Antillectual

Trigger warning! If you’ve been following us for a while, you might feel old reading or watching this:

Check the announcement video!

Today, January 13, 2026, we are celebrating our 25th birthday! Twenty five years of Antillectual sounds crazy, especially since this band started as some friends with hardly any musical experience, ambition or talent. We will be celebrating our anniversary throughout all of 2026 with a lot of special events like throwbacks, tours, a new album and the publication of an actual book, how intellectual!

Pinpointing the start of this band is very arbitrary. We started rehearsing sometime in 1999, consolidated a lineup sometime in 2000 and even did our first demo that year. Over the years we evolved as a band, changed our approach and had many lineup changes. Nonetheless it’s a fact that we’ve been playing shows for twenty-fucking-five years… time to celebrate!

Play Live

In 25 years we have played 1200 shows, so it only makes sense that we are going to play some more to celebrate our anniversary! Starting with the second part of our Dutch tour promoting the ANTILLECTUEEL EP, followed by playing Pouzza Fest and a Canadian tour around it, which we will announce in the next weeks.

Jan 29 Haarlem, Patronaat. w/ Third Ego, Rites
Feb 13 Dordrecht, Bibelot. w/ Skroetbalg, Bovendanen
Mar 13 Rotterdam, Voigt. w/ Video Store, De Dikke Kees
Apr 01 Arnhem, Willemeen. w/ All Dogs Go To Heaven
Apr 09 Hoofddorp, Cpunt. w/ Pussy Riot
Apr 11 Zwolle, Skroetfest. w/ Skroetbalg, March, State Power a.o.
May 15 CA Montreal, Pouzza Fest. w/ Pup, Buzzcocks, Makewar, Krang, Not Scientists and many others!

Info & tickets via our site. Many more dates to come…

Release Music

In 2026 we will also release a new full length album, featuring previously released singles “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”, “Post Teens” and 8-10 new songs. All in English, maak je geen zorgen! Leading up to the release of the album we will release a handful of new singles.

Publish A Book

Something that we didn’t know was on our bucket list: creating a book! After 25 years of being a band, releasing music and being on the road it’s time to share some stories that aren’t suitable for social media or newsletters. Throughout the year we will publish excerpts – Ox Fanzine already gave a sneaky preview in issue 182 – and we will give you more details on what you can expect before starting the pre-order. Here’s a tiny hint: plenty of words, unseen illustrations and barely heard music.

TL;DR? Happy birthday to us!

That’s it for now, thanks for loyally reading our newsletter in times of unreliable social media! We love hearing from you, so don’t be shy and hit reply! In the next episode we’ll share the dates of our Canadian tour…

Take care! Ben, Riekus & Willem

Missed our previous newsletter? Find it here!

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Leftist and centrist segments of Dutch society in general and we as a band are still in shock over the election results. Despite its liberal image the Netherlands have always been a right-wing leaning country. But an extreme right party winning the national elections is something that is still hard to imagine, let alone come to terms with (which we won’t!).

A lot of protests have already been organized and many more will follow. People are calling to bring together the majority of Dutch people that did not vote for Wilders/PVV. To those with perspectives that go against everything Wilders/PVV stand for, or to people feeling unwelcome because of Wilders/PVV winning the election: you are not alone in this, we got you, let’s do this together!

Geert Wilders and the PVV have been a subject since our anti-anti-Muslim song The New Jew for 2010’s Start From Scratch. Heads You Win, Tails We Lose was written after Trump and Brexit happened, but feels relevant during this post election hangover. Support Bands is an audio version of an emotional support animal; music to reinforce those with political/moral viewpoints that aren’t necessarily understood by people around them. Last week’s disaster will probably result in new songs and charity shows for those that now need additional help.

These stickers have been on my guitar since 2010. I thought about removing them every time I cleaned my guitar. I never did, realizing they were still relevant. The current one will remain on my guitar and we will make more, until they become irrelevant…

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We had an incredible time at Die Börse in Wuppertal! Our first “post-pandemic” show, with our new bass player Ben!

As you could have read in our latest newsletter Toon decided to leave the band right before the pandemic. We’re incredibly thankful for his dedication during the 5 years he was with us and we wish him all the best with his musical endeavors!

During the downtime we had plenty of time to think about what to do. Instead of looking for one and one bass player only, we decided to build an “army of bass players”.

This makes it easier for us as a band to be flexible and doesn’t require people to cancel their own lives when helping us out. At the moment Gijs (Zero Zero Zero, Tenement Kids) and Ben (Dependent) are jumping in.

The spirit is high, we’re very excited to play with them, come welcome them at the upcoming shows!

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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

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You might be checking our website because you’re not active on social media. If so, we now have an even easier way of keeping you up to date: whatsapp updates! You will receive important updates instantly on your phone, maximum 1 per month. We’ll also let you know when we play a show in your area.

What to do to join? There 3 options:
– Visit bit.ly/antillectualwhatsapp to subscribe
– Or add +31651708169 to your contacts and send us a message with your name, city, country
– Or scan the QR-code below

Our updates are spam free and free of charge. You can unsubscribe any time by sending us “Get me out of here!”, and we will delete your contact.

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