Antillectual

The second part of the tour has surely begun! The first show with Boysetsfire and Letlive was on a huge boat in the Donau in Budapest. Really cool show, playing after Deez Nuts who were last minute added to the lineup. At the second show in Poland there were two local bands playing so we were playing 3rd in front of quite some people again, nice! Good responses, but we had to get used to the different dimensions of the show and the sound in Poland didn’t work in our advantage.

Even though the show with BSF and Letlive in Prague was canceled we got an alternative show offered. We played one of the coolest venues, in one of the coolest locations ever: a café selling vegan burgers in the middle of Pankrac Park in Prague. Benches outside, a front porch at the entrance. The place was packed with 40 people. Different dimensions, great evening though! I hope the strike and blockades helped the workers to get what they deserve, it didn’t affect our movements at all. The next day was going to be hard. 2 shows on 1 day, no shower the next morning. Good times. The first show was a festival in a small town in the Czech Republic, which wasn’t too crowded, but nice. 12 year olds buying our shirts. The second show a completely packed show in Zwiesel, where we had been before and that showed. And again a lot of young kids, there is a future and it is bright!

Last night we played Leipzig, the biggest show in Germany and sold out, 1000+ people. And Conne Island, what a venue! Including a nice skatepark outside, food grills in front of the venue and a nice biergarten. It was already quite full when we started playing and the crowd apparently enjoyed us and vice versa. Today we have our first and last off day of tour and tomorrow the third part of tour starts: a non-stop run of shows with BSF and LL; no more off days or shows on our own. But first: BBQ at Hotel Kötti in Regensburg!

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I’m typing this down on our way from Austria to Budapest. Yesterday we played Wiener Neustadt, the last show “on our own”, without Boysetsfire and Letlive. It was very nice to see a lot of familiar faces and longtime friends before we enter the realm of anonymous crowds, dealing with a tour manager and people only waiting to see BSF. On the other hand, we have been looking forward to this a long time, so we can’t wait to start this second chapter of the tour. We are very curious what to expect, whether the people will be interested in us or not and how touring in a “less-DIY-way” is. It might not be too different; yesterday we got a last minute email the Prague show has been canceled. Happens to the best apparently. And one advantage of our own “DIY community”: we managed to get a new show (on our own, not with BSF) on that same evening, at Cafe na P?l Cesty, in Prague. Below the statement from booker and venue:

“We have bad news. Unfortunately we have to cancel BOYSETSFIRE´s Prague show that was supposed to happen on Thursday, June 16th, due to a massive strike happening there that day. Not only will there not be any public transport, but also blockades of the main roads, so it would be questionable if the bands would even get into the city or people to the show. According to a news report they´re expecting the city to be totally paralyzed. We´re really sorry about this.”

Torn between solidarity with the workers, ignorance on getting through Prague and the eager to play we decided to try to go to Prague and play. No Boysetsfire, but free entrance/donation instead. See for yourself.

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Tomorrow we will leave for our longest run of shows through Europe. 24 shows in 24 days, going to Hungary for the first time. Our excitement is simply un-expressible. We hope to see you at one of the shows; either our own, or supporting Boysetsfire and Letlive.

Some people have been complaining we don’t do enough shows in our own area. So the last thing we will do before we leave for a while, is announce a coming-back-show in Nijmegen on July 18. Five years after our first official show with Riekus at de-Affaire (aka de Zomerfeesten) in Nijmegen, we will return at de Valkhof again. It’s a free outdoor festival and the weather is gonna be ace (we arranged that too), so no excuses not to show up!

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Last week we returned from a very impressive trip to Russia. We played 7  shows spread out over the western part of Russia. I wrote a little report of the trip, find it here. After the trip we had 2 awesome shows with Iron Chic, for now we have some time off. Tim is doing a solo tour, albeit with a band. Time for Riekus and me to finally get our administration up to date, work on new songs and of course prepare the shit out of our upcoming tour with Boy Sets Fire. We are still looking for shows in Germany on June 8, 12, 17 and 19. Please get in touch if you can help us out! Our next show will be in Harlingen on May 29. In the mean time, check out our new T-shirt design in the webstore.

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This weekend the Groezrock festival will take place in Belgium. Despite the fact that we are not on the official line up (booh!), the 3 of us will be at the festival. We hope to see a lot of friends from all over Europe/the world and have a talk and drink together. Our list of recommendation for this year:

Tim and Willem will play an acoustic set at the Acoustic Punk Meeting at the camping site on Friday night together with Sweet Empire, 7yearsbadluck, Bad Ideas and many many more.

Our friends from Astpai will be playing the MacBeth stage (the one we played last year) on Saturday the 23rd at 13.50h. This stage is backlined by our friends at Just Like Your Mom, Toursupport. Come and support!

The merchandise market will host a lot of our friends:
Typewriter Distro (The Books!)
Shield Recordings (our Benelux label)
Effervescence Records (our French label)
No Reason Records (our Italian label)
I guess you can even buy some of our commodities over there …

In support of the European scene, consider “billboarding” your favorite European band (or us, and we’ll get you a drink!) on your T-shirt at the festival. The Gaslight Anthem and Pennywise don’t need the attention … You can find us wearing Rentokill, In-sane and the Living Daylights shirts.

See you there!

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