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We're approaching half way through this tour and finally have all had a decent night's sleep and most of the day off. Gert, our dude, doesn't pick us up until 18h. We had the last two nights off so we went on a little side trip to the city of Gent, where Scotty's high school friend Nichola owns a restaraunt with her husband and lives upstairs with their sweet eight year old daughter. Gent is beautiful and Nichola was a prepared and gracious tour guide. We visited a cathedral that was a gazzillion years old and crazy old world cool. Also went to a true medieval castle complete with a torture chamber with appropriately gruesome displays. Mark smiled; well, as much as Mark smiles. Fantastic place to just walk around and we were happy at the nice sunny weather that we were told was a fluke. The end of the tour found us at a classic Belgian bar right on one of the canals with amazing beer, of course. That one was so good we went to the town square and had another, got to talking with some locals, so we stayed for a third. I wanted to try something unusual, since Belgians take their beer seriously. When I asked, the bartender asked, "draft or bottle?, bottle, dry or sweet? dry", since I wasn't being specific enough, I asked how many bottled beers they have? "220". fuck. I asked for something that tastes like Orval. Good enough. Now, in Belgium, you HAVE to drink your beer from the appropriate glass, and every brand has their own glass, shape and logo. 220, and the weird one I got still came in a matching glass. We had dinner at the restaurant. Cajun. Funny in theory, delicious in taste.
We woke up the next morning and took the train to Brugge. Andy thought he'd head back to our home base house for some alone time. Instead he ended up watching a bike race going right through our little town and having dinner with our landlords. When Chris, Mark, Scotty and I got off the train and just got close to the heart of town, we hear:"The Alkali Flats in the hizzous!" We look over and see Andy Panson and his wife Jennifer. Sacto folks! Crazy! We all walked around the ancient city, had lunch, and sat in sun and enjoyed, you guessed it, more tasty beers. We split ways and were soon on the train back to our little house. We were in bed early and hit hard. Sleep is a precious thing to us.
The flight over was pretty painless but none of us slept for more than two or so hours. We left around 6:00 am and when we arrived in Brussels it was about 7:00 am. We took a train to Antwerp where we had our first waffle at the train station. The hype is right, various forms have become addicting. From there a trolley to the place where we picked up our borrowed gypsy bass that we needed to do some work to in exchange for using it on our tour. From there we worked our way to Herentals where Gert, who we affectionately refer to as Papa, picked us up and took us to our little house, home for three weeks. We settled in, fixed the bass, suited up and went to play our first show. Two hours of sleep in about a day and a half. We were dragging a little ass. It was a welcomed low key show and we went over well enough, even though is was tame by our standards.
We all slept until noon or after and were picked up a little later by Jan, our driver for our four hour drive to Sneek, Holland. Nice guy, real quiet. It took him a while but he soon realized that almost everything that comes out of our mouth's is some sort of joke. It doesn't take long when we are all together for us to revert to some sort of advanced form of juvenile humor that, while extremely crass, relies on acute cleverness for its success. To pass time we say the most profoundly nasty things about each other, all with a twist, then everyone bursts out in tear evoking laughter. By the end of the first night Jan smiled a couple of times. When we got to the club, the owner and his girlfriend, both really nice, closed up the bar so we could walk to the town square and have a few beers. It was a great way to get a feel for things, all quite busy and fun. Chatting with locals and people watching. After that we had dinner at a fancy hotel. It's in our contract that we get feed by the clubs. A lot of times it's fancy and this place's cred went down when we walked in. Candles, cloth napkins - not how we roll. We went back to the club and once we hit the stage, the place was packed. The two full sets had us back to full form, which is fast and sloppy, and although a little drunk, the crowd really dug it anyway. We could've played all night, but it was a long drive home.
A little sleep and then there was Jan, ready to pick us up again and take us back to Holland. This time only an hour or so away from home in another cool little city center. This time we were playing a little art gallery, cultural center kind of place. We set up and sound checked and then we were off to dinner at someone's apartment and the food was top notch. It felt nice to be welcomed into their home and have home cooked dutch food. Afterward, Jan, finally getting our sense of humor, asked if we wanted to check out the coffee house. It took us a couple of minutes to realize that coffee isn't the attraction there. We had to go for the spectacle of it. We have no stoners in the bunch but had we not walked in, giggled like little girls, took stupid tourist photos, well, it would just be wrong. the show went really well, once more. Good enthusiastic crowd.
The next day was Easter Sunday and the show that the whole tour was booked around - Rocking Around Turnhout - a pub crawl featuring a bunch of bands playing staggered sets at mulitple venues. We parked it at one club and played four sets spaced about an hour apart, which allowed us to walk around the square and check out a bunch of other bands while taking in the culture. Our club was this super old warehouse that was all dark brick with two walls made of floor to ceiling wooden drawers. Old school Ace Hardware. Once again the bartenders were really cool and cordial, teaching us how to pour Belgian pinches (pilsners) the correct way. Our first set was okay, decent crowd. The second set people packed in and you couldn't breathe in there. Packed. They loved it. We sold about 35 cds and all had to sign most of them, not something we are used to. That was enough, we didn't need much more excitement, but the third set was simlar to the second. After that we were wiped out, luckily our last set was more like the first. Everybody, including the bartenders told us we had to go to the after party, which, of course, we did. Huge hall, tons of people, more drinks, mayhem. I think each of us grabbed a cute girl and danced. Again, not something we normally do, therefore, we were five two-left-footed-dorks. By the time we were on our way home with Scotty telling the cabby that he, too, liked Air Supply, it was 4:30 am.
Very little sleep, a little hangoverish. Worth every second except that we had to play an early show, again in Holland. We were actually happy that it was an early one, as there was very little enthusiasm. The place was, again, cool. I know, almost like I should only mention if it were lame, but this place was owned by a very particular mined older guy who's been singing old country tunes since he was a teenager. Very clean with every detail perfect. We played our first semi-boring set to a crowd of all older people. We soon realized that somehow, this whole audience seemed to be advanced in years. Not that we had a problem with it, Mark looked right at home. At the end of the first set the bar owner got up and did a couple of numbers with a few of us backing him. It was really cool and the crowd loved him more than us. Fair enough. We did our second set and wanted to bolt back and get some sleep but after loading the van this nice drunk older lady insisted that we had to stay and play. We politely declined, blaming that mean old Jan. He understood the play and was happy to be the fall guy. She, however demanded that we stay for her to sing Karaoke to one song. We sat as she tried her hardest to seduce Chris to no avail, Jan had us out of there unscathed in no time.
So you can see that by the next morning, having already had such a wonderful trip, we needed a break. We packed a few things and set out for Gent.
3:03 PM
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