Archive | tours

19 November 2019 ~ Comments Off on Turkey Tour Report

Turkey Tour Report

Written by Willem – Last week we did our first tour through Turkey. We were over for 5 days, did 4 shows, in 3 cities: Izmir, Ankara and Istanbul twice. We had never been to Turkey before and were really excited to visit the most Arab/Middle Eastern influenced country we visited to date. It’s a cliche to say that in Turkey east and west meet, but we were really curious how this mix would translate to the punk scene, with its usually western focus. Despite the fact that not many punk bands from Turkey make it over to Europe, just like Turkish city life, the punk scene is relying on European/North American influences like bands, music, merchandise, etc. Nonetheless a lot of local bands sing in Turkish and they seem to include non-western influences like ska and reggae as well.

Of course, touring Turkey is not like touring Europe or North America. Especially compared to Europe there’s less touring infrastructure in Turkey. Venues are usually local bars with a small PA and just like when we toured South America, Russia and Japan, the venues provided the backlines. Meaning guitarists and bass players mostly get to play transistor combo amps and drummers get to play cymbals and drums slightly or brutally abused by drummers before them. When arriving at the venue, you never know what you’re gonna get. But I’m quite happy with the skills I grew to create a decent sound from a 30 watt transistor Crate amp. Fine tuning has become a new form of art for me.

Photo by Stormlit

Photo by Stormlit

The Turkish scene is surprisingly young, which is awesome to see! The audiences we played for, the bands we played with and the people in the organizations that booked our shows ranged from ages 17-30, on average definitely younger than what we’re used to. Resulting in dancing, movement and sing-alongs at every show, during the whole set. Despite being a partly Islamic country the amount of girls at the shows was higher than expected. It’s too bad we didn’t play with any bands with female members and some of the mosh pits and the dancing were rougher than you’d like to see at an inclusive show. But that happens all over the world unfortunately. The other bands we played with varied in styles a lot, from raging metal/hardcore to the expected skate punk rock sound to more grunge and stoner sounding bands. It’s nice to play mixed line-ups when they work out well, and they did!

Photo by Stormlit

Photo by Stormlit

What struck me most about the country in general was the huge variation and inequality between people living in rural areas and the city populations. Where the cities felt pretty European when it comes to modernity and wealth, the outbacks featured a lot of poverty and seemingly ruined houses. As you do on tour, we saw a lot of highways, which in Turkey means you will see a lot of people hitchhiking (and not only young alternative people), people riding their bikes on the highway, and traffic lights popping up out of nowhere. Many sheep and shepherds are making their way through the beautiful landscapes next to the road. It occurred to me that the roads follow the slopes of the landscape, where in North-Western Europe bridges and tunnels even out the highest peaks and deepest valleys. Funny trivia: renting a van without a driver is more expensive than with one included.

Photo by Stormlit

Photo by Stormlit

Unfortunately we also experienced an aspect of Turkish society/politics that we feared: repression and police brutality enforced by an authoritarian leader. After our show in Ankara a big group of the “moral police” started harassing a street vendor outside the venue. After interfering with the harassment, members of the Parazit Kolektif (our tour booker) and staff of the venue were beaten with batons, pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and arrested. The police even started to attack and spray random guests at the terrace of the venue and chased people down to the venue’s basement. An awful and completely uncalled for show of force to display their power. Padme, the band featuring members of the Parazit Kolektif wrote down what happened that night. At another instance we witnessed a peaceful feminist protest by a group of about 50 women minding their own business (pun intended), getting encircled by riot police without any obvious reason.

Check some more photos below, click here for a song from our set in Ankara (before the riots started). We are incredibly thankful we could do this amazing tour through Turkey, meet a lot of great people and see a lot of beautiful aspects of a country that has many issues. If you haven’t visited, go there, and attend a show! Many thanks to Parazit Kolektif for having us and making this awesome! Çok teşekkür ederim!

 

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05 November 2019 ~ Comments Off on Release Fever

Release Fever

Releasing singles gives us the opportunity to address “hot” topics immediately. We couldn’t bring you FEVER at a better (or worse?) moment: climate change protest is gaining attention worldwide. Check the beautiful FEVER video, new merch and lyrics & liner notes below. We hope to catch you at one of the shows!

new Antillectual single 'Fever'

Artwork and Video

Tes at Segolia Design created the beautiful FEVER artwork and she also made an animation video representing the song’s content in an incredible way. If you look closely you will even find us in it!

T-shirt with Fever print

Merch

With a new single comes new merch! The FEVER artwork comes on organic, vegan and fair trade shirts; in both tight and regular fit. Find them in our webstore, together with our other shirts and albums. Thanks for supporting our band!

Poster for Friends First Fest 5

1st Friends First Fest #5 Announcement

The presale for Friends First Fest has started! Beware: only a limited amount of tickets is available and previous years sold out. The price is flexible to keep it affordable for all. People under 18 can attend for free, and we have a small batch of “Long Time Friend tickets” for just 5 euro. All proceeds are donated to Brigada De Alter though, so we do encourage you to pay a little extra if you can. The line-up will be international, so foreign friends: remember that Nijmegen is close to the Münster / Ruhr / Köln area!

Line-up:

  • Talk by founding member Yvo: “Live your dreams, survive your setbacks”
  • Food by Guerilla Kitchen Nijmegen
  • Antillectual (surprise!)

More bands to be announced soon, keep an eye on the FB event!

Spreading the Fever tour

Come hear our new single live at the following shows:

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17 September 2019 ~ Comments Off on FINALLY TO FINLAND!

FINALLY TO FINLAND!

Finland was on our bucket list for a long time, especially since we had fun times in other Nordic countries in the past. We’re very excited going there in October for the first time ever! New territory means making new friends and watching new bands, this will be sweet!

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06 August 2019 ~ Comments Off on Antillectual in Turkey

Antillectual in Turkey

We LOVE going new places, especially places we never expected to play our music and/or where punk rock music is less common. This November we get the chance to play 4 shows in Turkey; in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. We’re looking forward a lot to making new friends and checking out the Turkish scene. Thanks to Parazit Kolektif for arranging all this.

Check our shows section for all info and details.

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02 January 2019 ~ Comments Off on HAPPY 2019!

HAPPY 2019!

Hope you all had a wonderful NYE and a good start in the new year? May your 2019 be better than 2018, even if 2018 wasn’t all that bad for you!

We’ll tell you what we can tell you about our 2019 plans, and we’ll hint at those we can’t tell you about yet.
Coming up first we have a nice extended weekend with one of the most controversial yet interesting (punk) acts around (Pussy Riot!) and one of our favorite bands of all times (Satanic Surfers!). In March we will record new music with Tim van Doorn at his Big Dog Recordings in Antwerp. That same month we will release a new single, for which the writing isn’t done, but the recordings are. In April we will play an awesome festival in a European country we toured extensively in the past, but not recent. In summer we will release another single, and we have some summer nice festivals scheduled. We plan to tour to places we haven’t been before (on the borders of fortress Europe) late summer. Our last 2019 single will be released in late fall/early winter when we hope to return to the other side of the equator to enjoy a little summer in winter. And of course we will end the year with a bang at the 5yr anniversary edition of Friends First Fest!

We hope to see each and every one of you in 2019 and have a blast together!

Jan 30 NL Arnhem, Luxor Live w/ Pussy Riot
Jan 31 NL Utrecht, Ekko w/ Satanic Surfers
Feb 01 BE Oostende, Elysee w/ Satanic Surfers
Feb 02 DE Münster, Skaters Palace w/ Satanic Surfers
Mar 08 DE Leer, JUZ
Mar 09 DE Neunkirchen, Stummsche Reithalle
May 03 AT Wels, SBÄM Fest
Jun 01 DE Wesel, Eselrock
Jul 07 NL Utrecht, dB’s/Revivalfest
And so much more to come …

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