Antillectual

Dear followers, here’s another update about our tour. We played one more show in Portugal, had a day off and played two shows in Northern Spain / Basque country. If you’re not asleep yet, read it here! Doei doei!

Sunday February 7th 2010 – Porto, Portugal
We were pretty late in Porto, but in time to unload and build up the stuff. We met with promoter Ivo, who just started to book shows in Porto again. There were four bands playing. I forgot some names, but I really liked the voice of the singer of the first band. As third played Mr. Myagi, that reminded me of Dutch band Citizens Patrol. Thrash! We had some difficulties with the sound and feedbacking stuff. Anyway, guess we played pretty decent. After the show we had great dinner at Ivo’s place. We drank some exclusive wine and of course Port wine. We had a good night sleep and left the next morning for Oviedo, because we could sleep somewhere near the venue of the next show.

Monday February 8th 2010 – Day off @ La Felguera, Spain
Holy shit, what a hellride! We had to drive only 500 kilometers, but we didn’t expect the Portugese and Spanish Himalaya. There were parts that we could only drive 30 or 40 kilometers per hour. We had to be in La Felguera at 8 PM, but we were there after 10 PM. Frodo and Patxi were so nice to wait for us. We got some food, drank Maredsous beer from Belgium and watched This Is Spinal Tap. Damn, I gotta modify my amp so it can go to 11. Next morning, we were picked up by Patxi to go to the gym!

Tuesday February 9th 2010 – Oviedo, Spain
Patxi’s dad was friends with the owner of the gym and arranged that we could take a shower for free. You really get to know eachother in the shower. I dropped Riekus’ soap. Dunno who picked it up though. After some coffees, beers and cokes at the Irish Pub we left for the venue. Got a perfect parking spot and entered a beautiful venue. Too bad they had shirry Dutch beers. We skipped the Heineken and gave Marnix a bottle of Buckler. Is that shit still around? Je zuipt of je zuipt niet! The show was opened by Mr. Lafleur, with Patxi on vocals. I really liked the melodic punkrock stuff. Nice NOFX and Propagandhi covers were played, sweet! As second was Threewordname. I really liked them too! They played more experimental punkrock. Great band! I think people enjoyed our show, so that was nice. Unfortunately we had to stop early so we had to skip some songs. After the show we had some short conversations. Actually there was a guy from Allentown, USA that saw Antillectual before. Discussed some politics, but it was also time to load the van again and leave for the sleepingplace. We were sleeping at a studio, where Willem found an LP called “Als je haar maar goed zat” and bought it. Watch out eBay!

Wednesday February 10th 2010 – Pasaia / Trinxterpe, Basque Country (the Spanish part)
We left the next day for Basque country. Never been there before, so I was looking forward to go there. People from Ovideo said the drive would be without mountains, well, for us Dutch these were mountains! The venue, Sala Mogambo turned out to be a great place! Too bad we had to carry all stuff up the stairs. At the show, I met again with Alaska Pipeline. I played with them with my old band in Portsmouth, UK. On the bill was also Curasan, who played instrumental postrock stuff. I missed their first half, cause I was eathing amazing potato soup and delicious couscous. Alaska Pipeline played a great show, but we were even more impressed by their artwork and screenprints. Although we had some problems with the snare and strings, we played pretty okay I guess. There were still a lot of people on a Wednesday. Even after we accidently insulted them, by speaking Spanish, speaking English, calling them San Sebastian. Sorry!
After the show we had a couple of beers and had good times with people that were still around. When the bar closed, we traded some Smash The Statues vinyl and tapes for more beer. No Dr. Pepper. When everybody left, we decided to get some sleep. We could sleep at the venue, which was great. Next morning we got some breakfast, loaded the van and took off for Bayonne. Did I mention it was snowing in Basque country? Dammit!