EUROTRIP: How to fill a gap...

Day 7/8/9: Another thousand miles down the road...

I woke up in the bus, somewhere in belgium after a awesome night.
We geared up after a nice cup of coffee with Chris from Pushed too far and his mum.

Off to Hamburg!

While we drove 5,5 hours to Hamburg we stopped for a proper meal and a shower. The weather has been bad so far on tour but that won't kill us. We arrived at the Bar 227. It's a squad and the barlady just arrive too. We set up the gear, the supportband was there right away. So far so good. But after dinner and soundcheck they told us that the show has been cancelled. We can't force 5 people to drink themselves to death for 200 euro's... Without thinking we loaded the van, got some booze and headed home earlier than expected. Roundabout a thousand miles, a "pitstop" in Hamburg and the national anthem of The Netherlands later I'm back on my own ground. Tired as fuck but sleeping on my own couch, I love it!

The next day I set up a few seminars for Joe and Nick to earn some money to fill up the loss we made with Hamburg. The rest got busy with our first tour webisode!



That night the English section of our all time hero's team went out for a drink, so I could chill with Bernice. Be on my own a bit. After I dropped her off at home, I drove a while through the city with music on the headphones and through the rain. I loved it! Am enjoying that life is giving me new highlights, new future perspective, continueing laughters and sharing a wonderful tour with four adorable buggers!
Somewhere else in the city is something toooootally different happening. Buggers getting their groove on. Hittin' it hard. The guys got hammered and had good times, as of what I saw on the videocamera haha. Ben came in like BAMN! First thought was my room will be destroyed... I seen him on stage next to me. It's a animal! Joe's laughing over the phone while and hurting my stomach. Damn.

The next day I spend some hours at school, Nom de Plume came down to my house to meet the rest of the Helsinki crew. After that we kinda chilled with games, House and Comedy Central.

Cozy hard to hard on "The Motherfocker"


Tomorrow: Rehearsals!

EURO TRIP: That shit needs to be nailed man.

Day 6: Showtime!

After what happened last night we got to bed in the bus and Joe got his tent up. It was freezing cold in the bus but at least we knew not to expect a riding relax chair aint gonna crash into us or anything. I just slept a few hours but felt pretty fucked up in the morning. Its been years since I slept in the van while being on tour!

Anyway... We practiced on stage roundabout 12:00 just to see what needs more practice and if the set is in a logical order. went pretty well even tho I feel the pressure but I dont worry. As the festival started I sometimes went to the van and practiced for a bit and that payed off! Saw a few cool bands like Pushed too far (Belgium metalcore like Mundane) and To the bone (sounded like a The Bronx/QOTSA coverband) who played for like two hours!

The fans got some sticks, skins and picks.

Chilled in the van and got to sleep.

Off to Germany!

EURO TRIP: Hitting the road!

Day 5: No pressure...

My luxery sleeping days are over. This was the last night at Nick's house because starting today I will crash on floors, busbenches and all the other types of beds imaginable.



With some miscomunication here and there we kinda went from here to there which delayed us at least an hour. Also forgetting your pasport doesnt really help to get you any quicker to your first show.
We planned our last rehearsal in Belgium in the venue where we play our first show the next day.
After we picked up our merchgirl Lydia, we headed to dover to catch the channel over to Calais.



The trafficjams aren't in our advance either. The vibe in the van isn't luckily not influenced by it. The soundtrack for this tour is an uplifting one. From 80's (overall UK) classics to the modern hardcore/punk stuff we enjoyed the ride to Weelde where we are now at the time of writing.



Never thought that playing in Helsinki Seven would be such an adventure. Why? You better read on then! Nothing really spectacular has happen since we crossed the french border... What suppose to be a 7 hour drive made it to be 10/11 because of our own delay and the jams. Talking with Joe & Lydia about my fasination for UK bands I discovered over the years, I heard that some of the artists are Helsinki Seven fans. Damn! That stunned me. Anyway, literally minutes away from arriving at our destination we got pulled over by the police. One of the officers was suprised organised we were (with the papers eh!) but while the man started checking our pasports this dude approaches from the other side with high speed the cops, threw back our pasports and we were free to go went chasing the guy for a speeding ticket. What just happened? Well, let's get on... almost there. With a little search we finally found the youthcenter. It one o'clock at night so practice won't happen anymore. The lights are on, there seem to be a few folks havin' a good time... Happy that we arrived and tired as we are, we get a warm welcome. A bit too warm if you ask me. The people there were very happy to see us... and let me say this again, maybe a bit too happy. These people were WAY PASSED HAMMERED! Don't even know where to start... Even for dutch standards this is pretty extreme what we actknowledged. I thought that it kinda went too far at one point. They made this chair with wheels thing and just bumped into anything possible. Walls, the stage, the bar, tables, you name it. The weather isn't helping either. As we try to make the best of it, it was time to sleep. Respect for those belgium folks who seem to sleep through The Bronx, Ghost of a Thousand and Mastodon records on 11!

They informed us that national TV will be there tomorrow to interview us and record footage of our show. The show will be packed with at least 500 people: I still hear the Master of the Universe say: No pressure Rudy, no pressure...

Ben already went to sleep in the van. I decided to also sleep in the van because I'm deadtired and hoping for a few hours sleep. It was and still is bloody freezing in the van... At the moment of writing it's pooring outside and my feet are cold again...

So now am writing this blog with H7 on and thinking... Today I would've seen City & Colour but instead am freezing to death in a UK van on a European tour... and still convinced I made the right choice. I wouldn't want it any other way...

Save a prayer for me.

Good morning!


Sidenote: While on tour there is less internetaccess so, you can have a laugh at my writing or just wait it out till am home and read the final version.

Thanks!

UK TRIP: Shopping for a crew!

Day 4: Getting skinned in Manchester.

On my day off I took the train (mixtape on the headphones and enjoying the view) to Manchester (distance Leeuwarden - Zwolle) to meet up with my friend Dani, who recently visited the AvP with Andy and Joël for a student exchange project. It was very pleasant to see her again.
But this time it's the other way around. Instead of me showing her the places to be in Leeuwarden, it was her turn to show me Manchester... What a lovely city it is!

First off we had tea and coffee at The Teacup.

Coffee at The Teacup
The English have their tea obsession as we "Dutch people"
have our bike obsession according to the "English people".
Earthlings... weird people. Lost it? Me too.

Isn't that cute... BUT IT'S WRONGGG!
I am fasinated very fast and this time it wasn't any different. This building that looked like a student flat, it has al sorts of (discount) shops in the vain of Ursula or London Mode. It's called Aflecks Palace. It is HUGE! Just when you thought you've seen it all, it keeps on going... The only "awkward" thing I saw in the building was a dentist. You can also eat, drink and chill out between the shopping and to top it all, you'll find a modeling agency in the same building. F**kin' rad mate!

Anywho, Dani & I had a wonderful time in the city as she skinned me to the bone. The record stores overhere are FAR MORE BETTER! Am gonna move the UK when am done in The Netherlands with all my stuff I have going and that's a bloody fact! I got Joe some string back-ups at Dawsons for the tour... DAMN those guitarshops! luckily I could keep my hands off some instruments and not carry them towards the counter... Manchester was sunny, rainy and half darkclouded today so I got an impression of both. I cannot mention all the big stores we went to but I know we did some good business at HMV, H&M, Fopp Records, Pulp, The Vintage Clothing Co. and last but not least... Primark!

Imagine entering in a very fancy Wibra
with the coolest close for cheap-ass!

SCORE!
...on a more personal note:
Thank you so much Dani, for the wonderful day you gave me. The talks, the laughs, the sightseeing, coffees and tea's. You are a fantastic friend to shop and hang around with. It is very much appreciated...
and totally worth the trainticket ;)

Tomorrow is the start of the tour, well, the driving starts tomorrow.
I saw the van. It's also HUGE! As I say in The Netherlands:
Ik ben fan! Trek-ut! I'd better get some rest, so i can pack my bags in the morning and finally rock across Europe!

Goodnight.

UK TRIP: Kurt Ballou, Nibbles and a hangover from hell!

Day 3: Sometimes it takes a turn...

I didn't knew what to expect what would happen today. Nick woke me up laughing,,, Probably because of my snorring or my weird postioning while I sleep. Time of awakening: half past six.

Good morning!

Nick had to go to work (12,5 hours shift) and so he dropped me off at Joe and Hannah where I chilled out for a few hours, did some work and got all the chords of the songs on paper.

"that riff you probably wanna try to dance on"

Me and Joe got some quality time discussing lots of things like the upcoming tour, financials, other tours and futureplans. We pretty much got that figured out. On facebook I chatted with our merchgirl for the tour and tomorrow I get to meet her. Furthermore me & Joe had lots of talks about producers, american musicians, the fucked up people in the business (ourselves included, haha) while Joe is cleaning the oven. You could tell it was his first time.

Joe's view from his backyard

He also managed to make fried egg rice (?) so Hannah could enjoy a lovely meal when she came home from work. We saw the movie Thor. Joe had football practice so he dropped me off at the rehearsal studio so I could practice on my own first. Things started to go downhill for me here. Deadtired and a "neighbour" who came by to let us know that he could hear us from miles away, just like his kids... owh well, the friendly punkrockers we are, decided to stop rightaway and call it a day. I recieved a text from Erwin that New Killer Stars decided to split up. Pretty shitty. Well, tired as f**k, we drove home and now am here finishing my blog with eyes that can barely stay open...

Tomorrow is my personal day off...

My plans are shopping with Dani in Manchester and hopefully also catch up with my friend Rosie who I met through the Kensington Arms UK tour where she gave us a show on very short notice when there was a show cancelled during our stay.

Anyway... am hitting the sack.

Nighty-night!

UK TRIP: Upbuilding tour pressure

DAY 2: Meet Tracey...

When I opened my eyes this morning, I couldn't get the smile of my face. Things are going well for me. I feel blessed to this kinda thing. Everyone is very friendly and very helpfull when needed. Finally I got to meet Nick's mum. She's indeed Sjoeke's duplicate except for the language and jobfunction.

Anyway, me & Nick uploaded some rehearsal video's and run down some things that needed to be done for the tour. Like making my laptop "tour-ready" stuff like that. Spoiled by their wonderful and delicious coffee, I had to enjoy that with a fag.

Sun, Fags & Coffee

Yesterday in the rehearsalroom we bumped into a "major" problem. With the right tuning things started to look up. Why? Because all the riffs and stuff started to make sense. We might throw in a Thrice cover from the "artist in the ambulance" record! That would be 2 covers then haha. But let's keep that a suprise for you readers who will atend a show on the tour. Anywho... Today we nailed down 7 to 8 songs for setlist that will contain 10 songs... Maybe more.

Meet my "dirty" girlfriend that I take with me on this upcoming tour...

Tracey Elliott

While driving with Nick & Joe to the rehearsalroom I recieved a phonecall from 3voor12 (biggest music platform from The Netherlands) for an interview about the new Kensington Arms record. It's weird to realise I intergrate very fast in the english language as I had trouble with finding the right dutch words sometimes, come to think of it... I also have that generally. Owh well, the english language suits me the best. So stick it maestro!

Tonight we travelled to H7's (Helsinki Seven) townpub in Northwich. A place where I have been before while touring with Kensington Arms (during our wintertour, december last year) I got the chance to meet some of Nick & Joe's friends. We are celebrating Joe's pre birthday party. I catched up with Hannah (Joe's girlfriend) again and got to meet Becca, Tom and some more lovely people (Carla?) I'm sorry...
not good at names... It needs repetition.

And that makes me come to the point where I am now, Tired but happy and between the sheets.

Let's put out the lights... Sleep well!

By the way... My tour name is established: Bergkamp.

UK TRIP: From the airport...straight into rehearsals!

Hey there,

My first blog on the UK trip & European tour.

What's the idea?

Well, I thought it would be nice to put down some words and visuals here on how things progress while am in the UK, practicing with English rockers Helsinki Seven and ofcourse the following European tour in a few days.

DAY 1: First flight ever!

After the goodbye's at school and from Elcke, Suzy, Chiel and my other dear friend Chantal, I hopped in the train to get to the airport in Amsterdam to catch the flight to Manchester. The nervous started to get worse at one point but eventually it all managed itself.

'

Checked in, Starbucks & Fags... I'm ready!

It's the same as riding a bus or train, except the view is better...

Nick (Helsinki drummer) picked me up from the airport. It was so nice to see him again... and guess what, am not the only one who lost a few pounds. Anyway, this morning, me and Joe kinda joked about rehearsals straight from the airport. The dude wasn't kiddin' haha. As I thought (after me getting on a plane) no problems would occurre. Well, what do you do when you practiced all the songs in the wrong tuning? Right, start with the new ones first. I could see Joe's (Joe, the man, the legend, Midget Glasses) world falling apart. But I must say that I pick up things quite easy with a bassguitar in my hands. I'm not saying playing bassguitar is easy (for the outsiders, I usually play the 6 strings) but it's funny to see it from a point of few with a minus of 2 strings. Now I get the chance to lay down some heavy groove instead of melody or a light rhythm. Back to the problem... There was one second I thought: FUCK! but the next one was like: Challenge accepted!

"Groove is in the heart"

The thing that stunned me the most so far is Nick telling me he has a suprise to show me. If it's food I had to dissapoint the sweet man. But none of that. The guy is even more obsessed with touring than me. Why? Nick has my face tattooed on the side of his stomach! On the European tour we might reveal it for those who are interested...

Here's a video of the first rehearsal: From airport to rehearsal til 3am

After rehearsal, Nick took me to where he lives with his sweet mom (haven't met her yet but from the stories I heard and how Nick is, she must be a duplicate of Sjoeke from the AvP). Now I am feeling like a dead beat. So, this was the first blog of my traveladventures in the UK and Europe. Hope you enjoyed it.

Goodnight!