Hey dudes'n'dudettesWelcome to our tour diary, we'll try to keep you updated... pics and movies coming soon, please don't expect too much for now... thanks a lot.
HEYYYYYY!!! PICTURES CAN BE FOUND HERE !!!!!!
22/08/2008Leipzig - 4 RoomsWe had a great night with Locust Reign, Blonk, The Handshake Affair, and a great crowd... Thanks everybody for coming, it's been really a good start and we enjoyed the show very much. Joey took some pics, we'll try to upload them here asap. Leipzig rules, that's for sure. But we knew that already. We gonna check out Zwolle tonight. Greets to Locust Reign, Blonk, and The Handshake Affair who shared stage with us that night. Right now, it's time for breakfast and buying some stuff we still need.... like drugs and the like, you know the spin. ;) However, thanks for being interested, I gotta drink my milk.
23/08/2008
Zwolle - Eureka
After a seven hours ride from Leipzig we arrived at the Eureka in Zwolle and everything was perfect from the first minute. The venue was awesome, just the right setting for us... Thanks to everyone who showed up and made our first apperance in the Netherlands such an amazing night
. We'll be back - that's for sure. Special thanks to the booker Joey and the whole staff of the Eureka who did an amazing job. Greets to Misantropicana and The Black is Grey - awesome sets dudes.
The aftershow party was a bliss - 8bit minimal techno definitely rules like we don't know what. WE even dared to dance... so it must have been a great party. After 1,5 hours of sleep we got up at 5 to leave Zwolle at 6 for Coventry... It was going to be a long ride so we got really stuffed with breakfast, although eating much at this time of the day is quite hard work... However, we were full of energy (of course), packed our stuff together and left Zwolle with a load of great memories.
24/08/2008Coventry - The Dog and Trumpet
We arrived at Calais at 11am and got on the ferry to Dover. We had a tremendous Channel crossing with best British weather galore. At some point we thought, we wouldn't make it - but we made it! With almost no problems at all we fit ourselves into the new traffic situation and after a five hours drive we reached Coventry and thus, The Dog and Trumpet.
Davey the booker and his staff gave us a warm welcome and we were quite excited about our first appearance in the UK... (seems to be the tour for first appearances...) The night there was pretty busy and a lot was going on. We entered the stage being seventh and last band that night and the audience was absolutely capable of some more hard music that night. The show itself was a lot of fun (attention with the stairs ;) ) and we enjoyed it very much to share it with a lot of great bands that night.
After the night was done we crashed in Davey's flat and after a cosy video interview we finally fell into our beds and had a proper rest for about 6 hours. Having enjoyed a self- and homemade Corn Flakes breakfast we left for Cheltenham. Thanks a lot to everyone for this great first impression of playing in the UK. Coventry was awesome. Period.
25/08/2008Cheltenham - Greenbelt Festival @ Underground Stage (Meltdown Sessions)
The Greenbelt Festival welcomed us after an easy-going (hear ye...) 1 1/2 hours drive. The weather situation had already improved in Coventry and it stayed like that in Cheltenham. We've been equipped with passes and a map very quickly so we checked the spot out and strolled around. Our show was set at 4.50 pm during the Meltdown Sessions at the underground stage. We had a quick and tight change over and the venue filled up quite well. Thanks to you who have been in the crowd that day! Again, we felt very comfortable on stage, although it seemed quite weird that no moshing was allowed for the crowd. Security guys, if you do a Hardcore show you gotta do a HARDCORE show! It's ought to be the full package or nothing... however, this was not in the hands of the Meltdown guys but completely in those of the stage security... Sorry for the guy who got banned from the site... but... constant dripping wears away the stone, right ;) ?
After the show we found ourselves strolling around, collecting our merch and putting up our tent in mere darkness... which was of course a desaster... but we made it at some time and cooked some delicious (although saltless) spaghetti... Finally we crouched into our sleeping bags and at 7.30am we got ready to leave for Glasgow. Greenbelt was big fun, great atmosphere among the people and a lot of good impressions. Thanks again for the invitation.
26/08/2008Glasgow - The Captain's Rest
We left Cheltenham for Glasgow at 9am and had a 9 hours drive. Bah. However, Scotland welcomed us with Glasgow's distinctive smell and weather :) We were prepared... and of course the view on the merry town of Glasgow paid us back for all our travails... Quite exhausted we reached the Captain's Rest and with our last strength we ordered 5 McEwans and 5 burgers. Which brought us back on track... The venue was just great and as sweaty as Chris, the local promoter, has proclaimed in advance. The other bands that night, Corpses and Take A Worm For A Walk Week were great company as well so we got ready for an awesome night... and we were absolutely right with that.
We played second and after having given everything we can and sweating literally liters of sweat we crashed totally exhausted but happy in the flat of some friends of ours. Still, the night went on and some of us found their beds very late... or early - depends on the perspective. The next day we could sleep for quite a while, since Edinburgh is just an hour drive away. And this is what we did. We spent the noon hours with sightseeing and left for Edinburgh at 3pm. Thank you very much Glasgow - you mean quite a lot to us.
27/08/2008
Edinburgh - Henry's Cellar Bar
After a little bus-sightseeing through Glasgow we got on the M8 towards Edinburgh. We strolled around in the city and after some hours we got on our way to the club. We found the Henry's quite easily, a little crowd already waiting outside but consisting almost entirely of Doogs, the local promoter, and Hitcher who have allready been on the spot and setting up their gear. :) We fetched us a drink and a burger at a little shop nearby and got ready for the night to come.
The other bands, Hitcher and Zillah, were amazing. Both regarding their sets and the guys playing in these bands. We had a great time and good conversations with all the people at the place. The crowd itself was just great - not too many in numbers, but open-minded and eager. After a great show for us (which was almost as sweaty as in Glasgow's Captain's Rest ;) ) we enjoyed ourselves hanging around and just being in Edinburgh, in this incredibly picturesque environment and we aspired every single second with the guys in the comfy atmosphere there. Thanks so much again to everyone who took part in this night in whatever way... you made us very, very happy.
28/08/2008
Neath - The Duke
We spent the night again in our friend's flat in Glasgow and found some reasonable sleep. We left at 10am for a long ride to the south, destination: Neath, South Wales. Everything went quite fine, we were about to write some diary entries in the van as suddenly..... BOOOOOOOOOOM! ...... something happened to our van. The look in the mirror showed a little dusty cloud, we've run over something and didn't know what it was. The engine howled very weirdly, the battery light came up, we had no steering aid anymore, the temperature was going up... our lifes passed by in some seconds but we didn't lose control... we left the motorway at the next service station (which was luckily very close) and parked the van. Smoke came up from the engine room, the van sounded as if it wanted to die... 'Please, don't'... we thought. There we were, somewhere around Birmingham, stuck in the UK with a van that didn't want to go any further. It was 6pm, we had still 250km to go to Neath. We called a mechanic, he came about an hour later and told as the sad truth: We had lost our bottom pulley! And he told us that we had two choices: Being recovered to Dover and get on the ferry to France and sort the van thing out there or being recovered to Neath and try to get the van fixed there. We chose the latter and some time later our van was parked upon a truck (it almost broke our hearts), we were parked in the front and heading towards Neath where we arrived at 1am in the night. The show in The Duke had to be cancelled (Big sorry to everyone who showed up that night and was left in front of closed doors) out of the given reasons... which was sad. However, Steven, the local promoter, welcomed us at his house, got the van parked at a local garage and his wife made us some bacon and eggs sandwiches. Finally we relaxed a bit, talked the whole thing over, watched Kerrang! ;) and eventually found rest in our sleeping bags.
29/08/2008
Neath - Townhall
A little kitten entertained us in the morning and Steve had allreadytalked to the guys at garage and it seemed as if we could sorteverything out. Marx, Daniel, Steve and his son went to Swansea to a VW seller and got a new bottom pulley. Back to the garage after having bought a new belt as well, given everything in the hands of the mechanics there and the guy at Double P Motors had fixed the van in no time! It sounded aweseome, the van was brought back to life. We were absolutely happy and after some fish'n'chips we got ready for the show in the Townhall that night.
We arrived there at around 7pm, very nice venue with candelabras and old pictures and the like. It was an all-ages show that night and some kids were allready there. We set up the gear, made a little sound check and started at 9pm. The show went quite well, although not so many people showed up inside... Thanks to everyone who came in and thanks as well for pulling daniel around on the floor. The little sit-in gathering was an absolute novum, as well but great arranged at the right time in the set :) We were happy and the ones who where inside were happy as well and so we packed our stuff together and met with steve in The Duke where we were supposed to play last night for an ale and a chat. The view of The Duke made us even more sad about the missed gig, but on the other hand we were happy that the van was working again, that we were able to play at least one show in Neath and that everything went so well that night. We got back to Steve's house at around midnight, chatted a bit and went to the cosy sleeping bags at around 3am. We were supposed to get up quite early since we had to catch the ferry at Dover. And more adventures were still to come...
30/08/2008
Remscheid - Kultshockk
We left Neath early (again...) in the morning. The van sounded better than ever before and we were happy despite of the 10 hours drive plus ferry crossing which was waiting for us. We reached Dover just in time but were told by a young lady that we're at the wrong terminal. She send us back and things got quite stressy then... we arrived at the right terminal on the minute of the last check-in time... but were told by another young lady that our precious ferry ticket was booked for yesterday... and that it's gone now. So... yeah, we were sent away again... it seemed that Daniel has missed or overseen a little detail while organising the tour thing... namely, that we're not going back on the 29th but on the 30th. However, there we were, stuck in Dover without a ticket and the urgent need to cross the channel since we were due to play in Remscheid's Kultshockk the very same night. So we went into the ticket shop, luckily got a ticket for another ferry which left only half an hour later than the one we were supposed to take and paid just a little extra ;) for the ticket. We checked in for the third time that day and from there everything went just as planned... only half an hour later... We arrived at Calais and made our way through numerous motorways without stopping once on the way to Remscheid where we arrived at around 9.15pm - about 13 hours after we left Neath in the morning. Satis were starting the night and we were on second. Cribbel made us a very warm welcome and the hospitality in the Kultshockk was really great. This way we managed to relax at least a bit before the last show of our little tour.
We had a great time on stage, the Kultshockk was much narrower than we've expected beforehands but was just great for our purposes. The ground was quite slippery but this didn't hinder us and the crowd in any way - soon, the last chord was played, and everything was said and done. By Brute Force ended a great night in the Kultshockk, we left some time later for Cribbel's flat where we had a chat and some booze, summed up the night and the tour and stayed up until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.
The next day we left at around 10.30am heading towards home, we arrived at the rehearsing room, unloaded the stuff - and now the tour was over.
We enjoyed the whole tour very much, we made such great experiences - both as a band and as individuals. We had great shows, met awesome people and a lot of excellent bands. Thanks a lot to everyone who was involved in this in any way, thanks for having made this happen - this was just the awesome-st thing ever!
We are working on the editing of the footage we shot so there will be something up, soon. This is actually the end of our little tour diary... Hope you enjoyed...
Hugs'n'Kisses.
Sincerely,
We, the KO.