Antillectual

Our trip started in a rather unorganized fashion: we almost missed our flight from Düsseldorf. Don’t ask how, but we heard our names being called over the speakers on the airport: “mr Ten Haaf, Heijmans and Van Montfort, you are delaying your flight”. Pretty strange, but we made it by a close call and besides that we could skip the whole waiting around at the airport. Win-win situation. Also, we had to wait for Riekus a little longer because he had a leatherman somewhere in his bag and they don’t like small heavy iron objects with a knife in airports.

Arriving in Greece was pretty nice for us: 19 degrees and some sun is better than the icy, windy, rainy weather we had left behind in the Netherlands. The first night we were invited to play a sort of secret show for a smaller audience in a rehearsal studio. It was small and intense and extremely warm but very cool to play there. Jack from Despite Everything (great band!) recorded the whole show with his studio-gear. I have no idea how we must have sounded (loud as always I guess) but I was having a cold and Willem was recovering from a cold. All in all we had a great evening on our first friday night ever in Greece.

On saturday, our host Apostolis’ roommate Drossos (“even for Greeks it’s a weird name” he said) showed us around Athens. It’s nice as a tourist to see the ancient Greek parts of Athens. It’s hard to figure out how heavy ass it must have been to make such structures without all the possibilities and heavy constructions stuff we use these days to build things. What’s strange to see for me as a european in another european country was all the police walking around all day and night. It sometimes gave me a feeling of discomfort being there. Of course there is a lot going on about politics and the eurocrisis but I can understand that a lot of young people don’t like all the police walking through their city fully armed. It just gives you a feeling of being uncomfortably ‘safe’ sometimes..

The show in Athene went well on saturday night: we had a great time playing and meeting a lot of new people and for me personally seeing new bands. Then sunday morning we had to travel to our show in Volos, but to be honest (and we also told the audience later on) we had no idea where and what Volos was. So Riekus got his macbook out, ran Volos through wikipedia and google maps and SHABAM we knew what to expect from the city.

I believe it was a 4 hour drive from Athens to Volos. Sitting in the van with Wish Upon A Star from Athens, we got the extra touring guide information about what we were seeing from the roads we were on (and holy shit do Greek people talk loud!).

The show in Volos went well. I actually heard from some people that they liked the show in Volos most. It’s always tough for me as a musician to compare shows with each other but maybe they were right. After all, the show felt good and I was not feeling so sick anymore in Volos. So that was Volos. One thing I will never forget was the ENORMOUS teddybear at the sleeping place in Volos.

So that was that! Back to Athens airport on monday morning and trying to get some sleep in the plane. No flights were delayed this time. A big Thank You goes out to Apostolis for inviting us and putting up 3 shows for us! I’m very grateful for the possibilities we got for playing over there and hopefully we can go back to Greece another time soon.

Pictures or it didn’t happen!

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When I was 13 de Heideroosjes were maybe the first band I saw playing live. They are from the same region I grew up in. It made a big impression. I had no idea what to do and learn at the time, so I picked up playing guitar as a hobby. In my first band there was a guitar player who played better so I switched to bass. Around the same time I also started doing vocals in another band. When HR released their album Fast Forward, they asked my band (No wisdom at that time) to play 3 shows with them. That was a good learning school and cool of them to invite us to play shows in bigger venues at the time. Now, after 10 years, I will be playing with them again on a few of their goodbye shows. A big coincidence for me but cool again. If it was not for this band I would not be playing bass and maybe not even be playing in Antillectual right now.

So maybe I can’t change the world but you can influence a lot of people with music.

At the show on this poster I made a stage-dive during the support act. I bounced on the floor and my knee was all swollen. I made it through the evening, but the next morning my parents had to call a doctor because I couldn’t move my leg anymore. An ambulance had to take me to the hospital . My knee was bigger than a orange! They ended up having to take some fluids and blood out of my knee. Everything turned out OK, but sometimes I still have the idea my left knee is weaker than my right knee.

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