Antillectual

Finally it’s here! Our adventures on the road when we went to the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium and France a month ago. Read this tour report and it feels like you were there with us!

ANTILLECTUAL – TOUR REPORT – APRIL & MAY 2010

Ever heard of a band called High Five Drive from Canada? We did! These guys were aboot to tour Europe and kind enough to ask us to do a part of their tour together with us. It was supposed to be the last 8 dates of the tour, but a last minute addition to the MacBeth stage at the Groezrock festival in Belgium made it 9 days for both us and H5D. This year’s Groezrock had amazing bands on the bill like Face To Face, Bad Religion, Strike Anywhere, Sum 41, 88 Fingers Louie, Static Radio, The Bronx and a million more awesome bands. We all left for Groezrock on Friday and would hook up with H5D on Saturday. The travelparty consists of 9 people. The Canadian part we’re talking aboot are Greg, Marty, Steve the bassplayer, Steve the drummer and Randy. We are as usual Willem, Riekus and me. We brought our buddy Boris from This Routine Is Hell, to drink our beers and drive us safely on the wrong side of the road.

Friday the 23rd of April

Boris, Willem and Riekus took the van together with some Tarrels to Meerhout, while I was travelling with the Breda party crew. After arriving at Groezrock, we set up a tent at the camping and went to see great shows by Banner Pilot and Face To Face. Too bad the crowd at the Face To Face show was more looking for a fight than enjoying one of my favourite bands. Guess they needed some action after the Agnostic Front show was over. Anyway, Face To Face gave a brilliant show! Lucky for him, Riekus managed to snag a backstage pass and watched them from the side of the stage. Asshole! Back on the camping it turned out to be extremely cold. Ofcourse I forgot my jacket, good job! Drank a few beers and went to sleep early. Tomorrow the first show of the tour would take place.

Saturday the 24th of April @ Groezrock, Meerhout, Belgium.

Waking up was not that hard. Still a lot of drunk people screaming and after an arctic night the sun made the tent as hot as hell. I got up and walked to the van to get our equipment to the festival. Next to our little stage I heard a band play Gangster’s Paradise by Coolio. Must have been the worst cover ever. Even worse than the Final Countdown that’s on Youtube. Anyway, we played a short set containing some old and new songs and people seemed to enjoy. I was trying to show my football skills on stage and I kicked the monitor, which resulted in walking like a crippled for the rest of the day. After our show I’ve been watching awesome shows by Strike Anywhere and The Bronx. Sum 41 was a bit dissapointing and I missed 88 Fingers and Static Radio while paying a visit to the first aid. Got some bruised bones in my foot. Good start of the tour. While I was watching Sum 41, I missed High Five Drive, but I would get enough chances the next few days. Without watching bands like Bad Religion and Pennywise, I went to bed. Giving my foot some rest and trying to get some sleep. The next day we had to leave at 9 AM to catch the ferry to the UK.

(picture by imagehunters.eu)

Sunday the 25th of April @ Ryan’s Bar, London, UK

We were told that PJ Bond (unfortunately J is not for James) needed a ride to the UK, so we decided he could join us. He turned out to be a real nice guy who had been travelling around the globe for more than a year: from the USA to the UK, to India, mainland Europe and now on his way to the UK and back home, he played shows with his acoustic guitar where he could. Together we went to the house of Greg, the promoter of the show. Greg and his girlfriend cooked us wonderful food. Tonight we played with Apologies, I Have None, an awesome band that really reminded me of old Against Me! Me like! Really last minute, PJ Bond was added to the show too. Despite some tuning problems, PJ played some nice songs. It was nice to hear the man sing, who was in our van the whole day. Today was my first chance to see High Five Drive live. Man did they rock! I was really impressed by their playing skills and the way they tore up the place.
The next morning, a couple of us went shopping for breakfast. A real English one! We got baked beans, vegan hashbrowns and Linda McCartney vegan sausages. They were the best I ever had!

Monday the 26th of April @ The Swan With The Two Necks, Macclesfield, UK

Tonight, the show was set up by Dave from Winnipeg, who turned out to be native English and had never been in Winnipeg before. Alright! We entered the bar and set up our gear. Tonight we played with Dave’s band, The Shuffle. They played a really nice set of punkrock! We were up next and H5D played last. We decided to change the headliner each night and today was their turn. After the show we got a crate of beer from the bar, which was really appreciated! Too bad I had to drive. We discovered the bar had an online stream juebox that actually had some of our records. That was kinda strange. Anyway, we heard enough of ourselves, so Boris and I decided that Bon Jovi was worth a quid. We gave love a bad name!
Tonights sleepingplace was at Claire, who lived in a mountain village nearby. The nice drive uphill resulted in a beautiful view the next day. We spent the night having some drinks, getting lost in the big house and by the time I went to sleep, people started watching a movie I can’t remember. When I woke up, the movie was turned on again. We thought it was time to leave, so we loaded the van and took off. Next stop: Lincoln.

Tuesday the 27th of April @ The Library Bar, Lincoln

Last year, a show of my old band in Lincoln got cancelled a day before departure to the UK, so I was kinda anxious, but I know that Matt from The Living Daylights did our show today, a real nice guy! I saw Matt at Groezrock, but we didn’t have the time to chat, so we could catch up a little bit this time. The first two bands played some good rock and punrocktunes, but I forgot their names, sorry! During our set, there were some people singing along, that’s always nice! At the show, all the guys in The Living Daylights were there and it was good to see them again. Sam, their old singer had his birthday, which resulted in a drunk Sam and friends, which resulted in massive human piramides and licking beer off the floor. Strange guys, those English.
We decided to skip the after party and left for Matt’s house. Matt gave us some toast and some whiskey. Yeah! When the High Five Drive guys arrived after their visit to a bar, we all went to sleep. The next morning we woke up to the sound of The Living Daylights preparing for their rehearsal in Matt’s house. We could see and hear their new bassplayer/singer and their new songs. They really blew me away. Looking forward to the new record. After some breakfast and coffee we left for Manchester.

Wednesday the 28th of April @ Retro Bar, Manchester

We arrived in Manchester at the Retro Bar. I was hoping for a place like “Derrick”, the ’70’s, ’80’s and ’90’s disco I always go to in my home town. This place was different, but a nice venue in the basement. Tonight was my turn to drive again, so I drank some orange juices. While we were playing Raisedfistfuckyou, our anthem aboot homophobia, I was screaming from the top of my lungs and suddenly Dave from Winnipeg ran to me and started kissing me. Think I was so in shock that I didn’t hit any right notes anymore. I must admit he’s a great kisser though! Luckily for us, it turned out we were sleeping at Dave’s place in the worst neighbourhood of Manchester. We parked the van safe behind the guarded gates of a students appartment. We hung out at Dave’s place with Claire and Adam and James from Leagues Apart. These guys told us some good things to piss off Jordy, the promoter of tomorrow’s show in Peterborough.

Thursday the 29th of April @ Club Revolution, Peterborough

We arrived in Peterborough pretty late. Two reasons: the weather started to be English for the first time, raining like hell. The second: Marty Five Drive forgot his laptop, so we had to pick it up before we left Manchester. The show tonight had Andrew on the bill, a singer songwriter who sounded really good! The Alkaline Trio cover was a nice surprise. Next up was Sammy’s Fatal Mistake, the band of Jordy, the promoter. During our show I called Jordy a Newcastle United supporter, which resulted in some angry on stage phonecalls to Adam of Leagues Apart. I also mentioned his love for Sonic Boom Six which resulted in me being told to sleep outside that night. Fortunately we discovered we both loved “I’m Alan Partridge”, so I was allowed to sleep inside again. After our last UK show this tour, High Five Drive ripped again on their last UK show as well. During the show, I met Jonesy again, supporting the good cause for Sea Shepherd. We all went to Jordy’s place, had some drinks and watched an episode of Alan Patrridge. We didn’t get much sleep, the next morning we had to catch the ferry and drive through 4 countries on our way to Naaldwijk, The Netherlands.

Friday the 30th of April @ De Flaat, Naaldwijk

We woke up damn early and drove off. On our way to Dover, I decided to play Dookie by Green Day. Boris didn’t recognize it and when we told him what it was, he showed his disappreciation. Klootzak! On the ferry, we ended up in a bumpy boatride. I was hoping for an iceberg, but with no Kate Winslet around, it wouldn’t make sense.
When we arrived in Naaldwijk, we headed for the pizzeria, first pizza on tour! Unfortuantely we missed the first band, but when we came back, Sweet Empire just kicked off for their set of punkrock. These guys are getting better and better! After them it was up to Drunktank, with their skatepunk with some metal riffs. Same goes for these guys: better and better each time. Think we played a decent set and after us, High Five Drive nailed it again. This time they played an encore, The Trooper by Maiden, yeah!\m/
After the show, we drove to Breda instead of partying with the Drunktank and H5D guys. After a nice breakfast and a sweet kiss goodbye, we continued our tour. Next stop: Oostende.

Saturday the 1st of May @ OHK, Oostende

Oostende, home of Just Lick Your Mom. Last time I played Oostende, everything smelled like fish. This time was better! On tonight’s show was Go Rampage from Germany. I saw these guys in Utrecht before and I must say I was quite impressed by them. We played second and there were people singing and screaming along to our songs. It’s always nice when that happens! High Five Drive soundchecked with some of our songs, even from our new record that is not out yet. WTF? Guess Steve-O could play “Every Combat Is A Mortal Combat” better than me…
Hanging out at the merch after the show resulted in conversations in West-Flemmish aboot football. I sneaked out and left Boris with the Belgian guy. When we took off, we went to Casa Lick Your Mom, were Maureen gave us vegan paaseitjes and gave me a vegan Cornetto. Like! We found out that Etjen and Maureen’s dog is called “Parking prohibited” in Welsh. Good name for a dog. When we woke up, Etjen was already home from driving other bands around and it was nice to see him again. We left Etjen and Maureen and drove off to the last show of our tour in Le Havre, France, where I would finally meet the people behind the long awaited no-pants-party!

Sunday the 2nd of May @ MacDaid’s, Le Havre

When we arrived in Le Havre, the Canadians were already there. We got some help with unloading the van from them, Bertrand and the Rude Boys, the opening band of the evening. They played some nice punkrock and I especially liked their cover of American Jesus by Bad Religion with the drummers father on vocals. He had his birthday and this was a nice present! We decided to play second, bcause it was H5D’s last show in Europe. A lot of people came out to the show on a Sunday, awesome! People seemed to enjoy our set and luckily everybody stuck around for H5D, who played an amazing set again. Best part was some Canadian guys screaming along to our The Dog Ate It and some of us scream along to their Vengeance Theme. Bertrand bought a bottle of whisky and we collectively drank it, sharing the love with H5D on stage. Think that was a good start for the rest of the evening.

We all went to Bertrand’s place where we would spend the night. During the no-pants-party (I finally attended one) Riekus got married to Greg and changed his name to Riekus Rekus. After some good kissing (who wouldn’t want to kiss that moustache!) and one hell of a good party, I went to sleep. The next day we woke up pretty early, woke up the others who were still in some kind of a coma, said Bertrand ‘au revoir’ and left for Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport. Seeing the terminals multiple times, we dropped off Greg, Steve-O, Marty, Steve and Randy. Too bad we had to part in a few seconds but we continued our way home with our van and their car. The toll free way took us a few weeks to get home, but finally we made it. We had a full blast of a tour together with those wonderful guys. Seriously, I would do it again tomorrow if I had the chance.

Thanks go out to everyone involved in booking this tour, especially Joe Peter and all promoters. We also thank Randy and the H5D boys and of course Boris “Kankerband” Tarrel for driving us around, selling our merch and drinking our beer. You’re a sweetie!

Tom

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We started 2010 with a tour to Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. We left at the end of January and came back on Valentines day. On this tour, we brought Dutch punkrock reporter Marnix and Belgian Sabam-friend Petit, a nice travelparty! As always, we met lots of new people and saw some old friends again, we had amazing food, troubles with the cops, hellrides, expensive tollways, beautiful landscapes, 18 degrees centigrade in Portugal, snowstorms in Basque country and most of all, good times! If you want to know what we did from day to day, here’s our tourreport! Hope you enjoy!

Fri. January 29th 2010 – Herselt, Belgium

Tour kickoff today at the Antillectual house in Nijmegen. I missed my train in Utrecht and when I arrived, the backline was already in the van. Marnix, who is joining us this tour was already there after getting lost in the town where he lives. Luckily we have a GPS this tour. We left for Herselt and arrived pretty early. Other bands this night were Timmy Hillfire, The Ignored and Second Base. In Herselt we hooked up with Petit, who is also tagging along on tour. We had great food made by Petit’s madamme, Karen. The West-Flemmish guys in The Ignored surprised me with New Noise, a Refused cover. Second base played some new songs that were really good. We drank some Juupkes and Orvallekes and left the same night because we had a 1000 kilometers to go to the next show.

The plan was to drive to a hotel South of Paris, catch some sleep and hit the road the next morning. When we passed the first peage, Petit found a nice way to thank the French. We needed to lose weight anyway. After midnight traffic jams, snowstorms Parisienne and a Hors Categorie drive to the hotel, we managed to get some sleep.

Sat. January 30th 2010 – Fumel, France

On our way to the South, we started with nice weather that changed into snowstorms again. If we wanted snow, we would tour Sörmland, Sweden! Why did we bring swimshorts anyway? We arrived at the venue and the other bands, Open Nightmare and Ivan Rebroff’s Armpits were already there. We had great food and had some nice conversations. The show was at Pavilion 108, a pretty big venue. The other bands played pretty well, especially Ivan Rebroffs Armpits blew me away. Too bad their drummer didn’t play with dinosaur bones. After the show we drank a couple of beers and went to the hotel, had another drink and went to sleep. Guess we were tired after a long day in the van. After breakfast, we drove to Toulouse, enjoy the beautiful French landscape. We went to Pierro’s place and again time for some relaxing.

Sun. January 31st 2010 – Toulouse, France

We went to the venue, a pretty new squat. Too bad I stepped in a dog turd. Too good, Marnix stepped in one too! Again, we had a great dinner. First band was Monsieurs de Fursac. They played instrumental noisy rock. Like! Second was Ivan Rebroff’s Armpits again. I was hanging out at the merch so I couldn’t see the show, but I guess they rocked as hard as in Fumel. Great band! Before our show, we were asked to play Ordinary, but I don’t know how to play it. Sorry Toulouse, next time I’ll be able to play it! Think we played a decent show. I saw people singing along, that’s always nice to see. During the evening, Marnix was attacked by a drunk French woman. Something with biting I guess. Kinky!

After the show we drove back to Pierro’s house and had a good sleep. Lovely breakfast in the morning and excellent coffee and tee. I can imagine why the people in our tourcrew that have been there before called this their second home. We left, got some gas, got some food and took off for Torelló, close to Barcelona. Weather seems good outside of the van. Have to get my swimshorts out of the bag! Yeah!

Mon. February 1st 2010 – Torelló, Spain

Driving thru the beautiful landscape, we found our way to Torelló pretty easy. The way to the venue was harder. We drove down some muddy roads, watched some episodes of the Dutch New Kids show and managed to find the way to the venue. This night we were playing together with our buddies in This Routine Is Hell. Show was cool. I didn’t expect that many people on a Monday, so that’s awesome! This Routine Is Hell played a lot of songs from their new record. Like! Poke! We tried some new songs too, worked out pretty okay I guess. Think the old songs were also pretty new for the crowd. After the show we went to Toni’s house. Stole the internet of the neighbours and some guys went to a bar. At night, Boris Tarrel stepped on my hamstring, ouch! Then he started snorring really loud. If this continues every night, I might have to think about some punishment. After saying goodbye to the house and the evil cats (the cats had discovered the whole house in shit the day before we were supposed to sleep there, nice!), we continued our way to Zaragoza.

Tue. February 2nd 2010 – Zaragoza, Spain

We arrived at the venue in Zaragoza and it turned out to be some hardrockbar. We heard that Adhesive and Hot Water Music played there too. We met with Luis, the promoter and his wife, some of the most friendly people I ever met. Not only did they book the show, they gave us food, a place to sleep but they also hosted our friends in This Routine Is Hell that had a day off. The show was opened by a new band called Skeptiks. These girls played some nice punkrocktunes. Only two bands on the bill tonight. At midnight I turned 28, eh… 18 and Bon Jovi sang to me while I got a Tequila. Thanks boys!

After the show we went to the sleepingplace. I was sleeping in a room with 3 cats that jumped on me all night. Guess I made some friends. Before we took off, Luis provided me with some good Spanish punkrock music. Got back to the van and left for Madrid.

Wed. February 3rd 2010 – Madrid, Spain

This is Madrid, not Barcelona. In front of the venue we had to wait for the promoter and the owner to show up, so we killed time with the remaining episodes of New Kids, verrekte mongol jonge! This night we would play with This Routine Is Hell again. The people at True Believers did a nice job. Again, great food and a wonderful looking venue with posters of great bands like AC/DC, The Who, Green Day, Ramones and Limp Bizkit. Did I just type that? Anyway, the show was nice, although we encountered some minor problems. Hey, it’s still punkrock! accidently called Madrid Barcelo… Sorry folks! Nab, a kid from Nice who booked us shows on some of our first tours, also showed up.

We loaded the van and drove to the sleepingplace. An awesome house in the outskirts of Madrid. Joris Tarrel destroyed a painting, I got attacked by a ferret, but we had fun. Playing some acoustic songs and went to sleep. Next morning would be early because we had to leave at 10.

Thu. February 4th 2010 – Day Off @ Madrid, Spain

First day off this tour. There are worse places to be on days like these. We took the metro to the city, which turned out to be a little disaster. We checked in, checked out, had to check in again. We didn’t check in enough, got stopped by security and we were only replying with “this is a 10 way ticket!”. Apparently, when you do that enough, it works! Took a little walk in the city centre, got some coffee and met up with Nab again. He took us to a Hare Krshna place. Not really our cup of tea, but they served great vegetarian and vegan food. Sweet! We said goodbye to Nab again and split up. Willem and Petit went for coffee and internet, Riekus, Marnix and me went for the Prado museum. Convinced that there were some Picasso paintings here, Marnix went to the reception and asked where they were. Wrong museum! Major lolz @ Marnix. Ashamed to stand next to him, we left for the Reina Sofia museum. I’m not really into this stuff and I was really amazed by a giant piece of poo with metal in it, the Dali painting of The Face of the Masturbator and some Joop Klepzeiker kinda Picasso cartoon with giant falli. Marnix and Riekus were impressed by the Guernica, some big painting that I could have made when I was 10 years old.

We got some dinner in the city and left for the van. We could sleep the night at Marga’s place but we were unable to park the van, unless we were paying 60 euros. We decided to get a cheap hotel instead. Sorry for the troubles Marga! When we were waiting on a parking space outside of the hotel, we met with the police. Four cars, 8 cops. They searched the van, searched our bodies, checked everying. I’m glad we could keep our pants on at 3 AM outside in the cold winter. There was really no reason for doing this, but I guess we had to respect their authoritaah. The 4 Skins were right after all, Acht Cola Acht Bier. We parked the van at the hotel and caught some sleep. Woke up, took a nice shower and left for Portugal. Never been there before, nice to see some new places!

Fri. February 5th 2010 – Day Off

Unfortunately we didn’t have a show this day, but our friends in This Routine Is Hell are playing in a squat somewhere near Setúbal and we might be able to sleep there as well. First we went into the boring city of Setúbal. Got some pizza, almost got hit by a car with no lights on so I decided to take off with no lights either. Oops! The squat had no address, but we were picked up by the boys in TRIH and went to the show. Don’t ask how we got there, but we managed. Hellrides, yeah! When we arrived, one of the dogs was friendly enough to pee on the van. Obrigado! The show started really late and some of us got some sleep. The rest watched some nice hardcore bands and saw TRIH play an awesome show. These guys get better and better! Late at night, we all went to sleep. Tomorrow LisBoah is the next stop.

Sat. February 6th 2010 – Lisboa & Mouriscas, Portugal

Today is gonna be a tough day. There are two shows, one in Lisboa and one in Mouriscas. We left for a one hour drive to Lisboa and when we arrived at the venue, Marnix realized he forgot his bag with passport, keys and other important stuff. What an ass! We unloaded the Tarrel-van and Marnix and me took it and drove back to Setúbal. Within less than two hours we were back in the city centre of Lisboa. It reminded me of San Fransisco with the hills, the trams, with the Golden Gate bridge and Jesus on the other side of the bay. Oh wait, I never been to SF. The show was organized by Joao of Infected Records, who put out Testimony. This was our last show with This Routine Is Hell on this tour. We played at some old theatre that looked really nice. People seemed to enjoy the show. Albert Fish played after us and released their new record this afternoon. By the time This Routine Is Hell started playing, we had to leave to catch the next show. Waved them goodbye and took off for Mouriscas

When we arrived in Mouriscas we were picked up by Xico, the promoter of tonight’s show. We entered a large community centre and got some spaghetti and letuce. Good food! We were harrassed by the local dorpsgek, but that was kinda funny. First two bands, Shake Shake And Show Me Your Pussy and The Wild Ones played some rokkerol tunes. Sweet! The third band, Defying Control played fast punkrock songs. I thought they were pretty amazing! At the time we started playing, it was really late, but there were still a lot of people that seemed to enjoy the show. Afterwards, a guy said that I screamed like a girl and Riekus didn’t have enough muscles. Thanks dude! I think we gave a million autographs and even Petit and Marnix signed tourposters. Rockstar attitudes among merchguys, pfff! After a quick bite we went to sleep really late. Guess we really needed sleep. Got up and got fresh fruit and home made soup by the grandma of Xico After saying goodbye we got in the van and continued our way to Porto, where we had to be early for another afternoon show.

Sun. 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.

Mon. 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!

Tue. 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!

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C7BD39A00129596A

Wed. 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!

Thu. February 11th 2010 – Bayonne, Basque country (the French part)

Pasaia to Baiona, should be 60 kilometers, so not that long. Luckily we left in time, cause it was snowing, slippery roads and a car crash on the peage highway, meaning: a traffic jam. It took us a couple of hours to get there. When we arrived, we could hang out at Manux’ place. Got some coffee and had some good conversations about punkrock. The show this night was part of a music festival in the city at different locations. We played at bar Embuscade. Sounds like a place for Dutch punkrock! Marnix and Manux got the van to drive it to the street, but they didn’t seem to find the right way. I have been waving for half an hour at the corner of the street and they passed me 3 or 4 times. Aaaaargh! I thought I was blind!

We were supposed to be the only band playing at the bar, but after two and a half song, the police thought that it was one band too much. Again the police showed themselves your best friend! Result, we had to quit. So we decided to get the acoustic guitar from the van and play some acoustic songs. After all, there were people that came for the show and we didn’t want to let the filmcrew of the local Basque TV channel down. Willem and Riekus were used to playing acoustic songs with Yvo. For me it was new, so I focussed on drinking whisky and eating peanuts and do an ocassional vocal harmony. Kinda weird, but fun. We drank some local Basque alcoholic drinks, got our picture taken with the bartenders and went back to Manux’ house, got some food and had a good night sleep.

Fri. February 12th 2010 – La Rochelle, France

Today we were heading north again. The van took us to the beautiful city of La Rochelle. On our way we passed Cognac and since we got used to drink local schnapps, we got some this night! We arrived at Barbarella and saw two showposters for this night. One was the Antillectual tourposter, second was a Burlesque strippers poster. Huh? We went inside, got a beer from the bartender and he confirmed that there was going to be a Burlesque show that night. We got picked up by Antoine from Mel Team Plugs to eat at his place. After the food we were back in time for the first Burlesque show. Imagine you’re in the 50’s with pin-ups. Was weird to see that at the punkrockshow, but I guess there was a double booking. There were two local punkrockbands on the bill and after them, there was another pin-up show. We played as last on the small stage. Willem stood in front, I wanted to do the same, but people were standing in front. I decided to play on stage and during the first song, I fell off. Fail! I got up and continued the rest of the show as if nothing had happened. We got great responses during and after the show, which is always nice. We said goodbye to the rock ‘n roll bar and got back to Antoines house to spend the night. Drank the Cognac, busted the water reservoir in the toilet and went to sleep.

Sat. February 13th 2010 – Brest, France

We got up and took off to Brest, the most western part of France. I did not realise this city is more to the west than the largest part of Wales. We found the venue and met promoter Plume, the singer of Speedball. Unloaded the van, got some cheap gas for the van and had great food. The dessert was a vegan banana kiwi pie. Yummie! Petit sstarted to drink most of the wine and got a little drunk I guess. Firsts band played streetpunk with a couple of more influences. Not really my cup of tea. Speedball played melodic hardcore that reminded me of bands like Bane and O’Hara. Actually, Plume and his outfit reminded us all of Pitter O’Hara. When Riekus sent Pitter a textmessage, he turned out to be in Brest. We hooked him up with a guestlist spot and Pitter was right in time for our show. We played after Last Exit To Brooklyn, who played more modern hardcore. I was really impressed by the amount of people at the show. It’s always nice to play when there are lots of people. I saw some people dancing and we had to play two encores. Didn’t know my old body was able to do that. After the show we said goodbye to Pittter, met another Dutch guy who was a t the show and tried to get away from drunk girls. We slept at a friend of Plume and had to wake up really eraly. Tomorrow was going to be the last day of tour, meaning a 750 kilometer drive to Lille and after Lille the drive home, with stops in Lembeek, Breda and Nijmegen.

Sun. February 14th 2010 – Lille, France

Today was the last day of tour and the trip was tough. First we had to go from Brest to Lille. We drove through Bretagne and Normandy to get to Lille. On our way we past Dinan and Caen, reminding me of bad music. We arrived a little late in Lille, but we were in time for the soundcheck. Shared some backline with Fast Motion and Foolish and the show started almost in time. First band played music that sometimes reminded me of Swedish Smalltown. Like! Foolish was the second band and although the guys played pretty well, I will bever be a fan of ska music. Third was Fast Motion, a band that I really like. It had been a year since I saw them, so it was good to see them again. The guys told me they were going to tour Japan, awesome! We played as last and I guess we were a bit tired from the tour and longing to go home. There were not that much people, but we gave it our best shot. After the show, we quickly loaded the van, got some food and left for Lembeek, Belgium, where Petit lives. We heard horrible stories about the weather forecast and it started to snow when we left. Belgian roads are always bad, but this night they were even worse. We made it to Lembeek, dropped off Petit and continued our way to Breda. I got out there and waved goodbye to Willem, Riekus and Marnix who had to finish the last part to Nijmegen. After 16 days on the road, we were home again. Don’t think this will slow us down, this week has 3 more shows and next week we will be recording our new album. Oh, were also planning new tours. One with High Five Drive from Canada to France, Belgium and the UK and another one through a large part of Europe in spring. See you on the road!

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Wednesday May 20
Eindhoven (Holland)
w/ Never Say Never, Redemption Falls, All For Nothing

We started off the tour in Eindhoven, just like the tour in January. Tonight was in Aloys and we’ve also played there some time ago. There’s a very good Wok-To-Go sort of restaturant which means a lot of food for not a lot of money. Sweet!
Eindhoven is always good for shows and has a good punkrock-scene. However, tonight we were the only punkrock band. The whole evening was pretty divers, and I like that. Never Say Never was a mixture of Old and New School Hardcore with a girl on vocals. Redemption Falls reminded me of nineties hardcore bands with metal influences. And they were playing an old Poison The Well cover on top of that! Awesome!
I wanted to check All for Nothing for quite some time, but I’ve always missed them when they played in my hometown. I was looking forward to see them live. From the first to the last song they were energenic like hell. The girl on vocals had some interesting things to say about ‘the scene’ which I always like.
Our set was okay. I had a good time on stage. People were singing along and were having a good time.
We also met up with Teun in Eindhoven. He would be our driver/ merch-guy for this tour. He had a last minute appointment at the dentist, and I was afraid it was something pretty bad (why else would you go to the dentist in the evening!?). It turned out he had some infection under his teeth, but with some anti-biotica he’d be fine. The dentist adviced him not to go on tour, but Teun wouldn’t be Teun if he didn’t go anyway. Good to have him on board!

Thursday May 21
Göttingen (Germany)
w/ Les Aligned, Malt Liquor Riot

The drive to Göttingen was a bit longer than I thought. But than again, we took it really easy. And I always love driving through the German countryside. We played in the Autonomous Zentrum (AZ) of Göttingen and I guess you can spot all these AZ’s from miles away. You don’t really need GPS or route-description, just look for building completely covered in graffiti.
And this AZ was not any different. Beautiful building, great people, lovely food (homemade falafel!) and a table soccer table. Teun and I are both obsessed with the game, so the only thing we did the whole evening was playing that game. And screaming and yelling at each other of course.
We met up with Les Aligned from Köln, they were on tour with Malt Liquor Riot from the USA. It was good to meet up with our friends again. This was their first tour and everybody was looking a bit tired. They were on the road for almost two weeks and it was a bit hard for them.
I decided I wanted to learn German language (actually, pick from where I left it during the tour in January) so I was trying my best to explain myself in German. I found people just started talking back, in English…
I think I played pretty well this night, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. After the show Riekus was completely overwhelmed by a girl who had her eyes on dutch drummers. I couldn’t find him the rest of the evening. And by the time we had to pack our stuff and leave for the sleepingplace, he stumbled in the door. Drunk. “I’m going with you guyzzz”, he said with a double tongue. He earned so much respect that night for sleeping next to our sweating, stinking bodies.
We slept in two rooms which both were something in between a dirty laundry room and a room to grow weed. They actually had weedplants. And decoration with ganja/ weed on it. And they had puzzles of weird psychedelic illustrations. Oh, and I was sleeping next to the cat litter. I slept fantastic!

Friday May 22
Erfurt (Germany)

Only a short drive to the pretty city Erfurt. We walked around the small allies and found a Bio-Laden (healthfood-store) where they had great vegan spreads. It’s sort of a weird city because everything looks old, but it’s new. I’m not sure, but I think Erfurt was bombed pretty badly in WO2…
We met up with Ace, the promoter of the show. He and his girlfriend made delicious burgers for us, we ate them while we were sitting in a patio in the setting sun. Some of us were drinking beer, others Bionade. Life on tour can be so good.
We rushed to the local punkrock-radio station to give a small interview about life on the raod and we played a couple acoustic songs. It was really nice to do this because the guy who did the radio-show just walked in and asked us if we could come around after we had diner.
The show was not very busy, we were the only band playing and there was a free outdoorfestival in the same city. But still there were some people enjoying the set. Even the local bikers came down to check us out. It was also nice to have time and play a longer set. And there was a tablesoccer, so Teun got his ass beaten again. Ha!

Saturday May 23
Trzebiel (Poland)
w/ Prestissimo208

From Erfurt to Poland, our very first time! Trzebiel was a small village just across the border of Germany. I walked around in the small town and I was impressed by how different the whole atmosphere is.
Our friends Vincent and Sophie traveled all the way from Berlin to see us play. We’d be sleeping at hteir appartment the other days as wel, to spend the days-off in Berlin.
There was one house where they were doing shows and everything was really well arranged. We played with the local punkband and there weren’t too many people at the show. Really too bad because the promoter did his very best to mkae everything comfortable for us. When we started playing everybody was dancing like crazy and one drunken guy couldn’t stop screaming in the microphone. It was a bit odd.
I had the feeling people just go there every saturday to hang out with their friends, they don’t seem to mind that much who or what is playing. I had fun for what it was, but I was also a bit disappointed. We wanted to play in Poland for so long and now the only Polish show is a bit of a bummer… This has nothing to do with promoter, I guess my expectations were a bit too high.

Sunday May 24
DAY-OFF

So we spend our days-off in Berlin, not the worst place to han out I guess… We arrived in the evening so we decided to eat at Yoyo’s (vegan fastfood restaurant). Everybody was so hungry, the meal was so good. I had a bacon-double-cheeseburger with salad and potatoes. Others had a wrap, pizza and such… check out the place if you’re in Berlin!

Monday May 25
DAY-OFF

This day was all about sightseeing. We stopped by Checkpoint-Charly: it was the controlpost when Berlin was divided by the West and East Berlin. It was impressive to see, if not all the tourists who were scrabbling among themselves. Of course, we were part of the same horde, in denial that is. At least we weren’t any fake communist fur hats…
Next stop was the Yellow Sunshine, another very tasty vegan/ vegetarian organic restaurant. After we stuffed our bellies, we wandered around in Kreuzberg, visiting some cool recordstores, the M99 (a revolutionairy supermarket! for all your riot-gear…), the anti-fascist store, and much more.
What really made me think… there’s an actual store to buy all the gear you need for direct actions, riots, demonstrations and such. The whole store was filled with backpacks, hoodies, gloves, black masks, books, magazines and so on. It’s like an organized mess. The owner of the store has been doing this for over 20 years now. He’s in a wheelchair and has all these friends helping him out. It’s an inspiring anarchist shop.
Now ten metres away from there is the anti-fascist shop. Really clean (almost like a tattoo-shop), cleancut kids hanging, fancy tshirt designs and posters. It’s the complete opposite of the M99, and so close to each other. Amazing.
Diner was again at the Yoyo’s. Teun didn’t come along with our sight seeing adventure so we met him there. I ate a pizza + a burger + fries. I’m a fat kid trapped in a skinny body…

Tuesday May 26
Finsterwalde (Germany)

Before we left to Finsterwalde, we stopped by the Stasi Museum. It’s a huge building where the Stasi used to operate from. The complex is enormous and the museum is only one part of it. The “Ministerium für Staatssicherheit” (Stasi in short) was the intelligence bureau for the DDR and one of the biggest and most important one all over the world. The museum shows how it worked, how it was set up, who was working for who, their enemies and so on. The place is impressive, overwhelming and scary at some points.
The Stasi is ‘famous’ for their influence on basically every aspect of living in the DDR. It was known the Stasi was always everywhere, everytime. With informants, with telephone-bugs and so on they tried to clear every person who was a political thread (in their eyes). 1984, anyone?

After the history lesson we took off to Finsterwalde. We were suppose to play in Dresden but unfortunately it got cancelled. And just a few days ago we got an offer to play at the Volksküche in the AZ in Finsterwalde, which is perfect on the way to Prague. It had to be an acoustic set since they can have loud music during the day.
Finsterwalde is a small town, nothing much going on at first sight. The AZ is a place where the punks and activists can get together and there’s a squat/ punkhouse where we stayed. For a small town like that, it’s pretty impressive! We had very good spicy pasta and after some people were in we started our acoustic set. It was a bit strange but I really enjoyed. Luckily I was not the only one, everybody was listening, interested in our music, asking for more songs as soon as we finished. It was a great experience. Funny to see all these crusty punk kids with patches, tattoos and piercings everywhere enjoying an acoustic set!

Wednesday May 27
Prague (Czech Republic)
w/ Criminal Damage, Germ Attack

Friends told me about how great Criminal Damage is. To be honest, I didn’t know the band. When I heard people from Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone (two of my favorite bands) were in it I was immediately interested. When I heard they were playing punkrock I couldn’t wait to see them! So that was one reason I was stoked for this show.
Second reason was because it’s in Prague, Czech Republic. I’ve met so many amazing people from that country, I’ve heard so many good stories about the shows, there’s such a great festival (Fluff Fest) happening… and I’ve never been there. So I was looking forward to play a country I’ve never been to, it’s always exciting!
Third reason is because I got the chance to meet up with friends of friends of mine. I know some of them through email or I’ve met them briefly years ago. This time it was a chance to really meet up and hang out.
We were playing in the 007 club, probably the best club to have a show in Prague. Again, that’s what I’ve been told. I think it’s true. The club is in the middle of a student district in the basement of building 7 (guess where the name comes from smarty pants!?) of student flats. I believe it’s the old Olympic village, with all these basketball courts, a huge stadion, and students everywhere you look. I’ve seen three people who were older than 40 years…
We met up with Milan (promoter) and Pavel (who I was in contact with) and they took such good care of us. I could see these people have been booking shows, taking care of bands for ages. The pasta was delicious, with some potatoe dish to the side. A nice backstage room, a good cup of coffee. It doesn’t take much to make me the happiest touring person on earth… sweet!
We were playing first so we were doing soundcheck. I don’t think we’ve ever done soundcheck that quickly! The soundguy was some Speedy Gonzales, but at the same time completely relaxed. If we ever come to a point where cloning people is politically correct, I vote for cloning this sound guy and put him in every venue over the world. This is not making much sense.
Anyway, I had the feeling we might fall a bit out of place because we were the most melodic band of tonight. Not very punky, not very crusty. I was just hoping some people would be there to check us out. We started playing and actually quite a lot of people came to check out our music. It was nice.
Germ Attack from Canada was second to play. It’s really not my cup of tea. Afterwards we talked about Propagandhi, being Canadian and what not. That was really fun.
Criminal Damage played last and it reminded me a bit of Antidote from Holland and Leatherface. It was tight. But again, it’s not my thing. They were really friendly dudes though, with a father in the band as well. I don’t come across too many people in touring bands who have kids at home as well. It was refreshing to talk to someone who actually understands a little bit of how it is…

Thursday May 28
Wiener Neustadt (Austria)
w/ Second Effort, Somerregen

Oh, Wiener Neustadt. It’s sort of our home away from home. It’s always cool to play there, it’s always great to meet up with our friends there. This time we played a rehearsal room show. Really small, people stuffed in. Sweaty. Smelly. I played with no shoes on. People were screaming along, having a good time. We were also playing with Second Effort, the local Fall Out Boy. Young kids playing very tight and invited their parents over. It was cool. Somerregen was awesome. Check that band out if you have the chance! I’m not gonna say more about because you have make up your own mind about it. But just check it out!
That night we slept at Bertl (Renotkill)  his place. We had fun with a latex mask. And the next morning we did the dishes from Bratpack who left it there.

Friday May 29
Zwiesel (Germany)
It seems that every tour we have at least one day of insanely amounts of rain coming from the sky to challenge our driving skills. Sweet Motherfucker From Hell, this was the day! It rained so hard! Sometimes a bit scary, most of the time just annoying…
We’ve played in Zwiesel before and that was a great show. This time we were the only band playing, I was hoping some people would show up. Luckily, quite some people did come to the show. And some cops too. (there’s was a NPD festival going on a few miles away from Zwiesel. Last times anti-fascists organized from the venue where we played. The cops came to check out if there was any anti-fascist action going on…)
From the moment we started playing, people were singing along every sinlge word. Some even knew the lyrics better than I did! It was so much fun… We’re playing there again in August and I already can’t wait!
They had a ping-pong table there. After the show Teun completely kicked my ass. first thing we did after we woke up the next day, we started playing again. Again, Teun kicked my ass. I think from the billion games we played, I won two.

Saturday May 30
Chemnitz (Germany)
w/ a lot of bands!!!

There are some of those places that you hardly can comprehend they actually exist. Talshock in Chemnitz is one of them. It’s an AZ. It’s been there for twenty years. It’s huge. It’s run completely autonomously by people who realize it’s important that creative free spaces should exist in a capitalist society like this. It has a big hall, a small show-space, different rooms upstairs for bands to sleep, a gigantic backstage room, an anarchist youthcentre AND a socialist youth centre (they get along better than during The Internationale I assume….), they have a skatepark…. Unbelievable. This is what we strife for, this is about creating an alternative. This is a place where you can feel at home.
We were playing on a festival with around fifteen bands. It was an anti-fascist festival. We were playing on the big stage. Like the nights before, I was hoping people would come and check us out. And again, people did that. They were having a good time indeed.
Most bands didn’t seem to pay too much attention by the fact it was an anti-fascist festival. So both Willem and I felt we had to talk about certain subjects on stage. We talked about the NPD propaganda we saw on the streets, we talked about the importance of collectives like this, we talked about political aspects of the scene. I guess a lot of people appreciated our talks. And our music.
I just hope bands would speak out more. This is what I’ve always foud so important in this music. Those small talks; sometimes personal, sometimes political. Sometimes filled with fury and anger. Sometimes with a wide smile on everyone’s face.

I saw Trainwreck right after we finished. The singer was talking in between songs. I fell in love with that band. Right there, that moment.

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Tour report Germany February/ March 2009

Our journey will take us through Germany. Home of the ausfart, biergarten and best humor ever. I was looking forward to this tour a lot. We would meet up with a lot of old friends, and there were so many places we haven’t been as well. But we started off almost in our backyard…

Friday February 27
City + country: Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
Venue: AZ Mülheim
Other bands: Possible Suspect

The drive to Mülheim was a little longer than an hour, a good short dirve to start the tour. I was looking forward to see Robert again. I’ve met him years ago at the Ieper Festival in Belgium. A cool thrash vegan straight edge kid who always says he’s depressed but in the meantime wears an endless smile on his face.
I have good memories of the JUZ, and this show was not different. It started with meeting up with the people of Possible Suspect. Possible Suspect is from Utreg (Holland) and I already knew Dick and Esther from working at the ACU (DIY venue in Utreg). I haven’t seen in ages so it was one big get-together in the AZ. At the same time Robert served the food. It was very good, nothing wrong about that. But what it made special was the warm vanilla pudding as dessert. In Holland we call it ‘warme vla’. Awesome! Incredible! I had two desserts! In retrospect I don’t know if that was such a good idea.
I was almost exploding when Robert started his story what he called: ‘the most punk-thing I‘ve ever done’. I was already looking forward to hear it… This goes way too far to actually tell the whole story because to tell you the truth: it can’t come close to the way Robert told it. The story had something to do with ‘taking a shit real bad’ and ‘no fucking toilet in sight’. You do the math.
Anyway, it was all good fun in Mülheim. We played a very decent show, people seem to have liked it. Esther and I kicked ass at tablesoccer and we did an interesting interview for get addicted. One of the questions was: ‘you put an bulletin on your website to visit a protest against the attacks on Palestina. So you’re pro-Palestina?’ I like questions like these. These are the ‘not-so-easy-to-answer-questions’. And I explained why put it on the website.
You see, it’s hard for me to be pro-Palestia or pro-Israël. The conflict is so complex and difficult that I don’t have the feeling I can say anything about it (if people have suggestions on books about the subject, please send me an email). All I know that the attacks on Gaza are killing hundreds of people. All I know is that innocent people are suffering from these attacks. On both sides, Palestian and Jewish. Innocent people put in terrible sitautions. And the tragic part is that those people who are responsible for these attacks are in suit and tie, sitting on their leather sofa at home watching the news. These people are making money from these attacks. Let’s not forget there’s a lot of money being made by any war. That’s what pisses me off. That’s the reason I put the bulletin on the website. It’s about time we stop waging wars amongst each other and start bringing those who are responsible out of power.

Amen.

Saturday February 28
City + country: Bausendorf, Germany
Venue: Riez Rock Bar
Other bands: Another Day, Society Off

We had breakfast at the AZ and there was a Lady Fest going on as well. Since we were with (mostly) male people, we were asked to have breakfast in a different room. I respect that. Of course. I understand it can be a relief for female people to have something like a Lady Fest. It’s a place where women can do their thing their way, and not be bothered by this male-dominated society. Especially when women have bad experiences with men it can be a place where they feel understood, at home, safe.
We headed off to Bausendorf which was in the middle of nowhere. Hills, trees, birds. And a bar where they did live-shows. Amazing. I walked out in the fields and somewhere in the distance I could hear cars driving. Apart from that; absolute silence. I stumbled across a hunting-cabin and it really made me think how humans have to ruin everything. Why would you want to shoot animals who are just minding their own business?
There was a fireplace in the venue to keep everybody warm. Where are those vegan marsh-mellows when you need them the most? More and more people started coming in and there was a nice saturday evening atmosphere.
The show was a bit weird because I had the idea the kids were there to hang out and they didn’t care too much what band was playing. Not very motivating. But we did our very best and made the best out of it.
We met up with the nice people from Another Day and I really enjoyed watching how they had fun on stage. Especially the singer had this endless smile on his face. Good times. We could stay at their place for the night, so that was amazing.

Sunday March 1
City + country: Cologne, Germany
Venue: Lamäng
Other bands: Les Alignes

The drive to Cologne was really short. We arrived at the venue early and I think everybody was thinking the same thing: “a show, here?!?” It was sort of a brown café. Only locals at the bar who stared at us when we came in, nodded their heads and turned back to the bar. I looked around and I could see people sitting at dark-brown tables. There were also some Anti-Fascist Action posters hanging around. Weird, but nice. Not the typical punk-bar, yet I started feeling more and more at home. There was one punk-kid waiting for us, saying the others should arrive every moment. So that meant we were definitely in the right place.
We played in the basement on a skittle-alley (bowling alley, but than different…). Amazing. We played on so many different, weird, funny, awkward locations. And a skittle-alley was not on the list yet. Check!
The place was very small, very cosy and very cool. I liked it a lot. We played and it was crowded. Not too many people, but it already looked as if it was packed. People were singing a long. A nice, comfortable Sunday-evening show. Very good indeed.

Monday March 2
City + country: Würzburg, Germany
Venue: Immerhin
Other bands: –

We slept at Sandi’s place and he took us around town for some time. Willem wanted to stop by this huge music store to try some new guitars. I just walked around, amazed by all these pricey instruments. It appeared the ugliest guitars are the most expensive. That’s what I’ve learned that day.
We were drewling in front of the Underdog Store because it was closed. The Underdog is probably in my ‘best record store’ – top 5. When you’re in Cologne, stop by and find all the records you were searching for. By the time it did open, we had around ten minutes to peek in. I had my hands on a Pg. 99 split, but decided not to buy because I don’t have the money for it. I guess it’s a good choice to spend my money on food instead on vinyl, right?
On our way to Würzburg! We arrived and heard the local support was cancelled. I had this scenario in my head where we would be playing in front of zero point zero people. Luckily Pölle (promoter) took really good care of us. He and his girlfriend cooked great food for us, had the coffee ready when we arrived, all good.
By the time the doors opened, nobody. An hour later, nobody. I said to myself: “fuck it, it’s a Monday night. We’ll survive. We’re having a good time anyway”. I decided to play some guitar in the backstage, take it easy. When I walked out, there were actually quite some people. And when we started playing, it was actually quite crowded. Nice!
I really enjoyed this show because the vibe was good and the venue was very cool. It was wasn’t very big at all but you could really see it was run by the kids who cared about their scene.
It was actually owned by the local church so we were a bit afraid we were dealing with convinced christians, ready to convert some punks from Holland. Pölle explained the situation and it appears that the Immerhin can do whatever they like. They are completely autonomous and don’t have to deal with the church. The downside was that the building is on a list to be torn down. They are looking for a new building, although this building is in perfect shape. Throwing money away, anyone?

Tuesday March 3
City + country    : Nürnberg, Germany
Venue: Kunstverein
Other bands: Deny Everything, Cutting Class

The drive to Nürnberg was a piece of cake. Nürnberg is known for it’s beautiful old city. But above that it’s known for it’s “ehemaliges Reichsparteitagsgelände”: Former Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Now this is not something to be taken lightly, these nazi’s had their shit together in the thirties. They were building huge buildings for different reasons. A lot of these buildings were destroyed in WOII, but some are still there to see.
We couldn’t wait to do some sightseeing. One the this day we wondered through the city-centre of Nürnberg because the Rally Grounds are very close to the venue we were playing. So we had a busy schedule for the other day too!
After eating one of the best falafel I’ve ever had, we headed to the Kunstverein. It is a venue in a huge building, which belonged to the SS in WOII. The Kunstverein have tons of shows, Patrick (promoter) is doing shows for over ten years already. So also for punk-history it’s a good place to be.
We played with Cutting Class (UK) and Deny Evertyhing (Germany). I was looking to see Björn from Deny Everything again and finally see his band live for the first time. I have their record for some time now but somehow I always missed them when they played in my hometown. They sound like Kid Dynamite, they sound pissed off, they play fast and have short songs. Lovely.
The show was pretty crowded (especially for a tuesdaynight) and it was good to finally see Deny Everything. I got my ass kicked with tablesoccer by Patrick and his friends. Damnit, those guys were good! I think we played a decent set. I also had a lot of fun, feeling at home in places like the Kunstverein. On top of that there were some familiair faces who came out to the show. Good to see them again!  

Wednesday March 4
City + country: Regensburg, Germany
Venue: Alte Mälzerei
Other bands: Deny Everything, Cutting Class
After breakfast and checking email, it was time to head to the documentation centre of the Reichsparteitagsgelände. The documentation centre of the nazi party rally grounds is located in the unfinished structure of the congress hall. It’s build like te Colesium in Rome, only twice as big. It was build for the capacity of 50.000 people. The documentation centre gives very detailed information about the history of the part rallies and exposes them as manipulative rituals of nazi propaganda. It was intense. We walked through museum and it took us a good three hours. With open mouth I looked at the photo’s, the old news papers, the (unfinished) plans of the buildings. I was completely overwhelmed by the perfectly planned ideas of the nazi’s. This is immense. In a very, very bad way.
It showed how the people were manipulated, how young kids were brainwashed by the national-socialists, young married couples got Mein Kampf as a wedding present: everything was planned. Above all: it showed something like this must never happen again. Ever.

And the scary part is this: right now governments are claiming every single form of privacy has to be exchanged for safety, for the war against terrorism. Look at all the camera’s, ID-pasports, DNA scans and all that shit. Very often it is stated: “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. Fair enough. Not! Just imagine if some lunatic like Hitler gets in power again with all this private information on all citizens. I can already see some frowned eyebrows from you reading this and thinking: “this won’t happen”. But that’s simply naive to think that. I surely hope it doesn’t happen (and we all should do our frickin’ best not to ever let it happen again!), but I can’t think what would happen if it happens….

Oh well, some band had some song called: “speculative fiction”. Let’s hope for the best. Let’s act for it.

After this intermission, Regensburg was next to be conquered. Flo is a good friend of us and he was setting up the show. We’ve played in Regensburg a few times and there’s a good scene with awesome people. I couldn’t wait to meet up with those lads again, hug, shake hands and such.
The venue was really clean and organized. Funny, because it was almost the opposit from the Kunstverein in Nürnberg. But both places I really liked. Pasta was for diner and I came to the conclusion this was really a pasta-tour. And I love pasta so I can’t complain. The only problem with pasta is that I always eat too much of it.
The show was cool, a lot of people came out to see us. Too bad we had some problems with the microphones, but we didn’t get boo’ed or dirty thrown at our faces. So it wasn’t that bad. I guess.

Thursday March 5
City + country: Berlin, Germany
Venue: Ballast Der Republik
Other bands: Alert, Aggronauts

First long drive of the tour. It didn’t even take that long, but we couldn’t see any of Berlin, which was a bit sad. I’ve been there once with my girlfriend and that’s it. I’ve read so much about it, so much has happened and is happening in this city, I wanted to see some more than just the venue. Oh well, good excuse to go back soon…
The squat we played at was dark, dirty, huge, filled with tons of people. Somebody said there were around 35 people living in the squat. When we arrived, we met with our friend Vincent. He was not very amused. Well, I’m pretty sure he did like to see us, but it was his first time to do a show in this building and apparently everything was going wrong. During the evening I understood what he was saying.
I mean, from Vincent’s side everything was more than perfectly arranged. He did good promotion, found good other bands, he made amazing food (vegan cupcakes ladies and gentlemen!), what more could you ask for? It turned out that we (as bands) were just not very in place in the squat. A lot of people drinking, doing drugs, fighting… We’ve been touring quite some time now and we’ve been in various locations. A lot of squats, some cleaner and more organized than others. No problem. But this was just something different. I didn’t feel safe here, which is weird because I always think I should be able to feel somewhat at home in a squatted punk-house. I guess that’s naive of me to think. Lesson learned.
Jan from Yo Yo Records stopped by to say hi and drop off some records. We went for some coffee and when we came back to the squat it appeared there already had been two fights. So we decided together to make the best out of it. We’d play the show, have fun with the people who came out for us. And as soon as the show was over; pack up and run for our lives!

At the end of the night no one of us got hurt, everybody still lives. So long to Berlin. Take care, see you next time.

Friday March 6
City + country: Bergkamen, Germany
Venue: JZ Yellowstone
Other bands: a lot…

The breakfast was amazing. Vincent even went out to buy coffee for those who drank it, because he didn’t have any coffee in his house. The apartment was really nice, somewhere in a cheap neighborhood in Berlin. It wasn’t expensive at all to rent, something I didn’t expect in a city like Berlin. It was just Vincent and his girlfriend living there, amazing. It was too bad we didn’t have much time to hang out because we had a long drive ahead of us.
Another long drive. And we were in a traffic jam for two fucking hours. Normally I really don’t mind long drives, but I hate traffic jams. They are the ultimate waste of time: everybody is his vehicle which suppose to take from A to B very fast, but you’re not moving. You’re behind each other, just polluting the air. It fucking sucks! There…

We arrived and apologized to Dave (promoter) for being late. He understood, Dave has been doing shows for ages and there are simply a lot of traffic jams around that area. Still we were in time for sound check and within an half hour, pasta for diner was served. Nice.

It was a weird show. The other bands playing were local bands. One of them played their 50th show. Other bands were starting. The audience weren’t really paying too much attention to all the bands, although the first band definitely brought some crowd; it was their demo-release party. What surprised me was the young age of the audience. I remember I went to my first punk-show when I was twelve years old and some of these kids were around that age as well. This was the new generation, starting to go to shows at their local youth centre. And I guess that’s exactly the cool thing about these places.
We played last and I was a bit afraid all the young kids would be in their beds already. When we started there were still a lot of people to check us out. It was nice to see that a lot of young punk kids were dancing, while in the back the older audience was knodding their heads to our tunes as well. It was a weird, but nice atmosphere.

So all in all this tour through the rough lands of Germany have brought us to the deepest dungeons, we slayed the toughest crowds, shared drinks mystical punk-knights and generous hardcore-heroes. It was a jolly good time indeed.

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This is a report to keep you updated on all the fun we're having on our third American tour. Because Yvo is sitting at home to take care of his newborn during this tour I (Pitter) am filling in on bass for him. On this tour we're being joined by One Win Choice from Tom's River, New Jersey to safely lead us through the greatest country ever.. I hope you are having as much fun reading this as us doing it.

Line up for this tour:
Antillectual:
Willem – Guitar/Vocals
Riekus – Drums/Vocals
Pitter – Bass/Vocals

One Win Choice:
Dan – Vocals
Justin – Guitar
Ellis – Guitar
Tierny – Bass
Solid – Drums
Rob – Roadie / Ladykiller

It's oct 15, 6 a.m. Time to get up and get this adventure started. We're flying from dusseldorf to newark airport. Rody is willing enough to drive us to the airport and after a smooth drive we check in at dusseldorf airport. 10 a.m. we're taking off, an 8,5 hour flight ahead of us. Watch a movie, eat some shitty food and watch another documentary and we're already there.. No biggy! After waiting for an hour at customs and telling the story we memorized by heart about the purpose of our stay we meet Dan and Justin who pick us up at the airport accompanied by a sign saying "Rots band" (the literal translation of rock band in Dutch, but no-one would ever use that word)
We pick up our tour shirts and we're off to Tom's River where most of One Win Choice lives. When we arrive we meet up with the rest of the band and we're all set to begin this thing. Too bad the tour only starts 2 days from now, so we wait. While One Win Choice is doing their last practice session at the house, we're doing one of the things we like to do most.. Spending time on the internet. After a nice dinner cooked by Dan himself we get beers and watch the last debate between Obama and McCain while drinking every time words as "Tax Reductions", "Joe the plumber" and Crisis are being mentioned, which is pretty often i can guarantee you. We've been up for a while and it's time to go to bed, after all, it's already 4.30 for us.

Oct 16: After we slept for a long time i finally can't take the smell riekus and willem are producing any more, so it's time to get out of bed. Today we're going to practice one last time on the One Win Choice backline to get used to the guitars and drums a little. Before we do that we have to get some essential stuff from the music store we didn't bring like strings and sticks, you know the deal.. In the meantime the other guys are repairing the van and mowing the lawn (hey, it all needs to happen!)
After dinner we go to justin's house and zip 40's in the Hot tub.. Yes, i can get used to this kind of touring.

Oct 17: The Shed – Tom's River, NJ

Day 3 in the USA, about time for a show. The van is repaired, we're all stoked, we're ready for this. No traveling today though, 'cause the first venue we're playing is called the shed, and is in Dan's backyard. The first show is a blast, nice people, quite some people show up. We meet up with Static Radio again, who show up fashionably late.. As well as Jeremy Jumpstart who brings our LP's for the tour and 3 cases of beer.. Nice one!
We end the night with a fire in the yard and make sure the beer's all gone.
Day one of tour is over, and the shed is Antillectual approved. Time to go to bed.

Oct 18: Fire House – Hopatcong, NJ

Time for the first day of traveling. We're trying to stall it though because the package we sent out with our other merchandise still hasn't arrived. Around 3 p.m. the UPS arrives and guess what, no package. So we leave for Hopatcong without the biggest part of our merch.. bummer!
After a short drive we arrive at the Fire House which is in the middle of the forrest. The show is All Ages so there are a lot of younger kids. I feel old. 7 bands on the bill, so the show's kicking off early. In the meanwhile I cook some food in the kitchen over there. The show is cool and afterwards we drive up to Mike and Stephs apartment, which is very nice by the way, to party a little and sleep over. We get introduced to a little part of american culture called "Beerpong" and play till late and the beer runs out. Solid chugs a half a pint of vodka en it's time to call it a night.

Oct 19: Cousin Larry's – Danbury, CT

We leave around noon to drive up to Danbury. We figured to go a little early to walk around town.. Too bad we hadn't though of the fact that we were gonna be there on a sunday. The place was dead, nobody was in the streets and everything was closed. Show was supposed to start at 9, so we had 6 hours to kill in the freezing cold.. After sitting in the van for a while we decided to bring out the stove we brought and bought the little things we could find to make some 'parking-lot burritos' After being too cold we decided to check out the bar. At 9 the promoter walked in and we set up our stuff. After a while we figured that no people would show up and started playing. We played a nice alternative set and when finished we headed out to Albany, where we could crash. Danbury, certainly not Antillectual approved.

Oct 20: The Basement – Kingston, NY

So yeah, after last night we could use a good adventure again. We figured we could take a look around in Albany. The night before, when we drove in, it looked like a Sci-Fi set up, so i was curious. No aliens whatsoever, so kind of a bummer. We checked out the NY State museum, walked around town and figured it would be wise to head off to Kingston after some dinner. We parked the van and cooked a meal on the sidewalk.
The Basement was a nice bar with friendly people, who directly saw what we needed.. Love, and all the free drinks we could think of. After the Fall was also playing, who hooked us up with a sleeping place the night before.
Not many people showed up, but the show was still fun to play. Some of us stayed in the bar after the show to party hard, i however was too tired and went to sleep.

Oct 21: Day off

After waking up and seeing Riekus sleep on the pool table i figured it was time to get up. We had a day off, so no real hurry. We tried to figure out what to do and arrange a sleeping place for the night. In the meantime we watched Roadtrip. Mike from After the Fall helped us out again and arranged a sleeping place at his friend Matt's place in Burlington, VT. So, time to drive. It was quite a drive, but we had time. After a couple of hours GPS us told us to take the ferry, this certainly didn't fit our financial plan and even if it did, the last ferry was long gone. We had no other option then to backtrack to the bridge which was located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. This also meant 2 hours extra driving.
We arrived at Matt's apartment around 11, cooked some food, talked a little and went to bed.

Oct 22: Day off

We found out that the show we would be playing in Burlington wasn't really well promoted and decided to go with the nice old D.I.Y. approach and print flyers to hand out in the city center of Burlington. But first we had to do some groceries and we decided to make a stop at the Magic Hat beer brewery. We could walk around at the brewery because there were no tours going on this day. After that we of course had to try some of all the goodies as well. All though it was pretty cold out, we went into town and hand out flyers to everybody who looked like they might be interested in punkrock the slightest bit. Ellis and Solid went out to beg to rich looking people..
Yes, i felt like a true punk. No idea where we were staying that night, begging and some good old flyering, fuck yeah!
Matt hooked us up with a sleeping place for the night at his friends Derek, Josh and Mike their place.. We cooked some food and chilled a little over
there. The OWC boys bought some cheap vodka and went off for an adventure and found a party. We chilled at the house and went to bed.

Oct 23: 242 Main – Burlington, VT

Jan´s Room – Allentown, PA

Today is the day i'm gonna meet Chris from Square of Opposition records, who did the waves 7" for the last Antillectual US Tour and a whole bunch of other friendly people, so i'm stoked. When we arrive in Allentown we head over to Jordan's house, which we know from our first US Tour so things get cozy from the moment we enter Allentown! We decide it's a good day for a change in our diet and shop a little. Curry it's gonna be and Dan is not too excited, because he doesn't like spicy food. Too bad for him. After dinner we head to Jan's Room, which is actually a rehearsal room. Also on the bill today are Jonesin' and Iron Chic from New York, two other bands touring towards Fest and back. The room is crowded when OWC kicks off, we play a cool set as well. After that Jonesin' is up who play raw punkrock with vocals which remind me a lot of Chuck Ragan in his No Division days. The drummer is a goofy player and after they finish he stays to play for Iron Chic as well. I expected a lot from this band, because i heard they had some Latterman members and I love Latterman!
Iron Chic was amazing and Allentown was one of the better shows so far.. After the show all 4 bands stayed at Jordan's house, so that's 18 visitors at once.. Respect!
We got some brews and after a while Jordan's roommate 'Snack-man' (bad ass Bad Brains tattoo) claims he has the phone number of Rick Ta Life and decides to prank call him. Too bad we get a voicemail, but still it's hilarious.. You should have been there. The night is still young, a wannabe gangster called Camacho get's it and so are some 24hour restaurants and a liquor store where Justin and Ryan work. We end the night trying to get in a deserted building but halfway everybody chickens out, ah well.. Time to go to sleep.

The Fire – Philadelphia, PA

It's sunday! Today is gonna be the day we're gonna see our friends in Jena Berlin again and I know I am excited to see them. The show is gonna be early because the local baseball team 'The Phillies' have a good chance to win the World Series and nobody seems to wanna miss that. A Wilhelm Scream is going to be headlining this show so high expectations.
After parking the van in an alley behind the venue we load in and chill a little with Jeff. The neighbourhood is supposed to be a pretty rough one and Willem couldn´t agree less when he tells me he just had a gun pointed at him by some drunk. A raid is the result of that and finally the guy gets caught carrying a fake weapon and gets arrested for having some outstanding warrants and stuff. The show is cool, although you can notice that some people stayed at home for that game.
After the show it´s party time! We´re being taken to a bar near Jon and Chad´s house, get drunk and yell a lot. Phillies win! It´s awesome!

Day off – Philadelphia, PA

Today is another day off and we are staying at the same place as yesterday again. We get some delicious pancakes for breakfast and chill a lot. In the afternoon everybody heads in to town except for me. I stay in the house with Jon and Meg to do some work on the computer and after that eat some of the best vegan burgers in town. That probably wasn’t a lie, because it was delicious! Back home i hear stories of store owners boarding up their windows because tonight could be the last game if the Phillies win. With that in mind we head over to the same bar, hoping they’re gonna win tonight.. Riots in town, hell yeah!
Too bad the game gets postponed half way and tonight isn’t gonna be the party it could/should have been. Bedtime it is.

?? – State College, PA

After a short drive we arrive in the college town called State College (oh really!?). We arrive a little late but it isn’t too bad we hear. The weather’s freezing cold and loading sure isn’t a pleasure today. We park we the car and when we walk back to the venue we see some ad. About cheap shots, so we figure a little warm up before we play isn’t a really bad idea and so it happens.
The venue today is some sort of christian hang out so we get asked not to curse. We agree, because the promoter is cool and the venue agreed to have us. But while we’re playing I get a little confused with the lyrics and how not to curse too much, so after 2 songs I just give up and do the normal thing. The show is cool, a little tame, people seem to be a little shy, but hey, that happens. After the show we go home with Bill, Ellis’ friend from home and he smokes a lot of weed, we watch some movies, drink some beer and watch Riekus sleepwalk. When it’s 5 o clock in the morning I decide to get some sleep as well. However Rob and Solid aren’t really felling it yet.

Artist Underground Café – Richmond, VA

When we wake up the next morning Solid is still awake and hasn’t slept a bit. We take a nice shower and step outside where it is snowing at the moment. We’re leaving for Richmond.
After a pretty smooth drive we arrive pretty early and have nothing to do so we decide to go to our favorite American restaurant, Taco bell! After we got some food we drive back to the venue and the promoters calls us to say the first band has to start in a couple of minutes, so we get back as fast as we can and play the show. There aren’t many people and the main reason for that is all the bands touring down towards the Fest, so tonight there are 2 or 3 shows going on, which off course is way too many for a Wednesday night. Tomorrow’s a day off so the next show is gonna be in Gainesville.. The Fest! We decide to drive after the show is done and pull an all-nighter. Some people try to sleep and Riekus, Willem, the Hazel twins and me have a vodka and beer party in the van and teach some proper Dutch to these Americans. The night gets blurry….

Day off – ……, FL

After driving all night we arrive in Florida, where the weather is super! Today we got invited at Ryan’s aunt who lives near Gainesville. When we arrive Ryan’s aunt is still at work, so we’re hanging around for a while, doing shop groceries and some more hanging around. We get an awesome dinner and play scrabble all night. Just another day, but a nice one.

FEST

Unfortunately this is where the report ends. For tour videos (including the fest!) check out our www.youtube.com/Antillectual

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