Antillectual

2018 & Friends First Fest – in retrospect

We are thankful and happy that we get to end every year with Friends First Fest. It’s an incredible way to end the year, and yesterday was no exception! Thanks to the massive group of people making De Onderbroek packed and sweaty, the way we like to see it! Sorry to the people that got turned down at the door for the venue being too full already. Next chance next year! Not unimportant, together with Minor Operation Donations we managed to raise over 1300 euro for Help Refugees!

2018 was a strange but good year for us! We started by closing the ENGAGE cycle and shooting and releasing a video series for Change the Standard. An enormous project which we couldn’t have done or wouldn’t have been as much fun without the help from so many friends.

In 2018 we took a turn from our standard routing and started doing some things differently. Most noticeable we have stopped writing, recording and releasing albums. Instead we have started a song-by-song approach since June 2018. We were very anxious to release our first two singles (Heads You Win, Tails We Lose & The Invisible Hand Meets the Visible Fist) but were relieved when the response turned out overwhelming. We got to record the singles with Martin Beusker at Mailmen Studio, and something we will release in 2019 (to be continued!) with our sound tech Emiel and Menno Bakker at the Amsterdam Recording Company. We’ve shot videos with Younique Film, Ivana Smudja and many of our friends for our music videos of 2018.

We played less shows in 2018 because of study related obligations, which will continue in the first half of 2019. But the shows that we did were great! The Loud & Rising Tour with Green Lizard and This Means War, festivals like Manchester Punk Fest, AntAttack, Uncle M Fest, Booze Cruise, Riez Open Air, The Sound of Revolution, Bierschinken Fest and an amazing weekend in Spain for Actitud Fest. We had incredible shows in Liège, Minden, Wermelskirchen, Kiel, Osnabrück, Hamburg and many other places. We got to say goodbye to Adhesive in our hometown/living room and met and shared the stage with all time heroes No Fun At All and Propagandhi multiple times. We also got to say goodbye to our loyal van for 10 years and hello to our new red menace!

2018, you’ve been good to us. And by that we mean “THANK YOU!” to all who checked us out, came to a show or helped us out otherwise in 2018! Another big thanks to our solid partners The Living Proof Agency, Loud Noise, Uncle M Music, Redfield Records. And last but definitely not least a big “THANKS!” our steady rock crew Roos and Emiel, and all others that joined us on the road!

Catch you on the other side! Willem, Riekus, Toon

PS: check our best of 2018 playlist here