Tuesday 25.05 Leaving is sometimes the hardest part... (Nijmegen)
After packing things up I headed towards the train station. Walking with all my bags clothes and other stuff for the coming 3 weeks for the european trip with my mates in Antillectual. Roundabout 20:00 I was off to nijmegen. After 3 hours traveling, I arrived at the station, walked to Riekus and Willems house for some cold beers catching' up and a good night sleep.
Wednesday 26.05 The road is our home Freiberg (GER)
Woke up around 9:00 for a nice shower, cups of coffee, having that new silent express tune in our heads and reading the paper. It's telling us the town we play in Poland is totally flooded. They have 2 weeks time to dry things up. The van (the old Malkovich tourbus) was already packed so roundabout 13:00 we were found on the german highway. Good vibe in the van but total shitty weather to nice and shiny. 8 hours and 6 or 7 trafficjams later we arrived at the club and loaded the stuff out of the while it poured. Lots of nice germans helped out so it was done in no time. Food was delicious (Pasta #1 made by Chris' mother) and the organizers Chris and Boris are sweet guys. Chris is one big Hot Water Music fan we found out when we stayed at his place. Awesome. Support band Far of the Zoo (with Chris and Boris) sounded nice and even treated us to a little musical moment. How to get rid of your cd I guess, haha. Antillectual played a good show and the evening went well. After the van was loaded we hung out at Christian and Boris's place with convo's about studies, A wilhelm scream, hot water music and other stuff. I even drank some Jameson with chris. Day after I recieved a mail from Chris that my convo with Boris was reallly inspiring. That makes me very happy.
Thursday 27.05 Checking out Innsbruck (Austria)
Thankful for a good night sleep in a normal bed I took a shower just before nine-ish. I haven't checked but I guess I forgot my shower stuff (and I did). Oh well, no showers for the coming days so I wont be needing it anyway heheh.. Good breakfast, tanking and we were off to Austria. Took us 4 hours or so. Driving and sight/sigh seeing at the same time. Beautiful mountains with clowds and stuff and countless tunnels. Rider said arrival at 17:00 and we/I owned it! 2 down, 19 to go.. The weather is very diverse.. an hour of nice sun with heavy storms now and then. We waited an hour before Traktor arrived and loaded out the van. At the moment of writing I'm alone in the van somewhere in Innsbruck. want FOOOD! But first a leak and a cig.
With quite an empty stomach we waited for the promoter to comeback and prepare us food. Guess what's on the menu? indeed.. Pasta. # 2 that is. This time pieces of bread with it made by italians. Good to do. With full bellies we victorized the half pitter litters. The show is badly promoted. The question if we could put a tourposter up outside the venue was why we got the clue. After killing time internetting and bad jokes the first band finally started 23:00 o'clock sharp. An Italian crust grind band opened up and after 30 seconds it was enough for me. Nice guys for sure but not my cup of tea. Antillectual played a decent show. We sold the most merch eventually. It was really awesome to see Traktor finally. Nice guys. I tried to do a sow for them twice but didn't work out. Well now I figured it out so watch out for these guys in the Leeuwarden area! The promoter Maurice let us to believe this party wont end until 4 o' clock in the morning. Luckely we could sleep in the backstage which was a basement/coolcellar. We have brought our own mattresses along for comfy sleeping. Me and Thomas took a last drink in the bar and then went to sleep. This was a last minute show and doorbell so at the end he told me and Thomas there was no money left. With that big bummer we went to sleep for quite some hours.
We thought...
Friday 28.05 Poirino Five days in Italy (Super Thrash Ollandese).
They tried to wake us round 8 in the morning and grumpy as we were, entering the bar we saw Tobies smile on his face and our moods turned in an instant. We need more Tobies in Holland. Discovered a cool band ala explosions in the sky named Lymbyc Systym. Thanks Toby! Breakfast was nice, we thanked the guys even without any dow. Day three: 5 unshowered sweaty boys off for 5 days Italy. Hell yea!
I drove the first half of the trip. First hold up was at the border.. Where they checked out the van. No problem at all. After ten minutes we were off to Poirino! We stopped for coffee after 3 hours. Riekus told me earlier this week the coffee is great and cheap in Italy. Dude is so right! Now am here in the back of the bus typing the update and being satisfied with where we are now.. I mean not only Italy but everything is still going great. Besides the headlight is kinda broke. Well, just smash the steeringwheel haha. Am missing my friends back home but I am having a blast with these mates! Still 3 hours to go till we are at the anti-beer fest. Hopefully we can get a sleeping place over there because the rider says there's none. So far the weather in Italy is treating us well. A small rainy moment makes the bus more sweaty than it already was.. hehe. Eventually we arrived at Poirino after 7 and a half hours. Looks awesome first hand! Open air festival in the middle of the town. 4 bands playing and Antillectual is the headliner. The townies are happy to see us and forecast is good. Setting up the gear on the stage and Riekus did drum soundcheck. Clowds are getting darker and darker. They told us it actually never rains over there and worst case scenario.. It started to pour. While enjoying the first real italian pizza it kept pouring from the sky. As dessert we had something like a pancake filled with potato, egg and alot of salt. Rain didn't stop and we kept joking but yea, the show got cancelled. We mixed with the locals a bit and they made a whole happening when me and Riekus asked for coffee. We showed them some total dutch treat with New Kids that they described as Super Thrash Ollandese. At some point after we even sold some merch we were like hey ho, so we arranged a sleeping place. The guy would be there in like 15 minutes. It turned out that the guy was there for the whole day. Italians really don't look at the time or their clocks or the stage as one of the organizers crashed with the back of his car into the stage (bam!) after he smoked pot and drank a few too much. Oh well, we ended up in a practice room chatting, drinking beer and have a good night sleep. They gave us a key thankfully. Am tired as fuck which resulted me being less convo than usual. We can sleep till twelve. Tomorrow/today we have a 3 hour drive.. first short one of the tour. Thank god. Good night.
Saturday 28.05 Milano Crustaway!
After I defeated a Latterman/Hot Water Music/Orgcore discussing I found out I fell asleep right away after that. Waking around ten I textmessaged a friend and I listened to the unmixed recordings of Deadwood. Easy on we searched for a Carre Four (big ass supermarket) where we got some food and drinks. When we looked for gas we only could find was self-service stations. Eventually we found a too expensive Q8. Next thing was the highway to Milan. But Torino is big. Victorizing the tough traffic we took the small roads towards Milano. After a good 3 hours we arrived at the club. Really shy guy helped us out with parking the van at the loadingspot. We build up the backline, soundchecked and checking our mails. It's always great to hear stuff from back home. Round about 20:30 we ate a vegan dinner. oh man it was delicious! We met Ste and Sarah from No Reason Records again. He flew over to The Netherlands to see Ivo's last show with Antillectual. The place where we play is a big squad complex and looks awesome! Lots of graffiti. Think Heineken Music Hall... even bigger I think. Roundabout 23:00 it became crowded.. mixed people but overall it was crust. First band sounded like crappy hardrock in italian. Second band sounded as a mixture of stoner and screamo, kinda cool. Third band looked and sounded like crusty motorhead. Most of the people came to see this band was our idea. Before the show we sold some merchandise and the show was good. Good crowd response. We loaded the van, had to drive the van through the big crowed and entrance gate. There was also a big hip hop show in the same venue. we stayed upstairs of the venue. Weird showers cabins, like the whole cabin is the shower but there's also a washing table and a tiolet in it. goodnight sleep, hotelish.
Sunday 29.05 Melegnano Jail-a-crust/Never shop when you are hungry
Woke up round 10ish, checked the mail and we had to leave round 11. We were waiting for the key to let the bus out but as we know italians, 5 minutes is 50 minutes. This big door with big lock kept us from going outside. Thomas found out that a screw was loose so we could get out ourselves. LUCKELY. Time to do some milano sightseeing. Went for coffee, the cathedral church Duomo, castle Sforzesco and a nice big park. Finally we had some quality time to chill out. We parked right in the middle of milan and the weather was lovely! In 20 minutes we were at the next venue. We parked somewhere and right away the sound guy spotted the van so he could take us to the venue. Venue? It's actually a library. People were studying when we unload the van and soundchecked. They didn't seem to mind. These people were very friendly. This was also a last minute show (on a sunday) but the turn up was great. Before the show started, Sarah (Ste's girlfriend) made dinner for the bands. They told me her cooking was tremendously good. Now I found out first hand. Tomatobread, cheese pizza, olive pizza and something like lasagna rolls. Oh my god it was good! You could taste the love. We hung out with Ste & Sarah after the dinner and had nice convo's and dessert! Puddingpie. The bands were awesome too! First band A Theory of Justice played heavy-ish hardcore and has a male and female fronting screamers. I liked the breakdowns a lot. Next up Antillectual. They played awesome once again. Good crowd response! Last band was Violet. Sounded like a sweet version of Thrice in their "Artist in the ambulance" period without the heavy stuff. The bassplayer was really kind and I hung out a bit with him and his friends. We sold a good amount of merchandise. Exchanged email addresses with some people, loaded the van and went off to the No Reason Records office (Antillectual's italian label) where we stayed the night. Just before sleep we did the aids game.. (aids2O, save the aids) tot in den truere.
Monday 30.05 Bologna
Another good sleep we had. It's 2 hour drive to the next show so we can take things slow. That's nice when the first 4 days were very rushy. The office is quite impressive with all the releases they do/did. The sun is shining outside and it looks like it's going to be a good day… again. No hot water, so we took a cold shower. Slowly everyone woke up and we looked around the village for some food and drinks but with the italian Siesta you never know. Well the small town didn't have a store that was open. Willem did the business in the label office and we sat on the terrace for some ice-cream. Ste arrived round 15:00 to close up. I bought a Thrice shirt JEEJ! We said goodbye to Ste and were heading off to Bologna. It took us a small 2 and a half hours. At our arrival in Bologna we were surprised by the venue. It used to be a fruit shop. The Cute Lepers (ex The Briefs) arrived as well and after a while we started to hang out with guitar player Brian and drummer Josh from Seatle. Nice to chat with some decent talking english people haha. We ate pizza again and hung around and round 21:15 The first band started. Sounded cool… mid tempo punkrock with some rock n roll. Second band was a bit poppier. The bands were on a tight schedule because everything needed to be stopped before 12. It was very hot in the venue. TCL tour manager was an awesome dude. Antillectual played an short awesome show.Venue was packed at TCL. 3 of us slept at Claudio's studio and Riekus and Tom stayed in the van because of parkingspace problems. Respect guys. I did some email checking and went to bed.
Tuesday 01.06 Vittorio Veneto
Waking up round 9 in the morning we had a good night sleep. Checking mails. Shopped for food. In the city we drank coffee with Claudio and then we went into the city for some sightseeing and to see the two towers (the Garisenda & Asinelli tower). Cause we had spare time and just a 2 hours drive. We arrived and it looks awesome. Big nice venue with a descent PA. It's once again some sort of complex but now more modern like fitness stuff and all. We received a warm welcome by Thomas and Patrizio. At the soundcheck Tom won a fan. A kid (i think) 3 years old played like tom did and a nice smile on his face. The support band Garghantha arrived during the soundcheck. Nice guys. At 20:30 they served us dinner… Holy Moly! Veggie pasta and darn good! We heard last night that this where we are now is a student region. Had a nice talk with Alice who works behind the bar. She told me a friend of hers was laying in the hospital. She worked from the early morning till we left, damn! But it's true, lots of students. What a turn up.. roundabout 150 people showed up! Even two lads who saw Antillectual on groezrock drove 200 km to see them tonight. Garghantha started and the venue was nicely crowded. AWESOME BAND. Check them out! Taking a look at the setlist they played like 15 to 17 songs. Anyway, great crowd response so things are looking good for Antillectual tonight. They played awesome. Crowd liked it a lot and we sold a good amount of merch. Loading the van afterwards was a bit tricky because of the stairs and the crowd but saying scouzzy did it's work I guess. We drove off to the hotel where we are sleeping. The guys who drove 200 km also stayed in the same hotel and drank some beers with us. They brought meat, cheese, breadsticks and Hollandia beer… siked! Talked about Down by law, Groezrock and Tom and I had a bonding (like) moment as we both dig Counting Crows a lot… (which is now playing in the van). Got into bed and doze off right away.
Wednesday 02.06 Ajdovscina (Club Baza) (SLO)
Woke up around 10 o clock and had the first good shower (warm water) in 4/5 days. Like I said touring aint that glamorous. but the things that happen are priceless. Smelling bad is just one of the necessary evils. We drove to Torza to have breakfast at Patrizio's house. Later came Thomas too and Riekus filled in a form for the songs they played last night. They gave us the leftover breakfast... and off we went. After an half an hour drive we crossed the border from Italy to Slovenia. Then one and a half to Ajdovscina. We arrived very early so we hung on a terrace in the village next to it. We had pizza, coffee and beer. The Jani from Real Life Version showed up (they do the show) and there is no promotion done for the show. They texted messaged their friends and stuff so we'll see what the turn up is. The venue is cool, it used to be a place where weird/crazy people would hang out. Antillectual is the only band of the night. The venue need to shut down at ten so we have an early show. It started raining but luckily it's an inside show. The show was awesome. Good turn up, roundabout 40 people I think. Best sound so far. Show-wise one of the better too. We are sleeping in Real Life Versions practice room. Darn, they have it all.. Bathroom, couches, internet… Nice! We drank a few beers with the guys and went to sleep. They are cool guys.
Thursday 03.06 Ljubljana (SLO)
The drummer woke us up at 9:00 sharp and ate a good breakfast. Riekus got a new ventilator cause the old one broke down last night. Some got the chance to shower. Then off to Ljubljana, capitol of Slovenia. We arrived, parked the van at the venue, another crust complex. Now we are sitting on a terrace for coffee and vegan sandwiches. Pulling it good! We did some sight seeing at the St. George's Chapel. Went into the city and bumped into a guy who's house we sleep in. He works at a bar where we sat down for coffee and beer. When we wanted to pay and go he said it was on the house. Awesome. Back into the city and then returned to the squadcomplex where Antillectual plays tonight. Dario cooked Goalash/chilli for us and when finished we build up the backline and soundchecked. The shows badly promoted and while soundchecking we heard that there's a puppet show before the band's show. Weird combo.. and it's quite boring after a while when you don't understand the slovenian language. The band played a cool show even though the sound wasn't that good. After loading in we grabbed a snack on the way where I met Karen (a Canadian girl) and talked about Alexisonfire with her. Then we got into the van with 8 people to Dario's house. Me, Thomas and Riekus smoked our last cig and went to bed. Nice house.
NOTE
This is a raw version of the first few days...
When I get back I will put the whole tourdiary online with pictures and a tourvideo
