ATTENTION:
If you happen to have any photo or video material of our shows during this trip, please get in touch!
Where to start? It’s already some weeks ago but I promised I would put up this tourreport, so let’s stop the introduction and go back in time right away.
I’ll start some weeks before our trip. Preparations fase. As usual shows got cancelled, that’s just how it works, but all in all it was a lot harder to get shows this time (of the year) than on previous times. A lot of people were away on holidays, places were closed etc. The thing was, we could only do it this period… if we wanted to do it with Joost (who is leaving us for half a year in September) that is. In the end we ended up with 3 days off, playing 5 shows in 8 days. Still sounded like a good trip to us. So off we went.
SATURDAY, 5TH OF JULY. AREA 51, EINDHOVEN (NETHERLANDS)
Today Sjef (our friend/roadie) and I were on a mission. Objective one, picking up the new merch at mr Ries Bandmerchandise his place. Objective two, picking up the van. Although we were both more or less zombies from parties the night before we managed to do both things succesfully. Amazing. Later that day we got together with the wolfpack (the whole band, Sjef and our future replacement drummer Henri) at my place. Packed the stuff we needed for today’s show in the van and off we went. To the venue, knowing we would return home for tonight.
We already played Area 51 before but it’s always a great place to come back to. That skate area! Actually just the entire place. It’s amazing. We really enjoyed ourselves at the show. We played an average show, nothing outstanding. After us Losing Streak got on stage (it sucks they’re splitting up!), always a great band to see. Antidote covers never hurt either. Up next were Mongoloids and Trash Talk. Both were great, especially Trash Talk. They totally wrecked the place. They’re taking heavyness to the next level. Normally not totally my cup of tea, but live this was so damn heavy.
Aside from this, it was the first time I sold my “Some Will Never Know” zine. The first time I would get some feedback on it. People were really positive about it which felt great.
SUNDAY, 6TH OF JULY. PROBERAUME, DUISBURG (GERMANY)
We all enjoyed a good night of sleep, you never know how much sleep you’ll get on tour so I surely took full advantage. That afternoon we got together at our rehearsel room again. This time everything had to be stuffed into the van. Luckily everything fitted perfectly. So off we went. The sun was shining, spirits were up, this was going to be a blast.
When we arrived at the venue in Duisburg we totally felt in love with the place. It looked so cool, just check out the pictures and the video. Imagine this old abandonded, rusty, HUGE, factory and a big concrete building with lots of rooms (containing rehearsel rooms and rooms for shows). It was just perfect for this kind of stuff. The perfect location for taking band pictures, but also the kind of location you already saw a thousand times on band pictures so we opted-out for that one 😉
Anyway, the show was great. Sink Or Swim was a cool new band from Belgium who I think played their first show, cool band, they had a girl on vocals, which is nice to see for a change in this male dominated scene 🙂 They have a demo out now, go pick it up! We also did meet up with the guys in Crowd Control, they’re from Ireland. Cool dudes. They drove for 5 hours the day before, trying to find the venue in Eindhoven. In the end they just ditched the idea and did get an hotel haha. Their set was heavy. Just before us The Struggle from Belgium went up. It’s always cool to play with these dudes, great guys. After that it was time for us to get things going. People were banging their heads, some of them knew the words to Into The Distance and we dusted off our Cro Mags cover which got people moving. Good times. We managed to sell quite some merch, which isn’t the main thing or anything, but just ask any other band: it really helps when you’re on tour.
We took some graffiti spraycans and a stencil of our name with us on our, to put our names on the wall here and there. We already used it in Eindhoven, forgot to mention that. This was a perfect location to put up some wall decoration again. The organisator even took the stuff with him inside and did some of his own. Spreaaading the word! Shout out to Marcel (the organisator) anyway, he did help us out greatly with putting up the show. We loved it.
Afterwards we stayed at the house of a friend of his. We did drink some beers, had a nice chat and then it was time to get some sleep. Or atleast try to. I finally managed to slip into some state of sleep but then the others were already starting to wake up (I’m a terrible sleeper), so sleeping wise I was off to a terrible start. Sjef had the same problem. All worth it though. All worth it.
MONDAY, 7TH OF JULY, GHENT (BELGIUM)
After a shower, some of us took off to the super market to arrange a nice breakfast for all of us. We came back with some nice baguettes and made sure we ate enough. Anyway, it was to move on, to Ghent. We originally hoped to play a show in Belgium on this date, but all options fell through, so this ended up as our first day off. We were going to make the best of it though, so we decided to check out the beautiful city of Ghent. We parked our van in a parking garage and we went straight into the city. Tourist mode on full throttle. We just walked around the city a bit, checking out the buildings and towers. Great city. Joost, Joep and I went on a boat trip through the city, while the rest opted for a bar. The seats were horrible, but the sight was nice. After our short boattrip we got together again and set out for a pizza. I think we walked around for an hour trying to find one, but not one was up to our standards haha. So we got back to the van and drove to some other area, where we finally found a place that we liked. After we enjoyed a great meal, we set out to find the cinema. After a short discussion on what movie to watch, I succeeded in convincing everyone to see The Incredible Hulk. I’m just a sucker for movies with Edward Norton, most of the time they’re great. I hadn’t been to a cinema for a long time, so I really enjoyed myself. The movie wasn’t bad either. Picking an Edward Norton movie once again proved worthwhile.
Anyway, during the day and after the movie I did send an SMS to Michael, the guy who offered us a sleeping place, to let him know what’s up. But I didn’t hear anything back. No problem, I knew he was working until 22:30 and it wasn’t that late yet. We drove to his place and then I tried to call him, to let him know we were there. “Invalid number”. FUCK! That meant he didn’t knew we were coming at all… I was expecting the worst when I rang the doorbell, but luckily he was at home and everything was alright. It was a great place, huge. Joep and Joost decided to park the van in a parking garage. When they couldn’t find one, they asked the police for directions (they actually helped for once, amazing). When they got back they told us the parking garage was just high enough, only the atenna was scraping the ceiling the entire way, oh well. The many stairways (place was like a flat!) made sure we were tired enough to get some sleep. So that’s what we did.
TUESDAY, 8TH OF JULY, PARIS (FRANCE)
The next morning we got up as early as possible, said goodbye to Michael and left, so we could enjoy Paris to the fullest. Enter our second day off. But with places like this to visit you won’t hear me complaining. After a nice drive we ended up in Paris. We had a couple of things we wanted to see. So we parked our van in a parking garage once again and off we went. On our way to the metro we encountered the first beautiful France woman, nice. Anyway, we were on a mission. First stop was “Champs-Elysées”. So many people. We got ourselves to the Arc De Triomphe and enjoyed the view on top of it. It’s amazing. Next stop, the Eiffel Tower. When we got there we walked into these HUGE lines of people, so the plan of getting up there was off right away. We settled down on the grass and just relaxed for a while. It was time to get something to eat (The rest of the band are McDonald freaks, so yeah that’s where we usually end up). On our way to the McDonalds we got stopped by those cartoonists in the streets (like all other tourists) and Stef got himself a drawing (which ofcourse didn’t look like him at all). He payed way too much for it though. It’s a shame we didn’t have more time, there was still so much to see in the city. We would have loved to see the catacombes with all the human bones in it for instance. Oh well, maybe some other time, it was time to meet up with Ben.
Ben originally was supposed to do a show for us, but at an other show a fight broke out and shows were banned. Sucked for him, sucked for us. Anyway, he was willing to put up with us for a night. His flat was nice, a bit small though but he managed to get all of us in there. He had a great terrace on his roof, we settled down there. Time to drink some beer and then Ben even ordered us some pizza. Good times. When it turned cold we went back inside and after a couple of games of FIFA it was time to get some sleep. Ben was feeling ill and he had to get up early the next morning and besides that, we had a pretty long drive to go the next morning.
WEDNESDAY, 9TH OF JULY, SAN SEBASTIAN (SPAIN)
Another day, another country. It feels so strange, to be in a different country every day. Especially if you don’t travel much usually, like me. Anyway, after a long drive, where not much happened we arrived in San Sebastian early in the afternoon. We met Inigo and as soon as we got our sleeping stuff into his place we went off to the beach. The weather was great, the view was nice, what else could you want? Inigo kept calling us tourists haha, and that’s exactly what we were. Enjoying everything to the fullest. Taking pictures, letting it all soak in. The rest took a dip in the sea when I had a nice chat with Inigo. Cool dude. After our visit to the beach some of us had to go to the toilets. The places at the beach were closed so we had to go somewhere else, FAST. Hahaha, it looked great. Joost and Inigo walking as fas ast they could (almost running) to get to a toilet. They made it just in time.
While sitting on the beach, I talked to Inigo about our last trip and I told him we wanted to get some “patatas bravas”, since we loved it so much the last time. He knew just the place, so he took us there. It was great to enjoy that Spanish speciality enough. We all loved it, except for Sjef ofcourse who thought it was “just some potatoes with a spicy sausage”. Which is a pretty accurate description, but it’s delicious! Anyway, after that we meet up with some friends of Inigo. They wanted to get something to eat. It’s logical for them to eat around 22:00. We did eat enough of the patatas bravas so we went outside, but Inigo went for another round. When they were done we went to a bar to have a drink and chat a bit. After a while Inigo was getting tired (he had to leave for work early the next day) so he wanted to go home. Remco, Sjef and I went with him, since we were pretty beat as well. We made a visit to the rehearsel/recording room of Inigo’s band. Looked pretty cool. He showed us some blastbeats haha and then it was time to get to his appartment. The rest stayed in the city. From what I’ve heard (and saw pictures of) they had a blast. They even got lost on their way back, so I guess they partied hard. I didn’t hear them coming back.
THURSDAY, 10TH OF JULY, SANTONA (SPAIN)
The next morning Joost and Joep moved the van really early because the police was writing a ticket already. We forgot to extend the duration of our parking ticket. Fuck! They talked their way out of it though and moved the van. I missed all of that, because I was sleeping like a baby. Anyway, after we fixed ourselves a tasty breakfast half of us went to the beach and Henri and I put “Ken Park” in the VCR. I didn’t feel like walking to the beach so I installed myself in the couch and enjoyed the movie. Remco just slept through the whole thing. Never saw that movie before, loved every minute of it. Too bad it was dubbed in Spanish (it’s horrible to dub the audio in your own language if you ask me, luckily that only happens with kid movies in our country), the English subtitles helped though. Once the movie was done and the rest came back it was time to get our asses moving again. We closed the doors behind and us and we hit the road. Finally a show again.
The place in Santona looked really cool. It was covered with graffity, which usually gives away a nice venue. This was no exception. We didn’t have any idea how the show would be, would there be many people, would they know us etc? We sat around for a while, just relaxing, set up our stuff and waited for the first band to begin when all of a sudden someone said “Lastig he, dat Spaans?” (which is Dutch for “Difficult huh, that Spanish language?”, for all you non-Dutch-speaking). It was a dude from Belgium, he was on a surf vacation and saw the posters and decided to check it out. Cool dude. Then Wicked took the stage, nice guys and girls. They even had someone playing keyboard (in the back of the venue) and played a cover of Cranberries “Zombie”. Good times! Up next were we. The place was pretty crowded by then and we just went into it full blast. The show was awesome! People were moshing, having a good time and singing along to some of the songs. We talked to the guys from Belgium etc on the outside for a while but then the bar was closing. We slept inside, the owner just locked us in and we could sleep on the floor. We poured ourselves some beers and got to sleep as well. Today was the highlight of the tour so far, for SURE.
These pictures by Lady Skull.
FRIDAY, 11TH OF JULY, RENNES (FRANCE)
At 7 in the morning we heard a noise at the door. Shit! We slept through our wake up call. In a hurry we got up, thanked the owner and got our stuff in the van to take off. This time we were off to Rennes. Once again, the venue looked great and the people were great. We were siked to play. First up was “Money Time”, a local band. Lots of technical problems but who cares. Cool stuff, reminded me a bit of Dirty Money or something. People started moshing right away. This promised to be a great night. After that “Golden District” took the stage. Clearly the local favorites, they played a great set, people were really into it. We loved it. Then it was our turn. Before the show we already got requests for some of our own songs to play, so things looked promising. We started off with Isolation and the place went nuts, people sang along from the start, pile-ons, stagediving, people moshed. It was great. By far the coolest show we played so far. You know those stories about the French scene and their bands etc? Tonight proved them all wrong.
Pictures by Trasher.
Oh on a sidenote, to all French zine guys, please do your zine in English 😉 I would have liked to pick up more zines, but a lot of them were in French, and my French is… well.. terrible.
SATURDAY, 12TH OF JULY, HAZEBROUCK (FRANCE)
We stayed the night at the place of a really cool girl, a firend of the promoter. Beds, showers, Cro Mags CD’s laying around, everything. We even got to check our mail. We all slept wonderfully and the next morning we met up with Alexis (the promotor) in the city again, he’s a great guy. We had a nice croque monsieur, baguettes and croissaints for breakfast. The croque monsieur we ate on the terrace was expensive as hell though, but maybe that’s the Dutch part in us. Don’t know, don’t care.
On our way to Hazebrouck, our last stop on this trip, we ended up in a traffic jam. The first one so far, so we weren’t complaining. Anyway, Stef climbed up on the van, Henri got out his skateboard and we had some fun. We were getting quite the attention from the other cars haha. Aside from that the sight was fantastic once again. It’s such a privilige to ride around like that, checking out the cool views, having fun wtih your friends.
Then we got to the venue, it was like a little restaurant, cafebar this time. Looked nice. We got in our stuff and waited for the first band, which was “Backtime”. This was really cool, just some kids, who were 12/13/14 or something, rocking out. Like a newschool Bold or something. Curious to see how they’ll end up. Up next was “Wind Of Pain”, a metalcore outfit, reminding me of Born From Pain. Not totally my cup of tea, but I guess they did well. So then it was time for our last show this trip. The show was okay, nothing more, nothing less. People seemed to like it, bopping their heads.
So after the show, we got our stuff together and went home. We were tired, time to leave it all behind and get back to reality. The rest of the way back we spend talking about out the trip, reliving all the highlights. All in all we had a blast. It was the best trip we made until now without a doubt. We can’t wait to get back on the road. Hopefully 2009 brings us some nice trips again.