Antillectual

On this day in 2008 we bought our first van! The very first owner of the van was Sorbo, a cleaning company who probably bought it for their cleaning teams in 1998. After them it had been bought by Engelbarts, the both loved and hated van garage and rental service that offered cheap but sometimes unreliable vans to bands. They added a second row of seats to the van making it fit seven people. Even though they did add seats, they did not add seat belts. That’s not illegal, but not very safe either. Gijs from van and backline rental company Smoeff had some sort of deal with Engelbarts where he leased the van from them for a longer period of time. Dutch band Malkovich rented the van from Gijs and when they started playing more and more they bought the van from either Gijs or Engelbarts. When Malkovich disbanded in 2008 they had a van to sell.

Our friend and the only official manager we have ever worked with, Jeroen Vrijhoef, knew about this van being for sale and arranged a tryout. It was the perfect setup for us: enough seats to bring enough extra people, plenty of loading space in the back and above the loading area there was a loft with a bed, which was accessible via the back seats. Extremely illegal, extremely comfortable. After having taken it to a couple of shows we decided to buy it. 

After ten years of service for Sorbo, Engelbarts, Smoef and all the bands who rented from them, and finally Malkovich (who were known for their rowdiness), the van was in a subpar condition. When we got it the odometer said 423.000 kilometers, and it showed. The front window was broken, the mattresses that came with it were stained to say the least and the seats and benches were very dirty. We gave it a lot of love though, we cleaned it thoroughly, put in new mattresses and started to service it regularly.

The van was a Mercedes Sprinter and they have a good reputation of strong engines lasting forever. However, it had the slowest engine Mercedes offered for their Sprinters. Besides not being able to go faster than 110 km/h (we never got a speeding ticket!), we especially noticed how slow we were when going uphill; we’d get passed by cars, old and tiny cars, trucks, very slow trucks even. So we had to calculate some extra time to reach destinations and we learned to get extra speed on the way down before hitting the next hill. The van was very loud and had a huge gear shift stick. It would shake and tremble enormously and we gave it the nickname “de paardenlul”, horse’s dick. If you were sitting next to it a little too close, it could whack your knee and you’d scream from the pain, we learned the hard way. 

We had it for another ten years before the gearbox started to give up on us. This happened not long before we had to go to the UK for Manchester Punk Fest 2018. We decided we didn’t wanna take the risk of stranding halfway with a broken gear box and a dead van, so we got a new one only a couple of days before leaving for the UK. With 678.000 kilometers on the odometer we said goodbye. It probably went on to eastern Europe or Africa to find a new old gear box and to pass the million kilometers mark and beyond.