ATTENTION:
If you happen to have any photo or video material of our shows during this trip, please get in touch!
As with all our trips, up until the very last week dates got cancelled and changed around. Nowadays we would almost be surprised if it wouldn’t happen. Especially for the UK, always fun. But luckily we managed to get ourselves 3 shows. So we were siked for a nice weekend. This would be our first trip without Joost and with Henri, so it was going to be special anyway.
THURSDAY 27TH OF NOVEMBER. REHEARSAL ROOM, SINT ANTHONIS (NETHERLANDS)
Thursday wasn’t that exciting. Sjef and I picked up the van. From a different company than usual, just trying it out. Maybe a bit more expensive, but a better van for sure. More room, no DVD players or hottubs though. No worries. Anyway, we picked it up that afternoon and both went home. Me preparing some final stuff for the trip, him probably sleeping 😉 At midnight we got together, loaded in the van. Of course someone forgot some sleeping stuff, so we had to pick up that first. Some people never change. We had to catch the boat at 7 in France. So off we went.
FRIDAY 28TH OF NOVEMBER. ROSE OF ENGLAND, NOTTINGHAM (ENGLAND)
Funny to see the difference with the first time we went aboard the boat and now. The first time we were all excited, looking around etc. but this time it was just finding a place to crash. The van was running out of fuel so the first stop was a fuelstation. We fueled up the van and were already ready to leave when Sjef came out telling us that our card wasn’t working for whatever reason. We were off to a great start for sure! Some of us went to a PIN machine in a town nearby while the others were held hostage waiting for us to come back. Of course we got lost on our way back to the station haha. After multiple phonecalls (“Yeah this is the man of the gas speaking…”) explaining us the route we got back to the station and were able to pay the fuel. Amazing.
After a long drive we finally got to Nottingham. We had some trouble getting to the venue and parking the van etc, but that’s normal for us small-town boys being in the big city. Luckily Tom helped us out with a good spot and we were ready to set up gear for the show. We ended up on the second floor of this cool pub. Place was pretty cool. It had some big windows, so first thing I asked was if this was the place were some kid was pushed out of the window at a Death By Stereo show or something. Turned out it wasn’t. Oh well. Other bands playing were No Where Fast and our buddies from the Netherlands Citizens Patrol (we recorded our 3 song promo tape in their rehearsal room). Stylewise we more or less were the odd one out. You can count our “faster than lightning” songs on an amputated hand… People seemed into it though. Stef was into it as well, he was so drunk he managed to stumble over the drums. Cool show.
A nice kickoff for the weekend. Good to meet Chris “downloading criminal” Human Race, nice chap, and the dudes from Stand Clear! Always good to put faces to online names.
After the show we took a walk with Alan, Tom and his girlfriend Becca. After what seemed like hours (and getting some food and seeing the city flown over by the local youth (how many girls in nurse outfits are there over there?)) we got to their place. After some talk the rest of the band crashed into their sleeping bags and I stayed awake for a bit to witness the birth of the Stand Clear! demo tape design. Still curious to see what it finally ended up like.
SATURDAY 29TH OF NOVEMBER. NAGS HEAD, HIGH WYCOMBE (ENGLAND)
After a nice night of sleeping it was time for us to get moving again. We picked up some flowers for Becca, thanked them for their hospitality and went on the road again.
Today was the day of the last minute show @ the Nags Head in High Wycombe. Kieran hooked us up, amazing dude. Out of the bands that played we were pretty into Hang The Bastard. Heavy stuff with a great groove. It was cool to see that Your Demise had a huge following of younger kids. Hopefully younger kids will manage to find their way to Dutch shows as well. Our show was okay, with a young audience like that not too many people picked up on our Cro Mags cover though. Oh well, can’t have it all. Maybe we turned some of them on to the good stuff.
The best thing though about the venue was probably the fact that since the late 60’s bands like Blondie and the Sex Pistols played there. We looked all over the back room to find the tags they supposedly left but we only found the Blondie one. Later on I read that The Who played there too. Pretty cool. That’s some history right there.
After the show we went with Kieran, to his place. He arranged beds and couches for all of us. What a guy. Luxury like that is always a privilege on tour. Aside from that pizza (!) and drinks were fixed. Good times. We owe him. First fixing us a last-minute show and then treating us like kings.
SUNDAY 30TH OF NOVEMBER. LE PUB, NEWPORT (WALES)
After a great night of sleep we got things moving again. Since we had some time to kill and saw a sign for “Silverstone Circuit” we decided to drive over there. It wasn’t open that day though, because of the fog no cars were driving. Shitty. We asked a couple of times if we could make a short trip around the circuit, but they wouldn’t let us. Such a shame.
Time for plan B. On our way to the circuit we also saw a sign for horse races, so that’s where we went next. We parked our car and got told to move it right away. Apparently we took the jockey entrance and parked our car near the stables. Shit. We got moved to some kind of VIP spot though, being the “we don’t know what to do”-tourists. We couldn’t have parked the place closer than this. Nice. Anyway, some of us decided to put some money on one of the horses/jockey, to complete the experience. The guy they picked was called “Hasan Pour”, with a name like you can’t expect much I guess. The horse they did bet on came in last. And not like a second later, no….. The rest of the horses were in for quite a while when their horse finally finished. These dudes have such a good taste in horses… Amazing haha.
Time was ticking, so we had to get moving again. We got to Le Pub pretty easily, probably because we knew the place from our previous trip to the UK. Since we were there early and nobody was around yet we went into the city. Henri, Sjef and I went into the city to find a toilet. We found one in a bar, we thought it was stupid to not order something so we ordered ourselves a drink and sat down. The older locals were good company and giving us charge of the jukebox was a nice thing too. Time flew by and before we knew it, we got a call from the rest of the guys asking us where the hell we were because it was taking quite a while. We gave them direction and they joined us too. We had some more nice pints and even got some food (was available freely on the bar, how cool is that!) and we talked a bit with the people in the bar. They knew about Brabant, which was cool. They told a story about them being in Brabant, drinking all day long in a big tent. Around 23:00 the guys they were with (from Brabant) told them they were going to call a taxi to go to a disco. They couldn’t believe it. They were hammered as hell, barely able to move, and here were these Dutch guys wanting to go to a disco, to party on? Hehe, so that’s how they know us in Wales. Nice haha. After a while we made our way to the venue, time to rock.
Last time we went to Le Pub we had a blast. It’s a great venue, with a great atmosphere. Alex B got is on this show, which we were pretty siked about. It was supposed to be one of the final Deal With It shows, but they pulled out at the very last minute. Sucks. Anyway, we did manage to meet mr Boyce once again though, witnessing one of the final Reality shows. Probably England’s coolest dude. Ah fuck it, just skip “probably”.
We got bumped to the last spot but the show was cool, especially for a sunday show. Always nice to play Le Pub and it was good to get to see Human Race, Reality and Ironclad. Ironclad is probably coming over to Europe anytime now, be on the lookout.
After the show we said goodbye to everyone and made way for the boat.
MONDAY 1ST OF DECEMBER. BACK HOME (NETHERLANDS)
Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping.
Driving. Driving. Driving.
A nice trip once more. We can’t wait to get on the road again (it’s cooler than this tourreport might make it seem like).