi on vocals. I really liked the melodic punkrock stuff. Nice NOFX and Propagandhi covers were played, sweet! As second was Threewordname. I really liked them too! They played more experimental punkrock. Great band! I think people enjoyed our show, so that was nice. Unfortunately we had to stop early so we had to skip some songs. After the show we had some short conversations. Actually there was a guy from Allentown, USA that saw Antillectual before. Discussed some politics, but it was also time to load the van again and leave for the sleepingplace. We were sleeping at a studio, where Willem found an LP called “Als je haar maar goed zat” and bought it. Watch out eBay!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7BD39A00129596A

Wed. February 10th 2010 – Pasaia / Trinxterpe, Basque Country (the Spanish part)

We left the next day for Basque country. Never been there before, so I was looking forward to go there. People from Ovideo said the drive would be without mountains, well, for us Dutch these were mountains! The venue, Sala Mogambo turned out to be a great place! Too bad we had to carry all stuff up the stairs. At the show, I met again with Alaska Pipeline. I played with them with my old band in Portsmouth, UK. On the bill was also Curasan, who played instrumental postrock stuff. I missed their first half, cause I was eathing amazing potato soup and delicious couscous. Alaska Pipeline played a great show, but we were even more impressed by their artwork and screenprints. Although we had some problems with the snare and strings, we played pretty okay I guess. There were still a lot of people on a Wednesday. Even after we accidently insulted them, by speaking Spanish, speaking English, calling them San Sebastian. Sorry!

After the show we had a couple of beers and had good times with people that were still around. When the bar closed, we traded some Smash The Statues vinyl and tapes for more beer. No Dr. Pepper. When everybody left, we decided to get some sleep. We could sleep at the venue, which was great. Next morning we got some breakfast, loaded the van and took off for Bayonne. Did I mention it was snowing in Basque country? Dammit!

Thu. February 11th 2010 – Bayonne, Basque country (the French part)

Pasaia to Baiona, should be 60 kilometers, so not that long. Luckily we left in time, cause it was snowing, slippery roads and a car crash on the peage highway, meaning: a traffic jam. It took us a couple of hours to get there. When we arrived, we could hang out at Manux’ place. Got some coffee and had some good conversations about punkrock. The show this night was part of a music festival in the city at different locations. We played at bar Embuscade. Sounds like a place for Dutch punkrock! Marnix and Manux got the van to drive it to the street, but they didn’t seem to find the right way. I have been waving for half an hour at the corner of the street and they passed me 3 or 4 times. Aaaaargh! I thought I was blind!

We were supposed to be the only band playing at the bar, but after two and a half song, the police thought that it was one band too much. Again the police showed themselves your best friend! Result, we had to quit. So we decided to get the acoustic guitar from the van and play some acoustic songs. After all, there were people that came for the show and we didn’t want to let the filmcrew of the local Basque TV channel down. Willem and Riekus were used to playing acoustic songs with Yvo. For me it was new, so I focussed on drinking whisky and eating peanuts and do an ocassional vocal harmony. Kinda weird, but fun. We drank some local Basque alcoholic drinks, got our picture taken with the bartenders and went back to Manux’ house, got some food and had a good night sleep.

Fri. February 12th 2010 – La Rochelle, France

Today we were heading north again. The van took us to the beautiful city of La Rochelle. On our way we passed Cognac and since we got used to drink local schnapps, we got some this night! We arrived at Barbarella and saw two showposters for this night. One was the Antillectual tourposter, second was a Burlesque strippers poster. Huh? We went inside, got a beer from the bartender and he confirmed that there was going to be a Burlesque show that night. We got picked up by Antoine from Mel Team Plugs to eat at his place. After the food we were back in time for the first Burlesque show. Imagine you’re in the 50′s with pin-ups. Was weird to see that at the punkrockshow, but I guess there was a double booking. There were two local punkrockbands on the bill and after them, there was another pin-up show. We played as last on the small stage. Willem stood in front, I wanted to do the same, but people were standing in front. I decided to play on stage and during the first song, I fell off. Fail! I got up and continued the rest of the show as if nothing had happened. We got great responses during and after the show, which is always nice. We said goodbye to the rock ‘n roll bar and got back to Antoines house to spend the night. Drank the Cognac, busted the water reservoir in the toilet and went to sleep.

Sat. February 13th 2010 – Brest, France

We got up and took off to Brest, the most western part of France. I did not realise this city is more to the west than the largest part of Wales. We found the venue and met promoter Plume, the singer of Speedball. Unloaded the van, got some cheap gas for the van and had great food. The dessert was a vegan banana kiwi pie. Yummie! Petit sstarted to drink most of the wine and got a little drunk I guess. Firsts band played streetpunk with a couple of more influences. Not really my cup of tea. Speedball played melodic hardcore that reminded me of bands like Bane and O’Hara. Actually, Plume and his outfit reminded us all of Pitter O’Hara. When Riekus sent Pitter a textmessage, he turned out to be in Brest. We hooked him up with a guestlist spot and Pitter was right in time for our show. We played after Last Exit To Brooklyn, who played more modern hardcore. I was really impressed by the amount of people at the show. It’s always nice to play when there are lots of people. I saw some people dancing and we had to play two encores. Didn’t know my old body was able to do that. After the show we said goodbye to Pittter, met another Dutch guy who was a t the show and tried to get away from drunk girls. We slept at a friend of Plume and had to wake up really eraly. Tomorrow was going to be the last day of tour, meaning a 750 kilometer drive to Lille and after Lille the drive home, with stops in Lembeek, Breda and Nijmegen.

Sun. February 14th 2010 – Lille, France

Today was the last day of tour and the trip was tough. First we had to go from Brest to Lille. We drove through Bretagne and Normandy to get to Lille. On our way we past Dinan and Caen, reminding me of bad music. We arrived a little late in Lille, but we were in time for the soundcheck. Shared some backline with Fast Motion and Foolish and the show started almost in time. First band played music that sometimes reminded me of Swedish Smalltown. Like! Foolish was the second band and although the guys played pretty well, I will bever be a fan of ska music. Third was Fast Motion, a band that I really like. It had been a year since I saw them, so it was good to see them again. The guys told me they were going to tour Japan, awesome! We played as last and I guess we were a bit tired from the tour and longing to go home. There were not that much people, but we gave it our best shot. After the show, we quickly loaded the van, got some food and left for Lembeek, Belgium, where Petit lives. We heard horrible stories about the weather forecast and it started to snow when we left. Belgian roads are always bad, but this night they were even worse. We made it to Lembeek, dropped off Petit and continued our way to Breda. I got out there and waved goodbye to Willem, Riekus and Marnix who had to finish the last part to Nijmegen. After 16 days on the road, we were home again. Don’t think this will slow us down, this week has 3 more shows and next week we will be recording our new album. Oh, were also planning new tours. One with High Five Drive from Canada to France, Belgium and the UK and another one through a large part of Europe in spring. See you on the road!

We started off the tour in Eindhoven, just like the tour in January. Tonight was in Aloys and we’ve also played there some time ago. There’s a very good Wok-To-Go sort of restaturant which means a lot of food for not a lot of money. Sweet!
Eindhoven is always good for shows and has a good punkrock-scene. However, tonight we were the only punkrock band. The whole evening was pretty divers, and I like that. Never Say Never was a mixture of Old and New School Hardcore with a girl on vocals. Redemption Falls reminded me of nineties hardcore bands with metal influences. And they were playing an old Poison The Well cover on top of that! Awesome!
I wanted to check All for Nothing for quite some time, but I’ve always missed them when they played in my hometown. I was looking forward to see them live. From the first to the last song they were energenic like hell. The girl on vocals had some interesting things to say about ‘the scene’ which I always like.
Our set was okay. I had a good time on stage. People were singing along and were having a good time.
We also met up with Teun in Eindhoven. He would be our driver/ merch-guy for this tour. He had a last minute appointment at the dentist, and I was afraid it was something pretty bad (why else would you go to the dentist in the evening!?). It turned out he had some infection under his teeth, but with some anti-biotica he’d be fine. The dentist adviced him not to go on tour, but Teun wouldn’t be Teun if he didn’t go anyway. Good to have him on board!

Thursday May 21
Göttingen (Germany)
w/ Les Aligned, Malt Liquor Riot

The drive to Göttingen was a bit longer than I thought. But than again, we took it really easy. And I always love driving through the German countryside. We played in the Autonomous Zentrum (AZ) of Göttingen and I guess you can spot all these AZ’s from miles away. You don’t really need GPS or route-description, just look for building completely covered in graffiti.
And this AZ was not any different. Beautiful building, great people, lovely food (homemade falafel!) and a table soccer table. Teun and I are both obsessed with the game, so the only thing we did the whole evening was playing that game. And screaming and yelling at each other of course.
We met up with Les Aligned from Köln, they were on tour with Malt Liquor Riot from the USA. It was good to meet up with our friends again. This was their first tour and everybody was looking a bit tired. They were on the road for almost two weeks and it was a bit hard for them.
I decided I wanted to learn German language (actually, pick from where I left it during the tour in January) so I was trying my best to explain myself in German. I found people just started talking back, in English…
I think I played pretty well this night, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. After the show Riekus was completely overwhelmed by a girl who had her eyes on dutch drummers. I couldn’t find him the rest of the evening. And by the time we had to pack our stuff and leave for the sleepingplace, he stumbled in the door. Drunk. “I’m going with you guyzzz”, he said with a double tongue. He earned so much respect that night for sleeping next to our sweating, stinking bodies.
We slept in two rooms which both were something in between a dirty laundry room and a room to grow weed. They actually had weedplants. And decoration with ganja/ weed on it. And they had puzzles of weird psychedelic illustrations. Oh, and I was sleeping next to the cat litter. I slept fantastic!

Friday May 22
Erfurt (Germany)

Only a short drive to the pretty city Erfurt. We walked around the small allies and found a Bio-Laden (healthfood-store) where they had great vegan spreads. It’s sort of a weird city because everything looks old, but it’s new. I’m not sure, but I think Erfurt was bombed pretty badly in WO2…
We met up with Ace, the promoter of the show. He and his girlfriend made delicious burgers for us, we ate them while we were sitting in a patio in the setting sun. Some of us were drinking beer, others Bionade. Life on tour can be so good.
We rushed to the local punkrock-radio station to give a small interview about life on the raod and we played a couple acoustic songs. It was really nice to do this because the guy who did the radio-show just walked in and asked us if we could come around after we had diner.
The show was not very busy, we were the only band playing and there was a free outdoorfestival in the same city. But still there were some people enjoying the set. Even the local bikers came down to check us out. It was also nice to have time and play a longer set. And there was a tablesoccer, so Teun got his ass beaten again. Ha!

Saturday May 23
Trzebiel (Poland)
w/ Prestissimo208

From Erfurt to Poland, our very first time! Trzebiel was a small village just across the border of Germany. I walked around in the small town and I was impressed by how different the whole atmosphere is.
Our friends Vincent and Sophie traveled all the way from Berlin to see us play. We’d be sleeping at hteir appartment the other days as wel, to spend the days-off in Berlin.
There was one house where they were doing shows and everything was really well arranged. We played with the local punkband and there weren’t too many people at the show. Really too bad because the promoter did his very best to mkae everything comfortable for us. When we started playing everybody was dancing like crazy and one drunken guy couldn’t stop screaming in the microphone. It was a bit odd.
I had the feeling people just go there every saturday to hang out with their friends, they don’t seem to mind that much who or what is playing. I had fun for what it was, but I was also a bit disappointed. We wanted to play in Poland for so long and now the only Polish show is a bit of a bummer… This has nothing to do with promoter, I guess my expectations were a bit too high.

Sunday May 24
DAY-OFF

So we spend our days-off in Berlin, not the worst place to han out I guess… We arrived in the evening so we decided to eat at Yoyo’s (vegan fastfood restaurant). Everybody was so hungry, the meal was so good. I had a bacon-double-cheeseburger with salad and potatoes. Others had a wrap, pizza and such… check out the place if you’re in Berlin!

Monday May 25
DAY-OFF

This day was all about sightseeing. We stopped by Checkpoint-Charly: it was the controlpost when Berlin was divided by the West and East Berlin. It was impressive to see, if not all the tourists who were scrabbling among themselves. Of course, we were part of the same horde, in denial that is. At least we weren’t any fake communist fur hats…
Next stop was the Yellow Sunshine, another very tasty vegan/ vegetarian organic restaurant. After we stuffed our bellies, we wandered around in Kreuzberg, visiting some cool recordstores, the M99 (a revolutionairy supermarket! for all your riot-gear…), the anti-fascist store, and much more.
What really made me think… there’s an actual store to buy all the gear you need for direct actions, riots, demonstrations and such. The whole store was filled with backpacks, hoodies, gloves, black masks, books, magazines and so on. It’s like an organized mess. The owner of the store has been doing this for over 20 years now. He’s in a wheelchair and has all these friends helping him out. It’s an inspiring anarchist shop.
Now ten metres away from there is the anti-fascist shop. Really clean (almost like a tattoo-shop), cleancut kids hanging, fancy tshirt designs and posters. It’s the complete opposite of the M99, and so close to each other. Amazing.
Diner was again at the Yoyo’s. Teun didn’t come along with our sight seeing adventure so we met him there. I ate a pizza + a burger + fries. I’m a fat kid trapped in a skinny body…

Tuesday May 26
Finsterwalde (Germany)

Before we left to Finsterwalde, we stopped by the Stasi Museum. It’s a huge building where the Stasi used to operate from. The complex is enormous and the museum is only one part of it. The “Ministerium für Staatssicherheit” (Stasi in short) was the intelligence bureau for the DDR and one of the biggest and most important one all over the world. The museum shows how it worked, how it was set up, who was working for who, their enemies and so on. The place is impressive, overwhelming and scary at some points.
The Stasi is ‘famous’ for their influence on basically every aspect of living in the DDR. It was known the Stasi was always everywhere, everytime. With informants, with telephone-bugs and so on they tried to clear every person who was a political thread (in their eyes). 1984, anyone?

After the history lesson we took off to Finsterwalde. We were suppose to play in Dresden but unfortunately it got cancelled. And just a few days ago we got an offer to play at the Volksküche in the AZ in Finsterwalde, which is perfect on the way to Prague. It had to be an acoustic set since they can have loud music during the day.
Finsterwalde is a small town, nothing much going on at first sight. The AZ is a place where the punks and activists can get together and there’s a squat/ punkhouse where we stayed. For a small town like that, it’s pretty impressive! We had very good spicy pasta and after some people were in we started our acoustic set. It was a bit strange but I really enjoyed. Luckily I was not the only one, everybody was listening, interested in our music, asking for more songs as soon as we finished. It was a great experience. Funny to see all these crusty punk kids with patches, tattoos and piercings everywhere enjoying an acoustic set!

Wednesday May 27
Prague (Czech Republic)
w/ Criminal Damage, Germ Attack

Friends told me about how great Criminal Damage is. To be honest, I didn’t know the band. When I heard people from Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone (two of my favorite bands) were in it I was immediately interested. When I heard they were playing punkrock I couldn’t wait to see them! So that was one reason I was stoked for this show.
Second reason was because it’s in Prague, Czech Republic. I’ve met so many amazing people from that country, I’ve heard so many good stories about the shows, there’s such a great festival (Fluff Fest) happening… and I’ve never been there. So I was looking forward to play a country I’ve never been to, it’s always exciting!
Third reason is because I got the chance to meet up with friends of friends of mine. I know some of them through email or I’ve met them briefly years ago. This time it was a chance to really meet up and hang out.
We were playing in the 007 club, probably the best club to have a show in Prague. Again, that’s what I’ve been told. I think it’s true. The club is in the middle of a student district in the basement of building 7 (guess where the name comes from smarty pants!?) of student flats. I believe it’s the old Olympic village, with all these basketball courts, a huge stadion, and students everywhere you look. I’ve seen three people who were older than 40 years…
We met up with Milan (promoter) and Pavel (who I was in contact with) and they took such good care of us. I could see these people have been booking shows, taking care of bands for ages. The pasta was delicious, with some potatoe dish to the side. A nice backstage room, a good cup of coffee. It doesn’t take much to make me the happiest touring person on earth… sweet!
We were playing first so we were doing soundcheck. I don’t think we’ve ever done soundcheck that quickly! The soundguy was some Speedy Gonzales, but at the same time completely relaxed. If we ever come to a point where cloning people is politically correct, I vote for cloning this sound guy and put him in every venue over the world. This is not making much sense.
Anyway, I had the feeling we might fall a bit out of place because we were the most melodic band of tonight. Not very punky, not very crusty. I was just hoping some people would be there to check us out. We started playing and actually quite a lot of people came to check out our music. It was nice.
Germ Attack from Canada was second to play. It’s really not my cup of tea. Afterwards we talked about Propagandhi, being Canadian and what not. That was really fun.
Criminal Damage played last and it reminded me a bit of Antidote from Holland and Leatherface. It was tight. But again, it’s not my thing. They were really friendly dudes though, with a father in the band as well. I don’t come across too many people in touring bands who have kids at home as well. It was refreshing to talk to someone who actually understands a little bit of how it is…

Thursday May 28
Wiener Neustadt (Austria)
w/ Second Effort, Somerregen

Oh, Wiener Neustadt. It’s sort of our home away from home. It’s always cool to play there, it’s always great to meet up with our friends there. This time we played a rehearsal room show. Really small, people stuffed in. Sweaty. Smelly. I played with no shoes on. People were screaming along, having a good time. We were also playing with Second Effort, the local Fall Out Boy. Young kids playing very tight and invited their parents over. It was cool. Somerregen was awesome. Check that band out if you have the chance! I’m not gonna say more about because you have make up your own mind about it. But just check it out!
That night we slept at Bertl (Renotkill)  his place. We had fun with a latex mask. And the next morning we did the dishes from Bratpack who left it there.

Friday May 29
Zwiesel (Germany)
It seems that every tour we have at least one day of insanely amounts of rain coming from the sky to challenge our driving skills. Sweet Motherfucker From Hell, this was the day! It rained so hard! Sometimes a bit scary, most of the time just annoying…
We’ve played in Zwiesel before and that was a great show. This time we were the only band playing, I was hoping some people would show up. Luckily, quite some people did come to the show. And some cops too. (there’s was a NPD festival going on a few miles away from Zwiesel. Last times anti-fascists organized from the venue where we played. The cops came to check out if there was any anti-fascist action going on…)
From the moment we started playing, people were singing along every sinlge word. Some even knew the lyrics better than I did! It was so much fun… We’re playing there again in August and I already can’t wait!
They had a ping-pong table there. After the show Teun completely kicked my ass. first thing we did after we woke up the next day, we started playing again. Again, Teun kicked my ass. I think from the billion games we played, I won two.

Saturday May 30
Chemnitz (Germany)
w/ a lot of bands!!!

There are some of those places that you hardly can comprehend they actually exist. Talshock in Chemnitz is one of them. It’s an AZ. It’s been there for twenty years. It’s huge. It’s run completely autonomously by people who realize it’s important that creative free spaces should exist in a capitalist society like this. It has a big hall, a small show-space, different rooms upstairs for bands to sleep, a gigantic backstage room, an anarchist youthcentre AND a socialist youth centre (they get along better than during The Internationale I assume….), they have a skatepark…. Unbelievable. This is what we strife for, this is about creating an alternative. This is a place where you can feel at home.
We were playing on a festival with around fifteen bands. It was an anti-fascist festival. We were playing on the big stage. Like the nights before, I was hoping people would come and check us out. And again, people did that. They were having a good time indeed.
Most bands didn’t seem to pay too much attention by the fact it was an anti-fascist festival. So both Willem and I felt we had to talk about certain subjects on stage. We talked about the NPD propaganda we saw on the streets, we talked about the importance of collectives like this, we talked about political aspects of the scene. I guess a lot of people appreciated our talks. And our music.
I just hope bands would speak out more. This is what I’ve always foud so important in this music. Those small talks; sometimes personal, sometimes political. Sometimes filled with fury and anger. Sometimes with a wide smile on everyone’s face.

I saw Trainwreck right after we finished. The singer was talking in between songs. I fell in love with that band. Right there, that moment.

Our journey will take us through Germany. Home of the ausfart, biergarten and best humor ever. I was looking forward to this tour a lot. We would meet up with a lot of old friends, and there were so many places we haven’t been as well. But we started off almost in our backyard…

Friday February 27
City + country: Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
Venue: AZ Mülheim
Other bands: Possible Suspect

The drive to Mülheim was a little longer than an hour, a good short dirve to start the tour. I was looking forward to see Robert again. I’ve met him years ago at the Ieper Festival in Belgium. A cool thrash vegan straight edge kid who always says he’s depressed but in the meantime wears an endless smile on his face.
I have good memories of the JUZ, and this show was not different. It started with meeting up with the people of Possible Suspect. Possible Suspect is from Utreg (Holland) and I already knew Dick and Esther from working at the ACU (DIY venue in Utreg). I haven’t seen in ages so it was one big get-together in the AZ. At the same time Robert served the food. It was very good, nothing wrong about that. But what it made special was the warm vanilla pudding as dessert. In Holland we call it ‘warme vla’. Awesome! Incredible! I had two desserts! In retrospect I don’t know if that was such a good idea.
I was almost exploding when Robert started his story what he called: ‘the most punk-thing I‘ve ever done’. I was already looking forward to hear it… This goes way too far to actually tell the whole story because to tell you the truth: it can’t come close to the way Robert told it. The story had something to do with ‘taking a shit real bad’ and ‘no fucking toilet in sight’. You do the math.
Anyway, it was all good fun in Mülheim. We played a very decent show, people seem to have liked it. Esther and I kicked ass at tablesoccer and we did an interesting interview for get addicted. One of the questions was: ‘you put an bulletin on your website to visit a protest against the attacks on Palestina. So you’re pro-Palestina?’ I like questions like these. These are the ‘not-so-easy-to-answer-questions’. And I explained why put it on the website.
You see, it’s hard for me to be pro-Palestia or pro-Israël. The conflict is so complex and difficult that I don’t have the feeling I can say anything about it (if people have suggestions on books about the subject, please send me an email). All I know that the attacks on Gaza are killing hundreds of people. All I know is that innocent people are suffering from these attacks. On both sides, Palestian and Jewish. Innocent people put in terrible sitautions. And the tragic part is that those people who are responsible for these attacks are in suit and tie, sitting on their leather sofa at home watching the news. These people are making money from these attacks. Let’s not forget there’s a lot of money being made by any war. That’s what pisses me off. That’s the reason I put the bulletin on the website. It’s about time we stop waging wars amongst each other and start bringing those who are responsible out of power.

Amen.

Saturday February 28
City + country: Bausendorf, Germany
Venue: Riez Rock Bar
Other bands: Another Day, Society Off

We had breakfast at the AZ and there was a Lady Fest going on as well. Since we were with (mostly) male people, we were asked to have breakfast in a different room. I respect that. Of course. I understand it can be a relief for female people to have something like a Lady Fest. It’s a place where women can do their thing their way, and not be bothered by this male-dominated society. Especially when women have bad experiences with men it can be a place where they feel understood, at home, safe.
We headed off to Bausendorf which was in the middle of nowhere. Hills, trees, birds. And a bar where they did live-shows. Amazing. I walked out in the fields and somewhere in the distance I could hear cars driving. Apart from that; absolute silence. I stumbled across a hunting-cabin and it really made me think how humans have to ruin everything. Why would you want to shoot animals who are just minding their own business?
There was a fireplace in the venue to keep everybody warm. Where are those vegan marsh-mellows when you need them the most? More and more people started coming in and there was a nice saturday evening atmosphere.
The show was a bit weird because I had the idea the kids were there to hang out and they didn’t care too much what band was playing. Not very motivating. But we did our very best and made the best out of it.
We met up with the nice people from Another Day and I really enjoyed watching how they had fun on stage. Especially the singer had this endless smile on his face. Good times. We could stay at their place for the night, so that was amazing.

Sunday March 1
City + country: Cologne, Germany
Venue: Lamäng
Other bands: Les Alignes

The drive to Cologne was really short. We arrived at the venue early and I think everybody was thinking the same thing: “a show, here?!?” It was sort of a brown café. Only locals at the bar who stared at us when we came in, nodded their heads and turned back to the bar. I looked around and I could see people sitting at dark-brown tables. There were also some Anti-Fascist Action posters hanging around. Weird, but nice. Not the typical punk-bar, yet I started feeling more and more at home. There was one punk-kid waiting for us, saying the others should arrive every moment. So that meant we were definitely in the right place.
We played in the basement on a skittle-alley (bowling alley, but than different…). Amazing. We played on so many different, weird, funny, awkward locations. And a skittle-alley was not on the list yet. Check!
The place was very small, very cosy and very cool. I liked it a lot. We played and it was crowded. Not too many people, but it already looked as if it was packed. People were singing a long. A nice, comfortable Sunday-evening show. Very good indeed.

Monday March 2
City + country: Würzburg, Germany
Venue: Immerhin
Other bands: –

We slept at Sandi’s place and he took us around town for some time. Willem wanted to stop by this huge music store to try some new guitars. I just walked around, amazed by all these pricey instruments. It appeared the ugliest guitars are the most expensive. That’s what I’ve learned that day.
We were drewling in front of the Underdog Store because it was closed. The Underdog is probably in my ‘best record store’ – top 5. When you’re in Cologne, stop by and find all the records you were searching for. By the time it did open, we had around ten minutes to peek in. I had my hands on a Pg. 99 split, but decided not to buy because I don’t have the money for it. I guess it’s a good choice to spend my money on food instead on vinyl, right?
On our way to Würzburg! We arrived and heard the local support was cancelled. I had this scenario in my head where we would be playing in front of zero point zero people. Luckily Pölle (promoter) took really good care of us. He and his girlfriend cooked great food for us, had the coffee ready when we arrived, all good.
By the time the doors opened, nobody. An hour later, nobody. I said to myself: “fuck it, it’s a Monday night. We’ll survive. We’re having a good time anyway”. I decided to play some guitar in the backstage, take it easy. When I walked out, there were actually quite some people. And when we started playing, it was actually quite crowded. Nice!
I really enjoyed this show because the vibe was good and the venue was very cool. It was wasn’t very big at all but you could really see it was run by the kids who cared about their scene.
It was actually owned by the local church so we were a bit afraid we were dealing with convinced christians, ready to convert some punks from Holland. Pölle explained the situation and it appears that the Immerhin can do whatever they like. They are completely autonomous and don’t have to deal with the church. The downside was that the building is on a list to be torn down. They are looking for a new building, although this building is in perfect shape. Throwing money away, anyone?

Tuesday March 3
City + country    : Nürnberg, Germany
Venue: Kunstverein
Other bands: Deny Everything, Cutting Class

The drive to Nürnberg was a piece of cake. Nürnberg is known for it’s beautiful old city. But above that it’s known for it’s “ehemaliges Reichsparteitagsgelände”: Former Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Now this is not something to be taken lightly, these nazi’s had their shit together in the thirties. They were building huge buildings for different reasons. A lot of these buildings were destroyed in WOII, but some are still there to see.
We couldn’t wait to do some sightseeing. One the this day we wondered through the city-centre of Nürnberg because the Rally Grounds are very close to the venue we were playing. So we had a busy schedule for the other day too!
After eating one of the best falafel I’ve ever had, we headed to the Kunstverein. It is a venue in a huge building, which belonged to the SS in WOII. The Kunstverein have tons of shows, Patrick (promoter) is doing shows for over ten years already. So also for punk-history it’s a good place to be.
We played with Cutting Class (UK) and Deny Evertyhing (Germany). I was looking to see Björn from Deny Everything again and finally see his band live for the first time. I have their record for some time now but somehow I always missed them when they played in my hometown. They sound like Kid Dynamite, they sound pissed off, they play fast and have short songs. Lovely.
The show was pretty crowded (especially for a tuesdaynight) and it was good to finally see Deny Everything. I got my ass kicked with tablesoccer by Patrick and his friends. Damnit, those guys were good! I think we played a decent set. I also had a lot of fun, feeling at home in places like the Kunstverein. On top of that there were some familiair faces who came out to the show. Good to see them again!  

Wednesday March 4
City + country: Regensburg, Germany
Venue: Alte Mälzerei
Other bands: Deny Everything, Cutting Class
After breakfast and checking email, it was time to head to the documentation centre of the Reichsparteitagsgelände. The documentation centre of the nazi party rally grounds is located in the unfinished structure of the congress hall. It’s build like te Colesium in Rome, only twice as big. It was build for the capacity of 50.000 people. The documentation centre gives very detailed information about the history of the part rallies and exposes them as manipulative rituals of nazi propaganda. It was intense. We walked through museum and it took us a good three hours. With open mouth I looked at the photo’s, the old news papers, the (unfinished) plans of the buildings. I was completely overwhelmed by the perfectly planned ideas of the nazi’s. This is immense. In a very, very bad way.
It showed how the people were manipulated, how young kids were brainwashed by the national-socialists, young married couples got Mein Kampf as a wedding present: everything was planned. Above all: it showed something like this must never happen again. Ever.

And the scary part is this: right now governments are claiming every single form of privacy has to be exchanged for safety, for the war against terrorism. Look at all the camera’s, ID-pasports, DNA scans and all that shit. Very often it is stated: “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. Fair enough. Not! Just imagine if some lunatic like Hitler gets in power again with all this private information on all citizens. I can already see some frowned eyebrows from you reading this and thinking: “this won’t happen”. But that’s simply naive to think that. I surely hope it doesn’t happen (and we all should do our frickin’ best not to ever let it happen again!), but I can’t think what would happen if it happens….

Oh well, some band had some song called: “speculative fiction”. Let’s hope for the best. Let’s act for it.

After this intermission, Regensburg was next to be conquered. Flo is a good friend of us and he was setting up the show. We’ve played in Regensburg a few times and there’s a good scene with awesome people. I couldn’t wait to meet up with those lads again, hug, shake hands and such.
The venue was really clean and organized. Funny, because it was almost the opposit from the Kunstverein in Nürnberg. But both places I really liked. Pasta was for diner and I came to the conclusion this was really a pasta-tour. And I love pasta so I can’t complain. The only problem with pasta is that I always eat too much of it.
The show was cool, a lot of people came out to see us. Too bad we had some problems with the microphones, but we didn’t get boo’ed or dirty thrown at our faces. So it wasn’t that bad. I guess.

Thursday March 5
City + country: Berlin, Germany
Venue: Ballast Der Republik
Other bands: Alert, Aggronauts

First long drive of the tour. It didn’t even take that long, but we couldn’t see any of Berlin, which was a bit sad. I’ve been there once with my girlfriend and that’s it. I’ve read so much about it, so much has happened and is happening in this city, I wanted to see some more than just the venue. Oh well, good excuse to go back soon…
The squat we played at was dark, dirty, huge, filled with tons of people. Somebody said there were around 35 people living in the squat. When we arrived, we met with our friend Vincent. He was not very amused. Well, I’m pretty sure he did like to see us, but it was his first time to do a show in this building and apparently everything was going wrong. During the evening I understood what he was saying.
I mean, from Vincent’s side everything was more than perfectly arranged. He did good promotion, found good other bands, he made amazing food (vegan cupcakes ladies and gentlemen!), what more could you ask for? It turned out that we (as bands) were just not very in place in the squat. A lot of people drinking, doing drugs, fighting… We’ve been touring quite some time now and we’ve been in various locations. A lot of squats, some cleaner and more organized than others. No problem. But this was just something different. I didn’t feel safe here, which is weird because I always think I should be able to feel somewhat at home in a squatted punk-house. I guess that’s naive of me to think. Lesson learned.
Jan from Yo Yo Records stopped by to say hi and drop off some records. We went for some coffee and when we came back to the squat it appeared there already had been two fights. So we decided together to make the best out of it. We’d play the show, have fun with the people who came out for us. And as soon as the show was over; pack up and run for our lives!

At the end of the night no one of us got hurt, everybody still lives. So long to Berlin. Take care, see you next time.

Friday March 6
City + country: Bergkamen, Germany
Venue: JZ Yellowstone
Other bands: a lot…

The breakfast was amazing. Vincent even went out to buy coffee for those who drank it, because he didn’t have any coffee in his house. The apartment was really nice, somewhere in a cheap neighborhood in Berlin. It wasn’t expensive at all to rent, something I didn’t expect in a city like Berlin. It was just Vincent and his girlfriend living there, amazing. It was too bad we didn’t have much time to hang out because we had a long drive ahead of us.
Another long drive. And we were in a traffic jam for two fucking hours. Normally I really don’t mind long drives, but I hate traffic jams. They are the ultimate waste of time: everybody is his vehicle which suppose to take from A to B very fast, but you’re not moving. You’re behind each other, just polluting the air. It fucking sucks! There…

We arrived and apologized to Dave (promoter) for being late. He understood, Dave has been doing shows for ages and there are simply a lot of traffic jams around that area. Still we were in time for sound check and within an half hour, pasta for diner was served. Nice.

It was a weird show. The other bands playing were local bands. One of them played their 50th show. Other bands were starting. The audience weren’t really paying too much attention to all the bands, although the first band definitely brought some crowd; it was their demo-release party. What surprised me was the young age of the audience. I remember I went to my first punk-show when I was twelve years old and some of these kids were around that age as well. This was the new generation, starting to go to shows at their local youth centre. And I guess that’s exactly the cool thing about these places.
We played last and I was a bit afraid all the young kids would be in their beds already. When we started there were still a lot of people to check us out. It was nice to see that a lot of young punk kids were dancing, while in the back the older audience was knodding their heads to our tunes as well. It was a weird, but nice atmosphere.

So all in all this tour through the rough lands of Germany have brought us to the deepest dungeons, we slayed the toughest crowds, shared drinks mystical punk-knights and generous hardcore-heroes. It was a jolly good time indeed.

Line up for this tour:
Antillectual:
Willem – Guitar/Vocals
Riekus – Drums/Vocals
Pitter – Bass/Vocals

One Win Choice:
Dan – Vocals
Justin – Guitar
Ellis – Guitar
Tierny – Bass
Solid – Drums
Rob – Roadie / Ladykiller

It's oct 15, 6 a.m. Time to get up and get this adventure started. We're flying from dusseldorf to newark airport. Rody is willing enough to drive us to the airport and after a smooth drive we check in at dusseldorf airport. 10 a.m. we're taking off, an 8,5 hour flight ahead of us. Watch a movie, eat some shitty food and watch another documentary and we're already there.. No biggy! After waiting for an hour at customs and telling the story we memorized by heart about the purpose of our stay we meet Dan and Justin who pick us up at the airport accompanied by a sign saying "Rots band" (the literal translation of rock band in Dutch, but no-one would ever use that word)
We pick up our tour shirts and we're off to Tom's River where most of One Win Choice lives. When we arrive we meet up with the rest of the band and we're all set to begin this thing. Too bad the tour only starts 2 days from now, so we wait. While One Win Choice is doing their last practice session at the house, we're doing one of the things we like to do most.. Spending time on the internet. After a nice dinner cooked by Dan himself we get beers and watch the last debate between Obama and McCain while drinking every time words as "Tax Reductions", "Joe the plumber" and Crisis are being mentioned, which is pretty often i can guarantee you. We've been up for a while and it's time to go to bed, after all, it's already 4.30 for us.

Oct 16: After we slept for a long time i finally can't take the smell riekus and willem are producing any more, so it's time to get out of bed. Today we're going to practice one last time on the One Win Choice backline to get used to the guitars and drums a little. Before we do that we have to get some essential stuff from the music store we didn't bring like strings and sticks, you know the deal.. In the meantime the other guys are repairing the van and mowing the lawn (hey, it all needs to happen!)
After dinner we go to justin's house and zip 40's in the Hot tub.. Yes, i can get used to this kind of touring.

Oct 17: The Shed – Tom's River, NJ

Day 3 in the USA, about time for a show. The van is repaired, we're all stoked, we're ready for this. No traveling today though, 'cause the first venue we're playing is called the shed, and is in Dan's backyard. The first show is a blast, nice people, quite some people show up. We meet up with Static Radio again, who show up fashionably late.. As well as Jeremy Jumpstart who brings our LP's for the tour and 3 cases of beer.. Nice one!
We end the night with a fire in the yard and make sure the beer's all gone.
Day one of tour is over, and the shed is Antillectual approved. Time to go to bed.

Oct 18: Fire House – Hopatcong, NJ

Time for the first day of traveling. We're trying to stall it though because the package we sent out with our other merchandise still hasn't arrived. Around 3 p.m. the UPS arrives and guess what, no package. So we leave for Hopatcong without the biggest part of our merch.. bummer!
After a short drive we arrive at the Fire House which is in the middle of the forrest. The show is All Ages so there are a lot of younger kids. I feel old. 7 bands on the bill, so the show's kicking off early. In the meanwhile I cook some food in the kitchen over there. The show is cool and afterwards we drive up to Mike and Stephs apartment, which is very nice by the way, to party a little and sleep over. We get introduced to a little part of american culture called "Beerpong" and play till late and the beer runs out. Solid chugs a half a pint of vodka en it's time to call it a night.

Oct 19: Cousin Larry's – Danbury, CT

We leave around noon to drive up to Danbury. We figured to go a little early to walk around town.. Too bad we hadn't though of the fact that we were gonna be there on a sunday. The place was dead, nobody was in the streets and everything was closed. Show was supposed to start at 9, so we had 6 hours to kill in the freezing cold.. After sitting in the van for a while we decided to bring out the stove we brought and bought the little things we could find to make some 'parking-lot burritos' After being too cold we decided to check out the bar. At 9 the promoter walked in and we set up our stuff. After a while we figured that no people would show up and started playing. We played a nice alternative set and when finished we headed out to Albany, where we could crash. Danbury, certainly not Antillectual approved.

Oct 20: The Basement – Kingston, NY

So yeah, after last night we could use a good adventure again. We figured we could take a look around in Albany. The night before, when we drove in, it looked like a Sci-Fi set up, so i was curious. No aliens whatsoever, so kind of a bummer. We checked out the NY State museum, walked around town and figured it would be wise to head off to Kingston after some dinner. We parked the van and cooked a meal on the sidewalk.
The Basement was a nice bar with friendly people, who directly saw what we needed.. Love, and all the free drinks we could think of. After the Fall was also playing, who hooked us up with a sleeping place the night before.
Not many people showed up, but the show was still fun to play. Some of us stayed in the bar after the show to party hard, i however was too tired and went to sleep.

Oct 21: Day off

After waking up and seeing Riekus sleep on the pool table i figured it was time to get up. We had a day off, so no real hurry. We tried to figure out what to do and arrange a sleeping place for the night. In the meantime we watched Roadtrip. Mike from After the Fall helped us out again and arranged a sleeping place at his friend Matt's place in Burlington, VT. So, time to drive. It was quite a drive, but we had time. After a couple of hours GPS us told us to take the ferry, this certainly didn't fit our financial plan and even if it did, the last ferry was long gone. We had no other option then to backtrack to the bridge which was located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. This also meant 2 hours extra driving.
We arrived at Matt's apartment around 11, cooked some food, talked a little and went to bed.

Oct 22: Day off

We found out that the show we would be playing in Burlington wasn't really well promoted and decided to go with the nice old D.I.Y. approach and print flyers to hand out in the city center of Burlington. But first we had to do some groceries and we decided to make a stop at the Magic Hat beer brewery. We could walk around at the brewery because there were no tours going on this day. After that we of course had to try some of all the goodies as well. All though it was pretty cold out, we went into town and hand out flyers to everybody who looked like they might be interested in punkrock the slightest bit. Ellis and Solid went out to beg to rich looking people..
Yes, i felt like a true punk. No idea where we were staying that night, begging and some good old flyering, fuck yeah!
Matt hooked us up with a sleeping place for the night at his friends Derek, Josh and Mike their place.. We cooked some food and chilled a little over
there. The OWC boys bought some cheap vodka and went off for an adventure and found a party. We chilled at the house and went to bed.

Oct 23: 242 Main – Burlington, VT

Jan´s Room – Allentown, PA

Today is the day i'm gonna meet Chris from Square of Opposition records, who did the waves 7" for the last Antillectual US Tour and a whole bunch of other friendly people, so i'm stoked. When we arrive in Allentown we head over to Jordan's house, which we know from our first US Tour so things get cozy from the moment we enter Allentown! We decide it's a good day for a change in our diet and shop a little. Curry it's gonna be and Dan is not too excited, because he doesn't like spicy food. Too bad for him. After dinner we head to Jan's Room, which is actually a rehearsal room. Also on the bill today are Jonesin' and Iron Chic from New York, two other bands touring towards Fest and back. The room is crowded when OWC kicks off, we play a cool set as well. After that Jonesin' is up who play raw punkrock with vocals which remind me a lot of Chuck Ragan in his No Division days. The drummer is a goofy player and after they finish he stays to play for Iron Chic as well. I expected a lot from this band, because i heard they had some Latterman members and I love Latterman!
Iron Chic was amazing and Allentown was one of the better shows so far.. After the show all 4 bands stayed at Jordan's house, so that's 18 visitors at once.. Respect!
We got some brews and after a while Jordan's roommate 'Snack-man' (bad ass Bad Brains tattoo) claims he has the phone number of Rick Ta Life and decides to prank call him. Too bad we get a voicemail, but still it's hilarious.. You should have been there. The night is still young, a wannabe gangster called Camacho get's it and so are some 24hour restaurants and a liquor store where Justin and Ryan work. We end the night trying to get in a deserted building but halfway everybody chickens out, ah well.. Time to go to sleep.

The Fire – Philadelphia, PA

It's sunday! Today is gonna be the day we're gonna see our friends in Jena Berlin again and I know I am excited to see them. The show is gonna be early because the local baseball team 'The Phillies' have a good chance to win the World Series and nobody seems to wanna miss that. A Wilhelm Scream is going to be headlining this show so high expectations.
After parking the van in an alley behind the venue we load in and chill a little with Jeff. The neighbourhood is supposed to be a pretty rough one and Willem couldn´t agree less when he tells me he just had a gun pointed at him by some drunk. A raid is the result of that and finally the guy gets caught carrying a fake weapon and gets arrested for having some outstanding warrants and stuff. The show is cool, although you can notice that some people stayed at home for that game.
After the show it´s party time! We´re being taken to a bar near Jon and Chad´s house, get drunk and yell a lot. Phillies win! It´s awesome!

Day off – Philadelphia, PA

Today is another day off and we are staying at the same place as yesterday again. We get some delicious pancakes for breakfast and chill a lot. In the afternoon everybody heads in to town except for me. I stay in the house with Jon and Meg to do some work on the computer and after that eat some of the best vegan burgers in town. That probably wasn’t a lie, because it was delicious! Back home i hear stories of store owners boarding up their windows because tonight could be the last game if the Phillies win. With that in mind we head over to the same bar, hoping they’re gonna win tonight.. Riots in town, hell yeah!
Too bad the game gets postponed half way and tonight isn’t gonna be the party it could/should have been. Bedtime it is.

?? – State College, PA

After a short drive we arrive in the college town called State College (oh really!?). We arrive a little late but it isn’t too bad we hear. The weather’s freezing cold and loading sure isn’t a pleasure today. We park we the car and when we walk back to the venue we see some ad. About cheap shots, so we figure a little warm up before we play isn’t a really bad idea and so it happens.
The venue today is some sort of christian hang out so we get asked not to curse. We agree, because the promoter is cool and the venue agreed to have us. But while we’re playing I get a little confused with the lyrics and how not to curse too much, so after 2 songs I just give up and do the normal thing. The show is cool, a little tame, people seem to be a little shy, but hey, that happens. After the show we go home with Bill, Ellis’ friend from home and he smokes a lot of weed, we watch some movies, drink some beer and watch Riekus sleepwalk. When it’s 5 o clock in the morning I decide to get some sleep as well. However Rob and Solid aren’t really felling it yet.

Artist Underground Café – Richmond, VA

When we wake up the next morning Solid is still awake and hasn’t slept a bit. We take a nice shower and step outside where it is snowing at the moment. We’re leaving for Richmond.
After a pretty smooth drive we arrive pretty early and have nothing to do so we decide to go to our favorite American restaurant, Taco bell! After we got some food we drive back to the venue and the promoters calls us to say the first band has to start in a couple of minutes, so we get back as fast as we can and play the show. There aren’t many people and the main reason for that is all the bands touring down towards the Fest, so tonight there are 2 or 3 shows going on, which off course is way too many for a Wednesday night. Tomorrow’s a day off so the next show is gonna be in Gainesville.. The Fest! We decide to drive after the show is done and pull an all-nighter. Some people try to sleep and Riekus, Willem, the Hazel twins and me have a vodka and beer party in the van and teach some proper Dutch to these Americans. The night gets blurry….

Day off – ……, FL

After driving all night we arrive in Florida, where the weather is super! Today we got invited at Ryan’s aunt who lives near Gainesville. When we arrive Ryan’s aunt is still at work, so we’re hanging around for a while, doing shop groceries and some more hanging around. We get an awesome dinner and play scrabble all night. Just another day, but a nice one.

FEST

Unfortunately this is where the report ends. For tour videos (including the fest!) check out our www.youtube.com/Antillectual

This is the tour report for our first tour of 2009. Taking us to Eindhoven, France, Switzerland, Italy, and back to Switzerland, France and Raalte. Besides the band Etjen from Just like your mom, toursupport was helping us out on this trip. It was for the first time since May he was coming along with us.

January 28, 2009
Venue: Effenaar
City + Country: Eindhoven, Holland
Other bands: Only Crime, No Use For A Name

First day of the tour is in Holland. And what a show to start the tour… We’re supporting Only Crime and No Use For A Name. Now I have to be honest; NUFAN is one of those bands I’d listen to everyday ten years ago. And it’s fun to play with your youth heroes.
The show itself wasn’t too good. We played on one of the biggest stages we’ve ever played and we all had the feeling it wasn’t going too well. But on the other hand, we were having a blast because so many friends came out to see us. Especially some old friends who we hadn’t seen in ages. It’s always great to catch up!

January 29, 2009
Venue: The Soap Box Club
City + Country: Laxou, France
Other bands: Expect Anything

I got up early because I had to stop by the garage and put winter-tires on the van. I kissed Suzette, Jippe and Raaf goodbye and off I went. After the pitstop at the garage, I picked up Willem and Riekus in Nijmegen. Next stop was Luik where our friend Etjen was waiting to hop in the van.
Etjen is a good friend of us who has been with us on trillions of tours. He has his own toursupport company (Just Like Your Mom Toursupport) and is on the road pretty much all the time. We both have busy schedules so this was the first time he would come along again. We were all really looking forward to it!
The drive to Laxou wasn’t too long, but I was tired because of all the stops. We arrived at the Soap Box Club and it was the perfect venue. A small stage, food and drinks waiting for us, beds upstairs. Ah, those beds… I was so happy to lay down for a minute before playing.
Alex (Youthway Records, The Twisted Minds) organized the show and he did a great job. Unfortunately there weren’t too many people, but some have traveled for an hour just to come and see us. It was flathering to hear. We had a good time.

January 30, 2009
Venue:
City + Country: Cirié, Italy
Other bands: Notfound

Again we had to get up early; a long drive to Italy was waiting for us. A good seven hours in the van, yay!! We had some breakfast, loaded the van and headed to the country of pizza, strong coffee and insane driving.
The drive was long, but beautiful. Coming from (probably) the flattest country in the world, I’m always excited to see mountains. And I just love to stare at the landscapes passing by, with some music on the background.
We met up with an old friend; Fabio from Notfound did a show for us two years go. The venue was a cultural place where a lot of things were happening. They had meetings, theatre-plays, kids playing tablesoccer and random punkshows. It was nice. It was the first day in Italy so we had to eat some good pasta. And good pasta was served!
I never understand how they make it. I try my very best to make the pasta like that and it seems so simple. But somehow the Italians have some secret I can’t discover. The pasta is so tasteful with only a few ingredients. I figured I might never discover their pasta-secret so I just decided to enjoy the jolly good pasta for what it is. I finished my plate and went for a refill.
It was a free show and the best thing was that there were all sorts of people at the show. Not only the average punk-kids, but also some hiphop dudes checking out the loud noise and the average people who just were interested in what was going on. 
The show was really nice. A lot of people were interested, some already knew our music but also a lot of the people had no clue who we were. No one was walking away, so I guess that’s a good thing. We played loud and fast, I liked it.
The show ended at a reasonable time, which is not always the case in Italy. Shows tend to start really late, and when you’re playing last it’s no exeption to play at 02:00 a.m… but not this show. Thank you very much!

January 31, 2009
Venue: Kirchgemeindehaus
City + Country: Davos, Switzerland
Other bands: endless speeches and long talks… and a violin player.

I’ve been to Davos once to protest against the World Ecomic Forum (WEF). It’s a forum where all the worldleaders come together how they can exploit the world in the most effective way. The protest was a pity because at the day of action the cops at the foot of the mountain blocked all activists. We arrived in Davos the day before, but it was frustrating that our ‘comrades’ were getting their asses kicked while we were surrounded by military police, snipers on rooftops and more muscles from the state. What a democracy…
In the last few years there weren’t a lot of protests against the WEF. One of the reasons is because what I’ve just explained: it’s pretty much impossible to get close to the bastards. So I was kinda excited to hear some people are organizing something in Davos again. We were asked to play after the demonstration and it sounded like a great plan.

As we were getting closer to Davos, more and more police cars were at the side of the road. More men and women in uniforms with guns. More mustaches. And eventually we were stopped. What a surprise…
They asked us for our pasports and they wanted to check what’s inside of the van. When they saw the instruments, their response was: “Oh, you’re the band that’s playing. No problem, go ahead. Have a nice show.”

WTF….

By then we were suspicious. Maybe the cops were shooting us in the back as soon as we drove off and would make it assume we wanted to run. Or we were playing at a party-politician gathering. It was the latter.
We arrived at a church where all the protestors where. Some punk-kids, mainly “normal” people. We went inside and met up with Jurge who set up the show. He explained what was going on. They just had a good demonstration with around two hundred people. And there were speeches and discussions. At the end of all that we would play.
We went inside and there was a guy in his fourties with a beard talking about something in German. People were silent and listening.

Four hours later…

There was another guy in his fourties with a beard talking about something in German. This time he had the lamest powerpoint presentation ever. People were still listening. One old lady was asleep. Ugh.
I had the feeling we weren’t in place. I thought this would be a powerful and inspiring day to show the leaders high up in their ivory towers that there are people who actually give a shit about life on this planet rather than number on a bankaccount. But this was a bit sad. It was called an action day, but I didn’t see any action apart from the amazing diner that was prepared in the kitchen.
Now let’s be clear about this. I do think it’s good they organized this day. I mean, there were the average people listening to what was being said. So that’s a whole lot better than do nothing at all. It’s just not my approach. And I doubted if we were in place.
Finally we set up everything. It was a relief to see the chairs in front of the stage were removed. It was a relief to see quite a lot of young people came from everywhere all of a sudden. And it was a relief quite some people stayed. We played and we had fun. People were dancing and singing along to our songs. It was good. Very good indeed!
Now for those who don’t know it, we also have a political bookdistro
at our shows. And it was nice to see so many people interested in the anarchist literature we brought. Obviously there were some frowned eyebrows, but overall the reaction was very good. Thanks to Jurge for this adventure!

February 1, 2009
Venue: Happy Hour Rock Bar
City + Country: Lodi, Italy
Other bands: Los Fuocos

I forgot to say the trip to Davos was absolutely breathtaking. The landscape was completely covered in snow, wonderful. And as we drove to Italy again, we could enjoy the view once more.
Lodi was a last minute show. The owner of the club where the show originally would take place was arrested. Incredible. So we were happy to hop on this show. And again the show was starting quite early for Italian standards. And again the show was free entrance.
We met up with our good friends Ste, Dami, Dani and Sarah. Ste and Dami are from No Reason Records who released our record in Italy. And Sarah is taking care of us. She cooked the best meal… sort of quich and pizza as a side dish. As a desert she made chocolate cake and cherry pie. Holy shit!!
We played first and that was probably a good idea. After the show I collapsed. If we would’ve played later on the evening, it would’ve killed me to death. There was this noise band playing after us with a drummer, a guitarist, a saxophone and a whole lotta screaming. Not my thing.
The last band was a sort of a snotty Hellacopters. Quite nice actually.
 

February 2, 2009
Venue: Lazzaretto
City + Country: Bologna, Italy
Other bands: Linterno

We stayed at Dami’s place after the show in Lodi and after a good espresso we headed to Bologna. A city where we hadn’t played in a couple of years. A city where the shows were very good at the times we did play there. A beautiful old city. A city with towers that are about to tumble and fall…
We got there early because Claudio wanted to show us the city. We walked around and enjoyed the city, the food and the coffee. Claudio was really friendly and very talkative. A bit too talkative for his own good so to say… He managed to insult an English woman in a bar, and get away with it. What can I say? “Italian style…”
I was looking forward to play in Bologna, but it was a mondaynight. Like always, the shows can be rough on weekdays… but not in Bologna. We were having a good pasta at the squat where we were playing. We were having a good time with the guys from Linterno. I didn’t notice the venue was already open and when I walked in, the place was full. Wonderful. I was getting more and more excited to play, especially when I ran into Enrico, our friend who organized the first shows in Bologna. Linterno played special cover just for us: 7 Years by Undeclinable. A song we all grew up with.
The show was amazing. The place was packed; people enjoyed the set and were asking for more. There was this one guy with a Face To Face tattoo so we couldn’t resist playing Ordinary. People were singing along, perfect!

February 3, 2009
Venue: Lio Bar
City + Country: Brescia, Italy
Other bands:

I woke up from working people drilling and pounding as if they had to remove the Berlin Wall. Good morning to you too! We headed off to Brescia on an easy drive, stopping by Ikea. Ikea is really the new hype among us. Let me explain.
Ikea is always next to the highway. I don’t give a shit about all the nice house lighting or the latest sofa-design. It’s all about the cheap restaurant Ikea has. Always organic, always with vegetarian/ vegan options. And best of all; always with free refill coffee. Dandy.
We arrived quite early in Lio Bar. It was next to the railway. Nothing much around. Tuesday. Would this be a good show? I honestly had no idea…
Lion (the owner) opened up and offered us cup of coffee. A real sweet guy. He explained how they are doing live-music since a couple of years now and it’s going really well. The venue looked amazing and Lion made us feel at home.
We had all the time in the world to sort out the merch, do some emailing and reading in the books we brought. It was good to relax a bit. This tour I’m reading From Dusk Till Dawn by Keith Mann. No, it’s not from the Quintin Tarrantino film. This book is about the Animal Liberation movement, mainly in the UK. It’s inspiring and easy to read. I recommend this to anyone, vegan or not.
I was doing the merch and more people were coming in. Nothing spectacular. Then Etjen came rushing to me with excited eyes. “You really should take a look outside”. So I stumbled to the door, opened the door and there were around two hundred people outside. Holy molar…
We started playing and I don’t think any more people could get inside the venue. It was hot. It was fantastic. People went nuts. And again we played the Face To Face cover ‘cause people were asking for it. This time I played half of the song crawling on the audience. Insane. It’s a Tuesday! Don’t people have to work/ study/ eat garbage from their neighbours trashcan the next day? Not in Brescia I suppose…

February 4, 2009
Venue: Tiki’s Bar
City + Country: Geneva, Switzerland
Other bands: none

I was really impressed as I walked in the Tiki Bar. I’m not trying to sound like Quentin Tarantino, but it reminded me of that scene in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta and Uma Thurman are going to this diner. She orders this five-dollar milkshake and such and such… Anyway, I was impressed. Everything was really clean and it had a perfect sixties feel. Peg welcomed us and I was already looking forward to the show. Luc (owner of the bar) came in after some time and ten minutes later we got probably the most interesting meal ever… it was sort a vegan happy meal! It was a small pink Cadillac with French fries and a vegan burger in it. Served with ketchup and vegan (non-) alcoholic beer. Fantastic! It made the whole scenery complete!
We were the only band playing that night. No local support. On a Wednesday. Hmmm… but more and more people started coming in and by the time we started playing, it was quite crowded.
The show was fun. We heard from our friends of Smash The Statues the police shut down the show when they were playing in the Tiki Bar a week before we were there. I’m glad the bastards left us alone.

February 5, 2009
DAY OFF

We decided to drive to Etjen’s place, Oostende (Belgium). It was a long 11 hours drive, but it was definitely nice to sleep in Etjen’s comfortable house. Especially the vegan chocolate Maureen (Etjen’s girlfriend) brought from her work! Not to mention the incredible English breakfast the next morning. Oh, just like your mom…

February 6, 2009
Venue: Les 4 Dames
City + Country: Valenciennes, France
Other bands: Midway Home

It was time to say goodbye to our good friend Etjen. Again it was good to have him on board, Just Like Your Mom did his job more than great!
We have some good memories in the north of France. However, we’ve never played in Valenciennes before. We arrived in the city and it was nice. We decided to walk around a bit and found out most city centres are the same with the same fucking H&M, FNAC and Bodyshop. Ugh…
When we came back, Rom (promoter) also arrived. Rom is also playing in Midway Home and I was looking forward to see them live. The venue was really small and cosy. When the first band started playing, it was already crowded. I got more and more pumped up for the show.
By the time we started playing, the place was packed and everyone started dancing, some were singing a long. All and all a jolly good time!
But by the third song the owner of the bar laid down a piece of paper in front of us, saying the neighbors would call the cops if we continued to play after the song. Bummer. We were having a
good time; the audience was going nuts. It was simply impossible to stop! So we just kept on playing until the owner came and really apologized. The guy was really nice to us and we didn’t want to get him in trouble. It was a short set, but good. Hopefully we can come back soon and playing a longer set.

February 7, 2009
Venue: Pedro Pico Pop (festival
City + Country: Raalte, Holland
Other bands: Midnight Menace, Striking Justice, Mala Vita, Kudra Mata and more…

What a day. We had to drop off vans, pick up merch, drop off merch, get to Nijmegen and such and such… It ended up driving for six hours. But when we arrived at the festival, it was all worth it. This festival was really well organized.
It started six years ago by some punk kids who just wanted to organize something for themselves. It grew to this festival with the capacity of 1500 people. And those same people are still involved. Amazing… they really know how to take care of the bands, of the volunteers, of the audience. They keep the entrance low (only five euros) so everybody can come. And it seemed that everybody was involved; whole families!
We were in somewhat of a rush because we really wanted to see our friends from Midnight Menace. I’ve never seen them before (it was only their fourth show) and they were playing in the afternoon. We ran and were just in time. They played a good solid set!
We played in Raalte years ago, in a squatted farm. Now (years later) I saw quite a few familiar faces that were also at that show. A lot of those people are still involved with the punk/ DIY/ squatting/ activist movement, doing amazing things. This proves that not only good things have to start in bigger cities.
The show was a bit chaotic for me. Before we knew we started playing and I had the idea the sound wasn’t very good. Willem had the time of his life, so that was nice to see. I looked at Riekus and he was hitting as if his life depended on it. Or so it seemed. That motivated me more and more. I stared into the audience. People were moving. Familiar faces staring back at me. It got me more and more excited. By the end of the show, I was having the time of my life!
I guess this was an amazing end of and incredible tour. The day before we played in a small bar, completely packed. The next day we played in front of a thousand people. I was exhausted but more than satisfied.