Antillectual

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This is the tour report of the first part of the Transatlantic tour taking the dutch band Antillectual and the New Jersey based Static Radio across the American East Coast. For Antillectual it is the second time since the summer of 2004 they visit the USA. Part 2 of the Transatlantic Tour takes place in Europe from September 28 to October 13 going to The Netherlands, France, Italy, Austria and Germany. In the USA both bands played 16 shows in 16 days between New York and Florida. Below you find the report bass player Yvo wrote from day to day.

Day 0: Thursday July 5
The tour actually starts a day earlier, on Schiphol airport. Right before we were about to check in, our friend Gijs came running up to us with 50 packages of coloring pencils… Gijs made the design for the tour 7 inches and he made four different designs. One of the designs is a coloring picture of a cowboy and the kids can color the front cover themselves. Speaking of diy!!
Of course we were way too early because they told us to be early. As good citizens we do as we are told and we arrived when the counter was not yet open…
We flew from Amsterdam via Madrid to New York JFK airport. On the way I saw the two most horrible movies ever made in human history. The Librarian was a terrible Indiana Jones rip-off with no logical story or anything and bad special effects. Then I saw a 90 minutes commercial of Adidas dressed up as a movie. It was about a football player who transfers to a big, famous team. Of course he cannot take the pressure, of course he can’t handle the fortune and the fame. Of course he almost breaks up with his girlfriend, but in the end everything turns out right… Hey, come one! What else is there to do when you’re on a plane for eight hours?
As soon as we arrived on American ground, we had to go through the fascist customs. Lucky for us, it was not a problem. We could borrow all the instruments for Static Radio so we just looked like plain European tourists.
(For those who don’t know: when you’re a non-American band and touring in the states, you cannot look like a band when you’re going through customs. Otherwise they’ll send you back right away. You need a work permit to tour the states (apparently they think we’re making money…) and they will never give it to you. It’s a shitty reason, just like the whole idea of fucking customs is shitty, but you have to deal with it.)
Anyway, we met up with Vic from Static Radio for the first time and it was good to see him. It was kinda funny to finally meet up in person with somebody who I’ve been in contact with for such a long time already. It wasn’t hard to recognize him: there are not too many punkrock kids with tattoos and a Bouncing Souls t-shirt.
Vic took us to Chris’ (drummer of SRNJ) house for some food and to be introduced to a million people. Parents wanted to meet us, while I was tired as hell…

Day 1: Friday July 6
New Brunswick, New Jersey @ Southern Thunder
There was a lot to do the next day; folding t-shirts and packing the merch, printing set lists, printing pricelists, buying strings and picks. Before I knew it we were at the venue to play our first show of the tour. And there were a lot of people! Like a lot of diy shows in the states, the show was in a basement of a house where punk kids lived. First there were a couple of local bands and then it was up to us. I was psyched to play and a bit nervous if people would be interested in us. The basement was packed when we started. When we finished the set, there were even more people. I was overwhelmed by the reaction of the crowd. After the set Willem walked with a sweat dripping face to the merch table and I walked outside to catch some air and hang out with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. They came out to sing and dance with us, it was heartwarming!
That night was the first time we got to see Static Radio. From the first chord they hit, I knew it was going to be a good tour. Man, they blew me away!

Day 2: Saturday July 7
New York City, New York @ ABC No Rio
I woke up the next morning, walked downstairs, and made some coffee. I sat down in the back porch and than it struck me: we were playing ABC No Rio that day! Holyfuckingshit! ABC No Rio is the oldest squat in the U.S.A., and it’s in the middle of New York City. It’s a voluntary collective and it’s awesome a place like this still exists. I couldn’t wait to play there again!
We got lost in the city and we’ve seen everything New York City has to offer four times or more. We finally arrived at ABC No Rio and we didn’t really have to hurry: the other band also got lost… There were quite some people and I played pretty well, despite my bass breaking down. The audience wasn’t going nuts but I guess that’s with every bigger city. It’s too bad, but it’s true… Apparently they could appreciate our tunes ‘cause we did well selling merch. And I was pretty amazed with that. I mean, sometimes I’d wonder what in hell we (being another overseas punkrock band) are doing in a country where there are a million bands at least as good as us. What do we have to offer? Are people waiting for a band with bad accents?
It took us forever to leave ‘cause some asshole blocked our van. The best excuse to walk to Kate’s Diner: a vegan diner close to ABC No Rio. I walked in and realized I was in hipster-NYC. People were eating their meals inside with sunglasses on, talking about art and new dresses. I loved it!

Day 3: Sunday July 8
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania @ U.U.C. Church
Before we go any further, I have to tell you about the house we were staying at from the day we arrived. We were staying at the same house for the first couple of nights because all the shows were within an hour drive so it was easy to drive back. Our new friend John offered to stay at his house. His parents were away for the weekend, which meant we all had a room for ourselves, a filled fridge and airco. Fuck the Hilton Hotel!
Back to the show: today’s show was at a church (yup, so stop fucking swearing okay?). There were tons of old friends waiting for us, armed with hugs and lovely words. We felt at home, being on the other side of the ocean. Chris of Square Of Opposition came to hug us to death and show us all the tour 7 inches. It was great playing in front of so many familiar faces and they all went nuts. They wouldn’t let us go until we played two encores. Amazing! Jordan (singer of the almighty Yo Man Go!, go check ‘em out!) brought vegan desserts from Vegan Treats where he works. It was the 7 inch release show of Yo Man Go!, and it was one big party.
After the show we had a big bbq at a trailer park. Riekus and Little Mike of Static Radio got completely wasted from the whiskey shots. I felt like a man for the first time, behind a grill the size of a boat. And Willem watched how Riekus and I got our tour-haircuts. A beautiful night it was.

Day 4: Monday July 9
Braddock, Pennsylvania @ Fossil Free Fuel Garage
This was the first day we had a six-hour drive ahead of us, it was the last day at our private hotel. We said goodbye to John and took off to Braddock, a small town close to Pittsburgh. Our friend Dave organized the show in his ga
rage. Dave is one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever met. We met him when he was drumming in Hypatia (the band we toured with in 2004). At that time he played in at least four other bands. From guitar, to vocals, to drumming: he’s a master at all. He quit all his bands to work on his new project, his garage. He converts diesel cars to vegetable oil cars (in 2004 we toured in a vegetable oil driven van he converted). Greenpeace: eat your heart out!
That night we played above his garage. There weren’t too many people at the show but there was a friendly atmosphere. Everyone was interested in all the bands, which is very motivating. I’d rather play in front of ten people who are interested than a hundred who couldn’t care less.
After the show we went to a typical American style Mexican restaurant. It was the best Mexican restaurant to get vegan food according to Dave, so it had to be good. And good it was! I had vegan tortillas. When they served it, a pile of tortillas the size of the Mount Everest was put in front of me! It took me hours and a lot of help from my friends to finish

Day 5: Tuesday July 10
Riverdale, Maryland @ The Tree Swing
After we said goodbye to Dave with tears in our eyes, we headed to Riverdale, Maryland. Shortly we had this plan of stopping by an amusement park with a thousand roller coasters. But since we had a six hours drive ahead of us, we had fake hotdogs for breakfast and took off.
Again, a friend organized this show: Katy Otto. Katy is a busy busy bee from the DC scene that knows everybody and everybody knows her. I couldn’t wait to see her, but i was a bit afraid of the show. It was a Tuesday night and the show was arranged very last minute.
Like I thought, it was great to see Katy again. The show itself wasn’t too good, but we had a lot of fun. It was in the tiny basement of Katy’s house. There weren’t a lot of people, but there was this young girl who brought her mom to the show. Later Katy told me that the brother of the girl always was very active in the Dc scene, and now she’s also into it.
After the show everybody went to Washington DC to do touristy things. I stayed with Katy ‘cause we had a lot of catching up to do.

Day 6: Wednesday July 11
Athens, Georgia @ Transmetropolitan pizza
This was the longest drive of tour for sure. After 12 hours in the van, I’ve seen that thing enough from the inside. But we had a TV and DVD’s to kill the time with. Dawn Of The Dead was collectively a favorite movie. For those who don’t know the movie, first off: keep it that way! The movie seriously has no storyline at all (which is pretty hard when you’re making a 90 minute movie…). It’s about this girl who wakes up next to her boyfriend. Boyfriend gets bitten by a mini-zombie. Boyfriend turns into a zombie. Girl runs away and finds out the whole world is taken over by zombies…. What a movie!! To make things even worse, they put in the worst movie in human history: The 40 year old Virgin. So after watching that one, I was close to being brain-dead.
After several serious thoughts of killing myself by throwing myself out of the van, we arrived in Athens. I’ve never been there, I’ve never heard of Athens before this tour (editorial note: we played Athens in 2004 as well). But apparently Athens is an awesome town with great kids living there. The show was at a pizzeria. I’ve never played a pizzeria before. Did you? I had no idea what to expect, but everything was extremely well arranged. Every band got a whole pizza and free drinks. The show was above the pizzeria where there was a small, intimate and very nice venue.
I had the best coffee of tour in Athens before the show. Brian (who was playing with his band that night too) took us to a nice café and I had a medium coffee with a shot of espresso in it, which made it a bit stronger. Perfect! We talked about activism and anarchism. Even better!
That night we stayed at Joe’s place, the promoter of the show. It was a punk house: Descendents-poster on the wall, a dvd collection with horror classics, a nice record collection and nothing in the house was really clean. I felt at home. Vic wasn’t too amused with the cockroach and slept in the van. Oh well, I guess he never slept in dusty old squats in Italy on a European tour…. (editorial note again: he will though).

Day 7: Thursday July 12
St. Augustine, Florida @ The Fraternal Order Of The Oriels (aka Backstreets)
Again, a long drive ahead of us. Next stop was St. Augustine where we played a great show on our last tour. I was looking forward to play in the same town again. It was a bit of a disappointment when we arrived at the venue. It turned out that the owner of the venue just heard that day there was going to be a show that night so they couldn’t do too much on promotion. It was a 21+ club so a lot of younger punk kids couldn’t even get in, if they wanted to. After a long drive, I was pretty bummed…
We decided to load out and head into town. I kinda knew where we played last time. It was at a cool store called Loose Screws. They sell all sorts of nice things, from cult movies to records and clothing. We bought some records and I got a hold of a inspiring zine called Give Me Back.
We went back to the venue and there were quite some people. It was the last day of work for the bartender and he invited his friends over. All the people of the venue were really supportive and friendly to us which completely made my day again.
Static Radio played first that night and the people seemed to like it a lot. We still didn’t have a place to sleep for that night so Big Mike asked the audience if they knew a place to fit 8 smelly punk kids for the night. And like always, it worked. A guy came up to us, telling us he got the key of a house his boss built. It was a completely furnished villa, ready to be sold. It wasn’t sold yet, so we could stay there for the night. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. And I was sure I was dreaming when we arrived at the villa. It was a castle. There was a mini-bar (we could drink all the booze we wanted), there was an elevator in the house, and several Jacuzzi’s. So when everybody was getting drunk on the balcony, I took a nice long bath. Life doesn’t get any better than

Day 8: Friday July 13
Delray Beach, Florida @ Backbone Music
I woke up in a huge bed with a smile on my face from ear to ear. I crawled out of bed and looked around if more people were awake. I found Riekus passed out on four chairs, while he has the same villa for his use as we all did. Weird people, those drummers. Anyway, we all know he had a rough night, with a lot of alcohol. And later that night he strangely disappeared with a girl from the Loose Screws store who happened to join us to the villa. They were last seen, going to the toilet, together. They didn’t come out when I went to bed… (and Riekus still isn’t clear about what exactly happened in that bathroom. We don’t know if he doesn’t want to tell us, or if he can’t tell us…)
It was time to pack our stuff and head out. Like more groups of people (and especially when those ‘people’ happen to be punkrock bands) it takes forever to gather everyone and leave. One has to shave, the other one has find his sock, some don’t want to wake up, some simply disappear. And by the time we finally got everyone in the van and take off, it starts to rain like hell in sunny Florida. Within seconds streets are flooded and I feel moist and dirty.
Anyway, Delray Beach was next on the schedule. Delray Beach happened to be a nice cozy beach village for rich middle-upper class folks to
spend their summer. That town happens to be the home of an awesome record store: Backbone Music. And that’s where we played. We arrived and I felt at home right away. There were punk kids hanging out, the first band was setting up the backline inside while some of the audience was going across the records in the store.
We found out that the window in the roof of the trailer was still open. The merch was pretty bad flooded including the flyers and stickers and all the paper material (somehow the 7 inches were saved). In situations like this I tend to lose my patience and simply throw all the shit in the thrash and spit on it. Luckily I’m in a band with Willem who has the patience of a Buddhist monk and was peeling off all the flyers and everything that stuck to each other.
After a quick bite at a great Caribbean restaurant we played a nice set. The heat wasn’t killing us and there were kids who sang along to some of the songs. It was one of those shows that keep sticking in your mind and leave you with a great feeling. It was perfect after the show in St. Augustine.

Day 9: Saturday July 14
Jacksonville, Florida @ The Pitt
Sometimes you have that kinda show. You know what I’m talking about, those shows where you have a strange feeling even before you arrive there. This was one of those shows. We played in The Pitt, and the name says it all… The venue was next to the highway in a row of restaurants and liquor stores. The bar next to the venue was of the same owner and was a typical American bar.
It reminded me of the movie Roadhouse (yep, with that eighties hero-hot stud from Dirty Dancing): neon light, college-football on big screens, and waitresses in hot pants.
The venue was way too big for the bands that were playing that night and there was a fence (!?!?) in front of the stage. First there was a local band that played too long. Up next was the band that would change the tour forever: Baker Act! Three girls and a guy who seriously had a song called ‘Psycho Chick’. I rest my case.
We (Static Radio and Antillectual) both played a short set and after that was the last band, The Explicits. There was no audience. The promoter felt bad for us and gave us 20 bucks extra for gasmoney. He was an awesome dude.
There was no sleeping place so we decided to drive overnight to the next stop Tampa, Florida. And somehow Big Mike got his hands on the Baker Act demo. It became the soundtrack of the tour.

Day 10: Sunday July 15
Tampa, Florida @ Transitions Art Gallery
Waking up in the city or town you’re playing that same night is probably the best thing on tour. It doesn’t happen very often so when it does, you want to get everything out of it! First an easy, relaxing breakfast and than doing stupid touristy things. We didn’t have a chance to swim all tour long so it was about time. And there’s no better place to swim than Florida. Not that the beaches are marvelous, it’s just fucking hot. So six pale punk kids (Big Mike from SRNJ wasn’t coming ‘cause he doesn’t like swimming. Idiot…) are walking over the beach, heading to the water. We jumped in the water and I expected a cold refreshment. It turned out that the water was as warm as a warm shower you take in the winter! What a bummer…
Anyway, you get hungry from swimming and we knew just the right place to go to: Cici’s! It’s an all-you-can-eat pizza place for three-ninety-nine. Heaven on earth. The pizza is disgusting, but I’m not complaining. More for less, that’s the deal! I think we were in there for less than sixty minutes and everyone came out rolling and green. And we still had to play that night…
On the way I saw a lot of shoes, tied together, hanging over the electricity cables. It was told that’s how you know you can buy crack in that street. Maybe it’s bullshit, maybe not. But good to know, for after the show.
So the show was at Tampa Skatepark. Well, in a venue next to it. We had to drive through a lot of streets with shoes hanging there. But fuck it, it was one of the best places we’ve played. Everything was really well arranged. The venue was beautiful. The people were awesome, all bands were great. My mouth fell open when I saw it. This was good after a show like Jacksonville.
We slept in the same house where we slept the other night and people were coming over, having a BBQ, we’re singing drunken campfire songs nobody really knew the words to. And as the night evolved, people were getting more wasted, singing turned into screaming, the lyrics didn’t matter much anymore. Good times. Awesome times.

Day 11: Monday July 16
Gainesville, Florida @ 1982 bar
Do you remember how you would wake when it’s your birthday? How you wake up way too early, how you can’t wait get dressed and run to downstairs? That’s how I felt when I woke up this morning. I just wanted to hop in the van and drive as fast as we could to Gainesville. But of course we were stuck in traffic for over two hours. I’ve never seen it rain that hard. And yes, the window in the ceiling of the trailer was closed this time….
Those who don’t know: Gainesville is the Mecca of the punkrock I love so much. It seems every single band that comes from that fucking village seems to rule in their own way. What Sweden is for Europe, is Gainesville for the USA.
We arrived in Gainesville on time to make a quick stop at the collective info-shop Wayward Council and after that it was time for pizza again. Unfortunately the vegan-pizza was finished so I settled for a nice pasta. Walking to the pizza-place, I noticed that all the people we crossed were attractively sweet and punk. I think you can’t just live in this village. I think you have to pass a test when you want to live in Gainesville. The mayor has 10 questions about Black Flag and Reagan Youth. After that some tough questions concerning Hot Water Music, Radon and Kid Dynamite. Last but not least they’ll test your d.i.y. ethics. If you pass, you can pick up a nice punk suit on your way out and have a nice stay. If you fail, all good. But please settle in the town further down the road ….
When I figured that out, my plate of pasta was finished. I got up to get some coffee and I ran into Christie. I met Christie on the West Coast when I was traveling and now she’s living in Gainesville. Small world, those United States!
We played that night with Dirty Money and Arm The Poor. Both awesome bands! Even more important: awesome kids! I had the feeling I knew these kids forever when we just met up with them.
It was a Monday night but still there were quite some people. Static Radio played their best set I’ve ever seen them play. It gave me goose bumps. After we played, Cam came to the merch stand and bought basically everything we had for sale. He was doing an internship at No Idea records as it turned out . We talked about No Idea of course and he would do a good word for us. Fingers crossed…
We slept at the house most of the guys of Dirty Money were living. Everybody sat down and turned on Saturday night Live. Really not my thing. I fell asleep on a nice bed I just conquered.

Day 12: Tuesday July 17
Lawrenceville, Georgia @ The Treehouse!
Before we left Gainesville, we had to stop by the No Idea (wear-) house. Nice dudes over there and it was cool to see Cam before we left. I really had to do my best not to spend $500,- on records. Everything I was looking for, they had in stock…
Next stop was Lawrenceville. I wasn’t familiar with Lawrenceville. It turned out no one was familiar with Lawrenceville. It was right outside Atlanta and my experience is that shows in small towns can be surprisingly great. Not too many tou
ring bands are stopping by and the scene is really tight and supportive. And the Treehouse was like that. There were a couple of punk kids who just decided to run a venue the way they like it. The venue was open seven days a week and there were shows pretty much everyday. It was too bad for us that the day before there was a big show (with Fucked Up, Verse and Down To Nothing), but nevertheless there were some kids at the show. And they all seemed to have good time and actually sang along to our songs. The people who organized the show were really friendly and we could stay at one of the promoters’ house. He turned out to be a huge Transformers fan. So the rest of the night people had talks and discussions about Transformers, Star Wars, comics, horror-movies and more geek-talk. I always find it amusing and fascinating that there are so many kids in the punk/hardcore-scene who seem to be in to that kinda stuff. Interesting…

Day 13: Wednesday July 18
Greenwood, South Carolina @ 2nd floor east
Again a small town was on our schedule for today, and i was excited to go there. On the trip to Greenwood I realized we were doing really well on this tour. I noticed that kids could really appreciate what we are doing. We had interesting talks and awesome comments on our music and politics. And we were selling a lot of merch. With only a few shows left, there were only a few t-shirts, one full length left and the 7 inches were going fast too. I’m not complaining, i’m not complaining.
Greenwood was an awesome small venue, with a quarter pipe in the back! Ken (the promoter of the show) was typical skatepunk: briljant tattoos, really friendly and everything about the show was well arranged. Ken was calm and relaxed, and was really committed to make his contribution to the diy scene.
When the first band started there were a lot of young kids who were excited to see them play. There was no airco in the little venue and within seconds the heat was almost unbearable. I was wondering if I was going to pass out or puke while playing. Luckily, none of those options happened. The show was intense and fun. And
When we packed everything after the show, Ken told us there was a karaoke-bar. I don’t think I’ve seen everybody hop in the van so fast. Five minutes later we walked into a fancy hotel where in the hotel-bar the karaoke-session was going on. We walked in and knew right away that this was going to be legendary. A couple of forty year olds looked at us a bit strange, there were a couple of thirty year olds who were slowly getting wasted and hitting on twenty year olds. And there was an old guy who took the whole karaoke thing really serious. Really serious. Just like us.
Nights like these are the best. Everybody in the bar will know it from the moment we walk in, kids running and screaming all over the place within a few minutes. We know nobody is pleased with our company, so we have nothing to lose. In those situations, a strange feeling of shamelessness gets a hold of me. I can’t help it. I’m not a bad guy!
Riekus and I decided to do summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams to keep traditions alive. Ken already subscribed us before we knew it, so Riekus started drinking like crazy. I didn’t know the lyrics. I can’t sing. Riekus was getting drunk fast. The night could start. It was going to be a disaster, a tragedy, and an embarrassing performance. Fuck it, it’s not about putting up a good show anyway. What it is about, I don’t know either. Perhaps it’s this urging need to embarrass myself in front of random people. It has something of beauty in it, something self-destructive. Maybe it’s my compensation behavior for not drinking. Who fucking cares…
So after a couple of songs and a lot of drinks, our company turned into this yelling, screaming drunk punk kids who were singing too loud and swearing too much. Some of us did (or something like it) Rod Stewart, Neil Young and we ended the night with the rock-opera of all times: Bohemian Rhapsody by the almighty Queen. There was shouting, spitting, cursing, screaming and dancing. It was the last song of the night, so we muffled to our van, drove to Ken’s place and fell asleep.

Day 14: Thursday July 19
DAY OFF!
We supposed to have show in Durham, North Carolina. But the house where the show would happen had problems with the neighborhood or something. Anyway, we didn’t have a show and decided to drive to the next destination, to the next show. It was a boring day; we’ve seen a lot of the road, ate at a bad Mexican restaurant and had to pay for a motel. It sucked.

Day 15: Friday July 20
Martinsburg, West Virginia @ Boys And Girls Club.
We knew the promoter of this show from our last tour. Matt was famous for his laugh, the sound of his laugh to be precise. Matt looks like the younger brother of Jim Carry. As soon we saw him again and he started laughing, he made my day. Matt is one of the most friendly and helpful people i’ve met on tour. He doesn’t give a shit about fashion or scene points. He is all about the music and is determined to put on great shows. Inspiring as hell for me! Seeing him back again was awesome.
The show itself was fucking great! There were a lot of young kids who came out and just when we were about to play, the cops showed up. Neighbors were complaining or something like that. The cops threatened to shut the show down. I loved it. The whole audience was obviously against the cops and wanted to see us play. As soon as the cops left we started playing and we would continue until they would pull the plug. Everybody was upfront, dancing and singing. We played a short set so Static Radio could play a few tunes too. Eventually the cops never came back but they left some kind of atmosphere. These kids were ready to defend their show, ‘fuck the police’ was written on walls and sang to each other. We felt really punk that day.
After the show we went to Andy’s place, a friend of the Static Radio guys. Bbq was the plan, on the front porch. Some other people came over and it was a great night. There were talks about the phenomenon ‘front porch’, tattoos, (European) beer, Germany, throwing bricks to the cops, riots and armed struggle. i felt at home. These were some of the most hospitable people I’ve met. To give you an example: they had no vegan food in the house. They ordered for me a big pizza without cheese. I insisted to pay for it, but I didn’t get the chance. I really tried, but they wouldn’t let me. Because i was their guest. Incredible.

Day 16: Saturday July 21
Afternoon: Tom's River, New Jersey @ Tom's River Shed.
Evening: New Brunswick, New Jersey @ Court Tavern
Last day of tour. Everybody’s tired. Everybody smells. A perfect day to end the tour with two shows on one day. The afternoon show was in a shed in the backyard of Dan, the singer of One Win Choice. He built the shed with a bunch of his friends to do shows. I’m a fan of Dan for that itself. Unfortunately everything was a bit in a hurry since we had another show in New Brunswick that same night, and we were first on the bill. So that put some pressure on everything.
Static Radio and we played a short set right after each other to make ends meet. The show in the shed was amazing. There were quite some people and it was hot and I played well. After the show we sold the last t-shirts we had. The night before we sold the last copy of the full length. Nice. It was too bad we had to run because I really wanted to hang out with Dan and his friends. But you gotta do what you gotta do… of to New Brunswick.
The evening show was a bit weird. It was a benefit show for someone who was killed in a car accident, right before we went on
tour. It was someone involved in the New Brunswick punk-scene, and the Static Radio guys also knew him pretty well. The money that was raised would go to the family of the person, and the show was a tribute to him. Static Radio was asked to play and the promoter wanted us to play as well.
I didn’t really know what to expect, to be honest. It’s a sad reason to do a show, but I also thought it was a beautiful last goodbye to somebody who was so involved with the music. The place was packed when we arrived. There was a calm and very nice atmosphere. We were about to play first. Before the show I sat down with Willem and we were talking about what to say. We both felt like we wanted to express our respect to the family and friends, and we were honored to play on an occasion like this. We’ve never met the guy, but he was 27 years old when he died. And that’s too young. I mean, here we are, all making plans for the future and what not. His life is over. It’s Sad.
The show was as perfect as it could be. The atmosphere was awesome. Static Radio played so good it gave me goose bumps. I was thrilled to have a last show of tour like this.

Day 17: Sunday July 22
New Brunswick/ JFK Airport (NYC)
The end of tour was there, and it left us with satisfied feeling and a smile on our faces from ear to ear. On the day of departure we took a dip in a pool which was in Melissa’s (singer Mike’s girlfriend) backyard and we had all the time to pack everything.
The tour was awesome. The reactions of the audiences were incredible, the sale of the merch was too much. We’ve met up with so many old friends, and we’ve made so many new friends. We got a new hero by the name of Louis CK. We’ve learned Americans are not too good in estimating the time it takes to get from point A to point B. We listened to so many new, great bands. All reasons to go back as soon as possible!