We just had a hamburger at 21.00 (you should dine late in Spain ;) and I just finished my brownie at 23.24, so I think I'm getting on just fine.
Tomorrow is our first gig :)
woensdag 26 februari 2014
A new Transatlantic tour starts...
Well here we go again. I just flew into Madrid, took a cab to the hotel and met up with Roine, Jerry, Micke, Nick, Jose and Randy, who's our tour manager this tour.
vrijdag 8 maart 2013
The three things we need
Wow I'm sitting listening to the very last concert of this tour in Wolverhampton, UK. We have had some Momentum, but we wont keep on going ;) but let me look back first...
After the gig in Madrid we drove to Bordeaux for a day off and a hotel. I went with Chris to find out how beautiful Bordeaux actually is. We planned on finding Neal because he texted us that he was buying a hotdog somewhere near a ferris wheel. Americans... I convinced Chris to ignore this blasphemy and take a pizza at a decent French restaurant which we did.
After 5 minutes Neal even found us. The sun was shining that day so it was just incredibly nice to enjoy this years first outside lunch in the sun. After checking the nearby carnival we went back to the hotel. I roomed with Charly Brown (Neal Morse) again and while he worked on the Charlie Brown musical I read a book and did some merch administration (just hhad to mention this to emphasize the sheer complexity of my job).
Around dinner time we joined with the whole group and went for dinner downtown. Jonas seemed to know a nice square where we sat down. Together with a waiter that actually spoke English (A Frenchman I hear you think, yes indeed) and my highschool French we took orders for the whole group and started the big wait for our dinner. It was the opposite of fast food: delicious, healthy and yes: slow.
After a great dinner we went back to the hotel to wait for our bus to leave at... 4 am!!! So we figured it would be better not to sleep before being on the bus. Not many enjoyed the early ride. Except for Mike Portnoy who didn't understood the problem: "I always go to bed around 4 so thats perfect"...
We drove to Paris where we played in a nice venue at the edge of the periferique. Which ment right after soundcheck I had to take Adson and Eric, Neals two guitarists, to check out some of the highlights. We just had enough time to see the Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower. While they stayed a little longer to eat something I rushed back via 3 subways to get to the venue only 1 minute before the doors opened... Oops.
The Paris crowd was enthusiastic and disnt disappoint. After hearing our bus wouldn't leave until 5 am, Eric and me decided to check one more Parisian highlight of our list: the Notre Dame. There was hardly anything to do there on a monday night so we just had some drinks at te nearest cafe and took a taxi back.
After Paris we drove to Rüsselsheim to challenge ourselves with the smallest stage of the entire tour. It worked out well even though I had to sell merch outside which was very cold.
While touring I'd say the wholy trinity of touring is good food, good sanitary and good WiFi. That way you can keep any musician happy. This last one was quite troublesome at almost every venue we visited. As soon as one of us has found and yelled the password 18 of us get the macbook and iphone out and completely burn, destroy or at least mess up the internet router. So we tried not to share the password with someone else :)
After a surprisingly intense and good concert we jumped on the bus (which left around 4am again) to drive to Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. I promised everyone that the three holy aspects of the touring musician would be well organized there and I could be proud. The boerderij is such an awesome venue!
Neal had a sore throat so I hope the concert went well. I had no idea cause I was in another room... Poor me.
So then here we are in England. Yesterday we took the ferry to the white cliffs of Dover and drove to the venue.
Chris and me had a great lunch just around the corner at a very old and traditional pub. We thought. After we saw quite some pictures of ehm lets say women with high testosterone and lots of lipstick we found out that it was actually a drag queen / gay pub. Walking out we saw the huge rainbow flag and had a good laugh about it. Nice people, though!
The venue had awesome painted walls (backstage) and the gig was amazing. The crowd sang every line and was just brilliant. At the final part of Stranger in Your soul Steve Hackett came on stage to join with some wild guitar soloing. Talking about a legend!
I met quite some people that told me they follow my blog, which is really cool. One guy asked me for yellow water, took me a while to get that one haha.
Ok, neal is closing his set so I have to get ready to tape the encore and I will update you soon!
After the gig in Madrid we drove to Bordeaux for a day off and a hotel. I went with Chris to find out how beautiful Bordeaux actually is. We planned on finding Neal because he texted us that he was buying a hotdog somewhere near a ferris wheel. Americans... I convinced Chris to ignore this blasphemy and take a pizza at a decent French restaurant which we did.
After 5 minutes Neal even found us. The sun was shining that day so it was just incredibly nice to enjoy this years first outside lunch in the sun. After checking the nearby carnival we went back to the hotel. I roomed with Charly Brown (Neal Morse) again and while he worked on the Charlie Brown musical I read a book and did some merch administration (just hhad to mention this to emphasize the sheer complexity of my job).
Around dinner time we joined with the whole group and went for dinner downtown. Jonas seemed to know a nice square where we sat down. Together with a waiter that actually spoke English (A Frenchman I hear you think, yes indeed) and my highschool French we took orders for the whole group and started the big wait for our dinner. It was the opposite of fast food: delicious, healthy and yes: slow.
After a great dinner we went back to the hotel to wait for our bus to leave at... 4 am!!! So we figured it would be better not to sleep before being on the bus. Not many enjoyed the early ride. Except for Mike Portnoy who didn't understood the problem: "I always go to bed around 4 so thats perfect"...
We drove to Paris where we played in a nice venue at the edge of the periferique. Which ment right after soundcheck I had to take Adson and Eric, Neals two guitarists, to check out some of the highlights. We just had enough time to see the Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower. While they stayed a little longer to eat something I rushed back via 3 subways to get to the venue only 1 minute before the doors opened... Oops.
The Paris crowd was enthusiastic and disnt disappoint. After hearing our bus wouldn't leave until 5 am, Eric and me decided to check one more Parisian highlight of our list: the Notre Dame. There was hardly anything to do there on a monday night so we just had some drinks at te nearest cafe and took a taxi back.
After Paris we drove to Rüsselsheim to challenge ourselves with the smallest stage of the entire tour. It worked out well even though I had to sell merch outside which was very cold.
While touring I'd say the wholy trinity of touring is good food, good sanitary and good WiFi. That way you can keep any musician happy. This last one was quite troublesome at almost every venue we visited. As soon as one of us has found and yelled the password 18 of us get the macbook and iphone out and completely burn, destroy or at least mess up the internet router. So we tried not to share the password with someone else :)
After a surprisingly intense and good concert we jumped on the bus (which left around 4am again) to drive to Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. I promised everyone that the three holy aspects of the touring musician would be well organized there and I could be proud. The boerderij is such an awesome venue!
Neal had a sore throat so I hope the concert went well. I had no idea cause I was in another room... Poor me.
So then here we are in England. Yesterday we took the ferry to the white cliffs of Dover and drove to the venue.
Chris and me had a great lunch just around the corner at a very old and traditional pub. We thought. After we saw quite some pictures of ehm lets say women with high testosterone and lots of lipstick we found out that it was actually a drag queen / gay pub. Walking out we saw the huge rainbow flag and had a good laugh about it. Nice people, though!
The venue had awesome painted walls (backstage) and the gig was amazing. The crowd sang every line and was just brilliant. At the final part of Stranger in Your soul Steve Hackett came on stage to join with some wild guitar soloing. Talking about a legend!
I met quite some people that told me they follow my blog, which is really cool. One guy asked me for yellow water, took me a while to get that one haha.
Ok, neal is closing his set so I have to get ready to tape the encore and I will update you soon!
maandag 4 maart 2013
Stairway to heaven / Stairs from hell
Milan was a great concert. We tried to see something from the area but we were not even close to the city. Lets say we felt a bit Ryanaired.
So no sightseeing for us. Both bands played a great gig though. I had all the time to watch the gig because for some reason selling merch there was not an option (for me, their Live Nation ppl had to do it). Also we didnt sell any cd's because they told us we had to buy a 1€ sticker per cd and all other kinds of weird things. A bit lame but well... I had some time off. We had to pack everything directly after the gig because we had a long drive to Barcelona to make.
After a long drive flanked by the mediterranean sea we arrived in Barcelona. Too late to be able to use the elevator of the venue. So we hurried with all our stuff up the 1001 stairs :( pfff
The Barcelona audience was great and my friend Jose was there. It's always nice to meet friends so far from home.
After the gig we had to get out fast because there was a disco in the same hall (hall 2 of The Razzmatazz). Quite exhausted we continued to Madrid.
Now the sun started to shine and we had some walka around the block where the venue (Sala But) was. To the Starbucks and back for example haha.
The Madrid venue (despite more stairs without elevator) was great and the gig was maybe the best until now. At the end of the set both the Flower Kings and the Neal Morse band join on stage for a Transatlantic song and that is just beautiful! Very emotional. Fans were going crazy from the front all the way to the back where my merch stand was. Just an awesome experience!
So no sightseeing for us. Both bands played a great gig though. I had all the time to watch the gig because for some reason selling merch there was not an option (for me, their Live Nation ppl had to do it). Also we didnt sell any cd's because they told us we had to buy a 1€ sticker per cd and all other kinds of weird things. A bit lame but well... I had some time off. We had to pack everything directly after the gig because we had a long drive to Barcelona to make.
After a long drive flanked by the mediterranean sea we arrived in Barcelona. Too late to be able to use the elevator of the venue. So we hurried with all our stuff up the 1001 stairs :( pfff
The Barcelona audience was great and my friend Jose was there. It's always nice to meet friends so far from home.
After the gig we had to get out fast because there was a disco in the same hall (hall 2 of The Razzmatazz). Quite exhausted we continued to Madrid.
Now the sun started to shine and we had some walka around the block where the venue (Sala But) was. To the Starbucks and back for example haha.
The Madrid venue (despite more stairs without elevator) was great and the gig was maybe the best until now. At the end of the set both the Flower Kings and the Neal Morse band join on stage for a Transatlantic song and that is just beautiful! Very emotional. Fans were going crazy from the front all the way to the back where my merch stand was. Just an awesome experience!
donderdag 28 februari 2013
Dont drink the yellow water
Right when we got in the bus after the gig in Cologne / Köln we got some bad news. Bad as in really bad! It so happened that somone (ofcourse it was impossible to find out who) had ignored one of the most important rules of the tour bus. As a result our toilet was broken. Now with 18 guys in the bus one toilet is kind of a challenge but 0 toilets on the bus... Thats not very nais! (with Borat-accent) Im surprised that we got to the Swiss venue (Z7, Pratteln) in time despite numerous sanitary brakes. Waking up in Pratteln was great. Everyone was looking out for Z7 because they have this amazing cook. She makes the best food and also there's a washing machine and dryer at the venue. It's the simple things in life that make a musician happy... Although seeing one of our gitarists get out of the bus with 3 bottles of yellowish water, adding: "no water!" was priceless as well :)
We had a great gig in Pratteln and both bands were on fire. The audience loved it even though you could tell that there were quite some people that never saw Neal or the Flower Kings. But thats great!
Touring is about music, I guess. But food comes as close second :) So after the chicken curry (and home made Tiramisu with Whisky) in Switzerland the bar was set for Milan, Italy. We just found out they did a great job with a classic pasta dish: Penne Bolognese. Made us happy :)
That should be a fine gig tonight!
We had a great gig in Pratteln and both bands were on fire. The audience loved it even though you could tell that there were quite some people that never saw Neal or the Flower Kings. But thats great!
Touring is about music, I guess. But food comes as close second :) So after the chicken curry (and home made Tiramisu with Whisky) in Switzerland the bar was set for Milan, Italy. We just found out they did a great job with a classic pasta dish: Penne Bolognese. Made us happy :)
That should be a fine gig tonight!
maandag 25 februari 2013
Close to the Edge of Home
After our Swedish adventure in Malmö we got on the bus. Well, around 6 am because we had to wait for the disco night, that came right after our gig, was over. I hang out with Eric Gilette, one of the two guitar players of Neals band and Edgel the tourmanager. Both play drums as well (Actually more than 50% of our group plays drums, it's insane. Everyone is tapping and drumming - all - the - time. But I dont mind, Im glad to be with the like minded haha). The night before we stayed up late as well. We even stayed up longer than Mike, which is always quite an achievement. Mike was in for a surprise though, finding Thomas, the keyboard player of The Flower Kings in his bunk, laying on his special pillow he brought from home. And on top of that Thomas was sort of pyama-less, if you know what I mean. Together with Edgel they found a nice new bunk for Thomas so everyone ended up happy haha...
Driving back to Germany we took the ferry to get there. I got out of bed to find out the whole ferry-experience is actually quite boring. The only thing to do is pay too much for lousy coffee and prepacked sandwhiches. Never again! I better sleep while I can.
We arrived in Hamburg and slept at the Holiday Inn. A decent hotel. Actually its the same wherever you find one. Even the artwork on the walls is the same. But the shower was just heavenly. What do you expect after 3 days in the bus and filthy venues?! I could have showered for hours...
I roomed with Neal to find out that he got himself into a difficult situation. Apart from this whole prog tour he had a musical to prepare where he plays piano. So before going to bed after our day off yesterday in Hamburg, he was practicing on his keyboard. He has to do so an hour per day every day! Haha. He told me next time he'll check the music scores before he actually says he'll do it. I read a book and we watched Enemy at the Gates because going to sleep early is just not rock and roll ;)
Now we're getting close to home having a concert in Hamburg and Köln. In Hamburg we had our first day off so we went out for dinner and saw the Beatles monument they have here. Back in the time before the Beatles made it they played here in local hotels and clubs a lot.
Now the concert in the markthalle is almost at a close so I better line up my cd's to make it extra punktlich and grundlich for my German customers :)
Oh I met some guys from the Mike Portnoy Forum, who follow my blog which was really cool!
Driving back to Germany we took the ferry to get there. I got out of bed to find out the whole ferry-experience is actually quite boring. The only thing to do is pay too much for lousy coffee and prepacked sandwhiches. Never again! I better sleep while I can.
We arrived in Hamburg and slept at the Holiday Inn. A decent hotel. Actually its the same wherever you find one. Even the artwork on the walls is the same. But the shower was just heavenly. What do you expect after 3 days in the bus and filthy venues?! I could have showered for hours...
I roomed with Neal to find out that he got himself into a difficult situation. Apart from this whole prog tour he had a musical to prepare where he plays piano. So before going to bed after our day off yesterday in Hamburg, he was practicing on his keyboard. He has to do so an hour per day every day! Haha. He told me next time he'll check the music scores before he actually says he'll do it. I read a book and we watched Enemy at the Gates because going to sleep early is just not rock and roll ;)
Now we're getting close to home having a concert in Hamburg and Köln. In Hamburg we had our first day off so we went out for dinner and saw the Beatles monument they have here. Back in the time before the Beatles made it they played here in local hotels and clubs a lot.
Now the concert in the markthalle is almost at a close so I better line up my cd's to make it extra punktlich and grundlich for my German customers :)
Oh I met some guys from the Mike Portnoy Forum, who follow my blog which was really cool!
zaterdag 23 februari 2013
Swedish love shirts!
Well the first concert in Stockholm went very well. The venue was a sort of local cultural center where you could also have dinner. Nice atmosphere, but not really a rock environment. Still the audience was coming for prog and they absolutely loved it. The set starts with the Flower Kings who have a great setlist. I also like their new drummer Felix. He's great! A weird thing is that Felix and Mike Portnoy both use exactly the same color drumkit (Tama Starclassic Performer Birch/Bubinga in a sort of diamond dust finish).
I was surprised to see how many t-shirts I sold. It was crazy. I really have to go order more! And soon! Otherwise I will run out in like 4 gigs. And thats not a good thing for a merch guy, cause the band needs the money to cover for all the travel and tour costs. I mean a tour bus alone (with 2 drivers) costs a lot! And then there's our daily coffee and cookies... (I brought the stroopwafels so those are from my personal budget ;)
Lets hope I sell everything tonight! Whoohoo...
I was surprised to see how many t-shirts I sold. It was crazy. I really have to go order more! And soon! Otherwise I will run out in like 4 gigs. And thats not a good thing for a merch guy, cause the band needs the money to cover for all the travel and tour costs. I mean a tour bus alone (with 2 drivers) costs a lot! And then there's our daily coffee and cookies... (I brought the stroopwafels so those are from my personal budget ;)
Lets hope I sell everything tonight! Whoohoo...
donderdag 21 februari 2013
On the snowy way to Stockholm
After taking some trains to Osnabruck and Hamburg we got on the tour bus (ok we went to have Indian food in downtown Hamburg first JUMM). Its big and red and has a trailer. Which means we can only drive 80 going to Stockholm. But well, I have books to read and we just stopped to have breakfast at a certain American ehm restaurant. Im gonna post a picture of the bus and the view from the bus (thats as exciting as it gets for now) and get back on the bus :)
dinsdag 22 januari 2013
Sneak Preview of the Neal Morse / Flower Kings tour shirt
Here's a preview of the Tour shirt for the Neal Morse Band & The Flower Kings European tour. I'm curious what you guys think about it, so let me know!
I really like the color, and I think there will be a black one as well (DUH!) but I remember the Orange Transatlantic shirts sales were always booming!
I really like the color, and I think there will be a black one as well (DUH!) but I remember the Orange Transatlantic shirts sales were always booming!
donderdag 10 januari 2013
A preview of what happened earlier
Here's a little preview of the new Neal Morse Live DVD we will be selling this European tour!
vrijdag 4 januari 2013
A new chapter of epicness...
I just decided I'm going to join Neal, Mike and Roine on another tour. This time, unfortunately, without Pete because the bill reads: "Neal Morse & The Flower Kings" (sounds alright as a band name as well;).
From February 22nd until the 8th of March we will tour Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and Great Britain. In an intense two weeks we will have 11 gigs all over Europe with a busload of the best prog musicians of today. Exciting is an understatement.
I will be selling merch again, just like I did during the Transatlantic tour back in 2010. This time though, no shipping of leftovers, no losing Daniel in Spain, no hassle with gear at the venue in Paris (it actually burned down), etc. But many more epic experiences (and music) are bound to cross my path.
As soon as I know more, I'll be sharing it here!
dinsdag 25 mei 2010
The Fat Lady Sang
Wow, here I am at home, looking back at an amazing tour with awesome music and incredible people. The last show in Manchester was just great! The guys were playing like it was the last gig of their life...
The Merch boot was very busy and I think I sold almost every shirt I had. The orange ones were sold out very quickly, the black album cover shirts as well, and the shirts with the faces in all sizes except S.
In retrospect my extra order was perfect. I am so glad to have sold almost everything. Selling out is nice, as long as it is the last gig of the tour ;) And apart from that I also found the time to make some onstage footage of Mike teaching the audience the Family Guy theme, the Boba Fett moment and the Stranger in Your Soul mayhem! Hopefully it will be featured on the upcoming dvd!
After the show it felt so unreal: the tour was over! No more getting out of bed at 11.00u / 12.00u, watching movies until 5.00u in the morning, after-gig-food, closing every day with 3,5 hours of great progrock, etc. etc. So many inside jokes we used can not be used again ;) well, not soon...
After the gig we were all summoned on stage by Mike, I happened to be filming anyway so I filmed everyone of the crew (except Sebastian who manned the merch stand on his own! Preventing all leftovers to be stolen haha, a true hero!) getting on stage receiving cheers and applause from the great Manchester audience...
Daniel took care of filming me as well (that's why he has the camera on the picture above) and I also took some shots later of the two front rows. Awesome ending of an awesome show! He later gave me his new album and signed it for me. It is a great album by the way! Very different than what I expected, I think Daniel is a contemporary, proggy Jeff Buckley. Anyway check that album out: Pain of Salvation: Road Salt One.
After the show we all got into the bus (very crowded) and drove to the hotel where most of the guys left the bus. There we said goodbye, hugged and wished each other well... kind of like a family. Actually it is really special to be working with 15 guys, AND living with them, without EVER having a discussion or fight... just to show that these are very nice guys!
After the hotel only Jens, Marillion's light guy, Pete, Collin, Max and me were left. So we drove to Marillion's studio where we dropped off Pete, I slept for two hours, then drove to London to drop off Jens, I stayed awake with him, then we drove to the ferry in Dover, I slept until we were at the ferry, then we drove to Ede and I slept until we were 30 minutes away. So that was quite a night, 3 shifts of a couple of hours sleep...
but today is tuesday, I'm at work, back to Hoshino where I do sales and marketing for TAMA, Ibanez and some other music brands. I came to work to find out that one of our endorsers (Paul Grey, bass player for Slipknot) died this weekend which is very sad)
But yeah, the tour was great, and I was very surprised to find out that people all over europe were reading this blog. Just great, thanks for letting me know and thanks for all the compliments!
Or as they say: the show isn't over till the fat lady sings!
zaterdag 22 mei 2010
Last notes
So there I am, the last gig will be tonight in Manchester. Time flew by, somehow the first week felt pretty busy and then you keep thinking: wow we're gonna do this three weeks! But then suddenly the second week flies by and you're already in the last week. Oh well, that's probably very common... anyway I had a great time.
After last post the Swiss gig went very well, they made us very very good food (I have started to understand people that talk about food all the time :) so that compensated the fact that we had to use Swiss Francs! Argh! I am so glad we have the Euro now, imagine I would have to change currency in every country! That would be a nightmare.
After Switzerland we drove to Paris. Getting to the venue was pretty tough for Chris, our brilliant bus driver. Often we sit in the front part of the bus (1st floor) thinking like: "oh no! He's never gonna make this sharp bend/tight alley/low tunnel" but Chris always does. Driving to Paris we must have destroyed our antenna driving through a very low tunnel. Daniel and me were expecting to have a London-like tourist bus after entering that tunnel but we kept our roof which was nice... such a nasty thing to wake up without one, lol...
PARIS
The venue in the capital of France never bothered to arrange an elevator so we had to get all our stuff (dont mind the merch, think about a huge drum hardware case or heavy Lesley organ) up 80 steps. And to make our day we had nasty showers, no dinner and one crew room that was constantly used for interviews.
Neal just told me that he never has interviews while touring solo, they probably are afraid Neal might talk about God, but now he's touring with TA they suddenly wanna talk to him. It's weird, ah well, they'll find out how Neal came up with this Whirlwind theme... lol
I went to see a little of the Champs Elysees together with Sebastian and we had a great time. It's just nice not to have to see anything but just being able to stroll around without any plans... or it's just us haha. The Audience in Paris was wonderful, very different from the much much calmer Lyon crowd.
Meanwhile our orange album cover shirts were completely sold out, just like to black album cover... so all we could sell were the shirts with the faces of the band members. We never sold as much as we did in Paris!
After getting all our stuff downstairs and making our way through some loyal fans that waited hours to get another glimpse of Neal, Roine, Pete or Mike we loaded up the bus and finally went to Holland. Hurrah!
I was in 013, Tilburg (Holland) right during the us leg of the TA tour cause I work for Hoshino Benelux which distributes Zildjian and Zildjian organized a Steve Gadd Clinic in 013. That was a great night and I got to drive with Steve on his tourbus from Feedback Rotterdam (a store where he did some signing) to 013 in Tilburg. So that compared with the awesome facilities of the venue made me really feel at home. I must say the highlight of the Tilburg gig was the shower haha... I felt reborn!
After being sold out for nearly three months it was no surprise that it was very very crowded during the concert. I met some friends right before the concert started and watched a bit of the show with them. Wilco, Elisa and Henk (from Neal's Dutch band) were also there so that was pretty cool. It felt like a match in your own stadium (or in Dutch: thuiswedstrijd) haha.
Then came the worst night of our tour: 2 hours of sleep, arriving at the border control in Calais, getting on the ferry (watching Anchorman as we waited) having very early breakfast and sleeping another two hours until we arrived at the venue in London. The Shephards Bush is a great looking venue but it has a sort of maze of halls... that compared with my lack of orientation made me walk around looking for the merch booth/dressing room all day long.
Somehow the venue didn't allow for us to sell merch, so we had to let two other people do that. Sounds like we had an easy day but trust me, it wasn't cheap. But I got to watch the first half of the concert from the first balcony having a great view. During the second half I was working with Todd and Sebastian on all kinds of merch administration. Earlier that day I went with Sebastian to see Picadilly Circus and just walk around a bit, the weather was unbritishly warm I can tell you!
And then... there we are in Manchester, I had a good night and a good shower so I feel able to talk to people again ;) Still I'm here in an empty crew room typing a blog, but that's just for you all!
The last gig must be special, I'm looking forward to any pranks and weird stuff. I heard the drum and guitar tech from Dream Theater (they both joined this tour as well) talk about that they actually did a whole scene from Star Wars at one of the ending gigs of a Dream Theater tour. Without the band knowing about it! haha, it should be on youtube!
allright, lets get the merch booth ready, for the last time!
thanks for all the feedback I got from you during the concerts, really cool to find out how many people are reading my blog!
greetings,
Ruben
After last post the Swiss gig went very well, they made us very very good food (I have started to understand people that talk about food all the time :) so that compensated the fact that we had to use Swiss Francs! Argh! I am so glad we have the Euro now, imagine I would have to change currency in every country! That would be a nightmare.
After Switzerland we drove to Paris. Getting to the venue was pretty tough for Chris, our brilliant bus driver. Often we sit in the front part of the bus (1st floor) thinking like: "oh no! He's never gonna make this sharp bend/tight alley/low tunnel" but Chris always does. Driving to Paris we must have destroyed our antenna driving through a very low tunnel. Daniel and me were expecting to have a London-like tourist bus after entering that tunnel but we kept our roof which was nice... such a nasty thing to wake up without one, lol...
PARIS
The venue in the capital of France never bothered to arrange an elevator so we had to get all our stuff (dont mind the merch, think about a huge drum hardware case or heavy Lesley organ) up 80 steps. And to make our day we had nasty showers, no dinner and one crew room that was constantly used for interviews.
Neal just told me that he never has interviews while touring solo, they probably are afraid Neal might talk about God, but now he's touring with TA they suddenly wanna talk to him. It's weird, ah well, they'll find out how Neal came up with this Whirlwind theme... lol
I went to see a little of the Champs Elysees together with Sebastian and we had a great time. It's just nice not to have to see anything but just being able to stroll around without any plans... or it's just us haha. The Audience in Paris was wonderful, very different from the much much calmer Lyon crowd.
Meanwhile our orange album cover shirts were completely sold out, just like to black album cover... so all we could sell were the shirts with the faces of the band members. We never sold as much as we did in Paris!
After getting all our stuff downstairs and making our way through some loyal fans that waited hours to get another glimpse of Neal, Roine, Pete or Mike we loaded up the bus and finally went to Holland. Hurrah!
I was in 013, Tilburg (Holland) right during the us leg of the TA tour cause I work for Hoshino Benelux which distributes Zildjian and Zildjian organized a Steve Gadd Clinic in 013. That was a great night and I got to drive with Steve on his tourbus from Feedback Rotterdam (a store where he did some signing) to 013 in Tilburg. So that compared with the awesome facilities of the venue made me really feel at home. I must say the highlight of the Tilburg gig was the shower haha... I felt reborn!
After being sold out for nearly three months it was no surprise that it was very very crowded during the concert. I met some friends right before the concert started and watched a bit of the show with them. Wilco, Elisa and Henk (from Neal's Dutch band) were also there so that was pretty cool. It felt like a match in your own stadium (or in Dutch: thuiswedstrijd) haha.
Then came the worst night of our tour: 2 hours of sleep, arriving at the border control in Calais, getting on the ferry (watching Anchorman as we waited) having very early breakfast and sleeping another two hours until we arrived at the venue in London. The Shephards Bush is a great looking venue but it has a sort of maze of halls... that compared with my lack of orientation made me walk around looking for the merch booth/dressing room all day long.
Somehow the venue didn't allow for us to sell merch, so we had to let two other people do that. Sounds like we had an easy day but trust me, it wasn't cheap. But I got to watch the first half of the concert from the first balcony having a great view. During the second half I was working with Todd and Sebastian on all kinds of merch administration. Earlier that day I went with Sebastian to see Picadilly Circus and just walk around a bit, the weather was unbritishly warm I can tell you!
And then... there we are in Manchester, I had a good night and a good shower so I feel able to talk to people again ;) Still I'm here in an empty crew room typing a blog, but that's just for you all!
The last gig must be special, I'm looking forward to any pranks and weird stuff. I heard the drum and guitar tech from Dream Theater (they both joined this tour as well) talk about that they actually did a whole scene from Star Wars at one of the ending gigs of a Dream Theater tour. Without the band knowing about it! haha, it should be on youtube!
allright, lets get the merch booth ready, for the last time!
thanks for all the feedback I got from you during the concerts, really cool to find out how many people are reading my blog!
greetings,
Ruben
dinsdag 18 mei 2010
Party in Milan
Ok, I love Milan!We had our last day off 2 days ago in Milan. So after arriving with our mobile home bus we quickly got showered and put on our finest clothes to hit the Fashion City. Roine, Sebastian, Daniel and me headed to the center of town only to find out we were in another soccer city. When we went to Madrid the UEFA Cup final was just being won by Atletico Madrid, now Inter Milan just won the Championship of Italy, so more honking cars and banner waving fans all over the place. But we loved it. And apart from that the weather was a steady +21 celcius so that was great. Sebastian and me bought new sun glasses, Daniel got his Inter Milan shirt (I tried to get him to buy a Sneijder shirt but he bought the Eto'o one) and we found a great place to eat Indian!
We found out later that Neal, Todd and some more guys had dinner at the exact same place and left just half an hour before we arrived! Of all the restaurants in such a big city... How weird is that!?
The gig yesterday in Milan was just fantastic. I really thought The Whirlwind was very emotional. The music just grabbed me and I felt something special. Every time I almost got tears in my eyes, but then someone would come to my stand to ask how much the t-shirts cost... I still cannot stand people that go to buy merch during the concert! But well, that's just me...
I was thinking about a thing that Mike used to do during Dream Theater gigs: he would throw a stick to some guy backstage and that guy would throw it back and Mike would continue to play. Very cool to see, IF it actually works ;) Otherwise Mike pulls his sad face and everyone still thinks it's great.
Just 30 minutes after thinking about this (Duel With The Devil just ended) during the applause Mike looked around and saw me at the merch booth. He waved, I put two thumbs up and suddenly he threw a stick at me! It was a reasonable distance and somewhere halfway in the air the stick left the lit area so I could hardly see it... the stick flew right over my head and ended up behind me. Actually it got stuck in a barred window behind me, so I pulled it out and threw it back. The stick made a nice flight and ended up right in Mike's right hand. The crowd went nuts and then I realized how nasty it would have been if I messed up! But I didn't hurrah! It was great! I sure hope someone filmed it, I would love to see it back!
Ok, I'm gonna eat. We're in Pratteln, Switzerland now and I'm looking forward to the gig.
GOOD NEWS: I just had a phone call from the merch company: they are able to ship me more orange shirts to Tilburg. I AM SO GLAD!
zaterdag 15 mei 2010
Mission from Fett
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During the recording sessions for The Whirlwind the guys from the band wrote a theme that they called Boba Fett because it reminded Mike of a sort of star wars tune. Since then he's been trying to get the theme on the album, but they never found a good spot for it. So now during the live tour they found a place near the end of The Whirlwind (at the end of Is It Really Happening) where they could give Boba Fett his place. I shot some nice footage of the band discussing where they should put it and playing it. That might end up on the live dvd I hope :)I know Mike had a Ringo Starr figure on his drumkit last tour so I 'figured' that we should buy one as a surprise for Mike. When Todd, Sebastian and me had some time off in Barcelona (yesterday) we found a store with lots of Spawn miniatures so I asked if they had a Boba Fett. And guess what? They had a Bubble Head Boba Fett! It looks very funny with its over sized head and it is really perfect. As you can imagine Mike was very happy with it and he points happily to his Boba every time the theme gets played.
Barcelona was wonderful by the way. I went with Todd, Roine, Sebastian and Daniel and we had lots of fun in the beautiful centre, walking on Las Ramblas towards the harbor. I have to come back there!
Now the show is on in Lyon, and it's just too quiet at the merch booth... yesterday in Barcelona we sold lots of orange shirts again so now we are kind of out of those things! :( I had some phone calls with the printer but it's such a colorful design that they need the big printing machine for it and that thing broke down so they have delays and cannot get me the shirts before Tilburg... but I need those shirts there in large quantities! Dutch people love orange, especially this summer with the soccer championships. But well, they'll have to buy black I guess...
tomorrow we have a day off in Milan, where we get to a nice hotel. We check in in the morning so we have one more night in the bus and then a comfy hotel bed :)
vrijdag 14 mei 2010
The Road to Madrid
(may 11, 2010)
Last night after the excellent gig in Luxembourg we started our big drive to Madrid. Since the third driver needed a bed and the first driver asked me if he could sleep in my bed I've been sleeping in another bunk. A normal one where I can absolutely not stretch my legs. Man that's such a drag. So I didn't sleep really well...
now we just started driving again after a dinner break at the Autogrill in Spain. I think we just passed the Spanish border so we should be somewhere near San Sebastian. When we entered the Autogrill we looked around at the dinner options but we were all really disappointed with the (lack of) options. Most stuff was already lying there for ages so we didn't dare to try all of it. To make things worse their frying pan broke down so we couldn't even order the safe fries (patatas). I ended up with a sort of barbecue sandwich and joined Pete and Daniel at a nice seat near the window where we could see the starting Spanish hillside and I think we could see a little part of the ocean. Really nice. Daniel bought a steak for 13,50... euro! That's like 50 dollar (I keep bullying Todd with his currency / US dollars, especially since he still calls all prices in “dollar” or “bucks”). Still it tasted not very well considering the amount of steak Daniel still had left when we went on our way.
By now I have already watched three movies last night and this morning: Burn After Reading, Dark Matter (if that is what it's called) and Bad Boys 2. I must say I enjoyed the last one the best, it's just what you can expect from it. Burn After Reading is really weird and not very funny, exciting or anything else. Then it suddenly is over and you realized you've just wasted 2 hours of your life, haha... ah well... I was wasted yesterday anyway.
Collin, Neal, Rich and Todd have gone by plane to Spain so the bus is a little emptier, which is nice. We are missing Collin so it's a big disorganized bunch... haha, well, not really, Max is taking Collin's place so he tells us when we should get back in the bus and stuff like that. Being a tour manager is probably not easy (as you can read on: http://blog.collinleijenaar.com).
Now I think I'm gonna try and get some sleep so I can wake up in Madrid and enjoy this only night in a hotel! I heard Collin say it's gonna be a five star hotel so that's pretty sweet. I hope I can get free internet and upload this blog.
--- a little while later ---
(image a deep sounding male voice narrating the next text)
.jpg)
While our friends from Transatlantic continued their travel they forgot something important. Someone actually. At the last stop you could buy all kinds of stuff at the store that was with the Autogrill. That's not a problem ofcourse, after legally buying the stuff he wanted one of our friends heard the alarm at the exit still going off. The people from the store fixed it and our friend could continue. Only to find out that he was later than the agreed time of 18.30 so the bus had just left! Max, the interim tour manager, did a head count and such but somehow one person was forgotten. To make things more painful: our friends only realized this after continuing their drive to Madrid for another hour and a half. Commotion all over, as one could expect. After calling his wife, who called the wife of Roine who called Collin, Collin called Max who told the group: “we left Daniel at the last stop!”
(end of narrating voice)
So yeah that was kind of something. We all exchanged our wisdom of how things should have gone: we should have done a real head count, if Collin was with us this wouldn't have happened, if the alarm didn't went off about Daniel's newly bought stuff, if he would have brought his cell phone, etc. Truth is these things happen. “All you can do is deal with it.” (Dream Theater - Repentance, at the end, you remember?) So the smartest thing to do was that Daniel would catch a cab and drive to our position, because if the tour bus would have to turn around, drive back to Daniel and then turn around again and drive to Madrid we would lose too much time. Also bus drivers these days are very strictly bound to a certain amount of hours they can drive. It's all being monitored so we might get stuck right before Madrid because our drivers didn't have any hours left and needed rest. Pete, Max and me decided it would be wise to watch another movie so we watched The Shawshank Redemption, 300, Shoot 'em Up and Daniel came to join us for the start of The Boondock Saints. Which we couldn't finish because we stopped at the MacDonalds in the middle of the night. It still was open, haha! So we went with like 8 guys to the MacDrive and ordered all kinds of stuff. The guy that helped us had pants with “I'm loving it” on it which Mike thought was very funny. Daniel liked his shirt better, though, on which it said: “Hamburger University”. After some English and Spanish we found out he wouldn't sell his shirt, unfortunately. So we drove the last hour to our hotel and thats where I am right now. In my room of the Westin Palace hotel in Madrid. It's a five star hotel and it looks really really nice.
Ok, I'm off to downtown with Sebastian (Roine's son)!
A Dios,
Ruben
Last night after the excellent gig in Luxembourg we started our big drive to Madrid. Since the third driver needed a bed and the first driver asked me if he could sleep in my bed I've been sleeping in another bunk. A normal one where I can absolutely not stretch my legs. Man that's such a drag. So I didn't sleep really well...
now we just started driving again after a dinner break at the Autogrill in Spain. I think we just passed the Spanish border so we should be somewhere near San Sebastian. When we entered the Autogrill we looked around at the dinner options but we were all really disappointed with the (lack of) options. Most stuff was already lying there for ages so we didn't dare to try all of it. To make things worse their frying pan broke down so we couldn't even order the safe fries (patatas). I ended up with a sort of barbecue sandwich and joined Pete and Daniel at a nice seat near the window where we could see the starting Spanish hillside and I think we could see a little part of the ocean. Really nice. Daniel bought a steak for 13,50... euro! That's like 50 dollar (I keep bullying Todd with his currency / US dollars, especially since he still calls all prices in “dollar” or “bucks”). Still it tasted not very well considering the amount of steak Daniel still had left when we went on our way.
By now I have already watched three movies last night and this morning: Burn After Reading, Dark Matter (if that is what it's called) and Bad Boys 2. I must say I enjoyed the last one the best, it's just what you can expect from it. Burn After Reading is really weird and not very funny, exciting or anything else. Then it suddenly is over and you realized you've just wasted 2 hours of your life, haha... ah well... I was wasted yesterday anyway.
Collin, Neal, Rich and Todd have gone by plane to Spain so the bus is a little emptier, which is nice. We are missing Collin so it's a big disorganized bunch... haha, well, not really, Max is taking Collin's place so he tells us when we should get back in the bus and stuff like that. Being a tour manager is probably not easy (as you can read on: http://blog.collinleijenaar.com).
Now I think I'm gonna try and get some sleep so I can wake up in Madrid and enjoy this only night in a hotel! I heard Collin say it's gonna be a five star hotel so that's pretty sweet. I hope I can get free internet and upload this blog.
--- a little while later ---
(image a deep sounding male voice narrating the next text)
.jpg)
While our friends from Transatlantic continued their travel they forgot something important. Someone actually. At the last stop you could buy all kinds of stuff at the store that was with the Autogrill. That's not a problem ofcourse, after legally buying the stuff he wanted one of our friends heard the alarm at the exit still going off. The people from the store fixed it and our friend could continue. Only to find out that he was later than the agreed time of 18.30 so the bus had just left! Max, the interim tour manager, did a head count and such but somehow one person was forgotten. To make things more painful: our friends only realized this after continuing their drive to Madrid for another hour and a half. Commotion all over, as one could expect. After calling his wife, who called the wife of Roine who called Collin, Collin called Max who told the group: “we left Daniel at the last stop!”
(end of narrating voice)
So yeah that was kind of something. We all exchanged our wisdom of how things should have gone: we should have done a real head count, if Collin was with us this wouldn't have happened, if the alarm didn't went off about Daniel's newly bought stuff, if he would have brought his cell phone, etc. Truth is these things happen. “All you can do is deal with it.” (Dream Theater - Repentance, at the end, you remember?) So the smartest thing to do was that Daniel would catch a cab and drive to our position, because if the tour bus would have to turn around, drive back to Daniel and then turn around again and drive to Madrid we would lose too much time. Also bus drivers these days are very strictly bound to a certain amount of hours they can drive. It's all being monitored so we might get stuck right before Madrid because our drivers didn't have any hours left and needed rest. Pete, Max and me decided it would be wise to watch another movie so we watched The Shawshank Redemption, 300, Shoot 'em Up and Daniel came to join us for the start of The Boondock Saints. Which we couldn't finish because we stopped at the MacDonalds in the middle of the night. It still was open, haha! So we went with like 8 guys to the MacDrive and ordered all kinds of stuff. The guy that helped us had pants with “I'm loving it” on it which Mike thought was very funny. Daniel liked his shirt better, though, on which it said: “Hamburger University”. After some English and Spanish we found out he wouldn't sell his shirt, unfortunately. So we drove the last hour to our hotel and thats where I am right now. In my room of the Westin Palace hotel in Madrid. It's a five star hotel and it looks really really nice.
Ok, I'm off to downtown with Sebastian (Roine's son)!
A Dios,
Ruben
maandag 10 mei 2010
Hebrews weren't crazy!
Well I gotta say the 6 day workweek is a great idea. We've been on tour non-stop for 7 days and suddenly the entire crew is wasted today! Pff, I'm not really tired but just the incarnation of ineffectiveness. Despite all that the band is now playing The Whirlwind in the ROCKHALL in Luxembourg... it's like a small Heineken Music Hall in Luxembourg. Really really good sound and a very professional and nice venue.Funny that people here speak like 4 languages: English, German, French and some say Luxembourgish... so I'm really practicing my European languages. Although when I suddenly say 25 in French to a French speaking person (I bet you are saying vingt cinq in your head now ;) they are confused... probably because of my sheer diversity, lol!
Tonight we're driving from Luxembourg to Madrid, Spain in one drive! We use three professional drivers who take shifts and drive us there in 22 hours. So tomorrow night I'll sleep in a nice hotel(!) in Madrid. Too bad my girl friend won't be there :( For the long drive Sebastian and me are already preparing a tight schedule of movies and Family Guy episodes to watch. This is gonna be fun!
More and more people come up to me and say: "Are you Ruben? I am following your blog!" Which is really cool! I'm glad you all read this! Actually all of you are reading this, that's a nice score ;)
A Dios!
zondag 9 mei 2010
Eau de Cologne
So with all merch set at my beatiful booth in Cologne it's time for me to get back to writing a blog.
We arrived in Berlin yesterday morning to find out the Columbia Club is actually very small... so small that Collin decided that Mike should have his kit in the normal fashion (kick drum facing the audience). Mike didn't really like this so in the intermission (after a fabulous version of The Whirlwind) the crew changed it all back to the 'normal' Transatlantic setup which is with the drumkit right at the front with Mike's left side facing the audience (ah well, check the pictures)...
The funny thing with doing the same show over and over is that even I can make the same jokes over and over again... like when people ask me if they can buy something after the concert I say: "yes or during the break, after the first song" real fans will understand, lol, others don't really get it, but wel... they will...
(break because the doors in Cologne open and people are running to the stage to get their position right in front of Neal, Mike or Roine... Most of them have been waiting for hours and hours already, now they'll stand here for more than 3 hours listening to the world's best prog.
I just met a lot of friends here, it's awesome. Javier from Spain, which I will meet in his hometown was here so I left my business just to give him a hug, he's such a nice guy, just out of this world! And some friends from Germany and Holland. It's kind of a mix between Dutch and German fans here since Cologne is just 2 hours from the Dutch border.
I just remembered this moving story Daniel Gildenlow told me when we were driving to Berlin (somewhere around 2.00 or 3.00 in the middle of the night we tend to meet in the tour bus, lol). Anyway he said when he walked out of the venue to the tourbus in Poland a girl followed him and held a small speech in Swedish. Actually she learned Swedish for two years just to be able to thank him for his music. Which saved her life, she said. I guess by listening to Pain of Salvation (Daniel's band) she didn't commit suicide. Daniel was very touched by it but he just didn't know what to answer her... which I can completely understand, what should you say? "wow, eh thank you, I guess" anyway that's just another story to show how powerful music can be to some people.
May 9
I just got at the last venue of our tour in Germany: Longhorn in Stuttgart. We were greeted by some happy guys from the venue who waved around beer and yelled: Zaufen! Which means like 'to drink a little more than one should'. My translation proved right as one of the guys who planned to clean the stairs or something fell down them (they only had 5 steps) and lost all his cleaning water. "I am wet. I go take shower" were his eloquent words. Anyway I got behind my laptop and just wanted to report my shortest night of this tour: I went to bed at 6 am and slept till 9.30 am. And I even feel rested haha. Daniel, Rich, Jerry and me watched Fight Club which we started around 3 I guess but it lasted forever man! That movie takes long. But we were bound to Fight Club rule 1: You never quit before the end. So we didn't...
Ok I gotta go set up my merch booth :)
Later!
We arrived in Berlin yesterday morning to find out the Columbia Club is actually very small... so small that Collin decided that Mike should have his kit in the normal fashion (kick drum facing the audience). Mike didn't really like this so in the intermission (after a fabulous version of The Whirlwind) the crew changed it all back to the 'normal' Transatlantic setup which is with the drumkit right at the front with Mike's left side facing the audience (ah well, check the pictures)...
The funny thing with doing the same show over and over is that even I can make the same jokes over and over again... like when people ask me if they can buy something after the concert I say: "yes or during the break, after the first song" real fans will understand, lol, others don't really get it, but wel... they will...
(break because the doors in Cologne open and people are running to the stage to get their position right in front of Neal, Mike or Roine... Most of them have been waiting for hours and hours already, now they'll stand here for more than 3 hours listening to the world's best prog.
I just met a lot of friends here, it's awesome. Javier from Spain, which I will meet in his hometown was here so I left my business just to give him a hug, he's such a nice guy, just out of this world! And some friends from Germany and Holland. It's kind of a mix between Dutch and German fans here since Cologne is just 2 hours from the Dutch border.
I just remembered this moving story Daniel Gildenlow told me when we were driving to Berlin (somewhere around 2.00 or 3.00 in the middle of the night we tend to meet in the tour bus, lol). Anyway he said when he walked out of the venue to the tourbus in Poland a girl followed him and held a small speech in Swedish. Actually she learned Swedish for two years just to be able to thank him for his music. Which saved her life, she said. I guess by listening to Pain of Salvation (Daniel's band) she didn't commit suicide. Daniel was very touched by it but he just didn't know what to answer her... which I can completely understand, what should you say? "wow, eh thank you, I guess" anyway that's just another story to show how powerful music can be to some people.
May 9
I just got at the last venue of our tour in Germany: Longhorn in Stuttgart. We were greeted by some happy guys from the venue who waved around beer and yelled: Zaufen! Which means like 'to drink a little more than one should'. My translation proved right as one of the guys who planned to clean the stairs or something fell down them (they only had 5 steps) and lost all his cleaning water. "I am wet. I go take shower" were his eloquent words. Anyway I got behind my laptop and just wanted to report my shortest night of this tour: I went to bed at 6 am and slept till 9.30 am. And I even feel rested haha. Daniel, Rich, Jerry and me watched Fight Club which we started around 3 I guess but it lasted forever man! That movie takes long. But we were bound to Fight Club rule 1: You never quit before the end. So we didn't...
Ok I gotta go set up my merch booth :)
Later!
donderdag 6 mei 2010
The Road To Poland
So there we are in Poland... we were warned that the roads in Poland can be pretty bad. I should have noticed since we always drive at night to the next place. So last night I guess we drove to Poland but I didn't notice anything :) Maybe because I was with Neal and Rich till very late while they were singing songs with Neal on his new baby guitar he bought for like 30 euro. Perfect for on the road!
This morning I was woken by Collin saying: “I need you downstairs, now!” So after realizing where, who and why I was I put on some clothes (Mirjam please dont think they were the same ones I wore last day) who just happened to be near my bed and rushed downstairs, got out of the bus and stepped into Poland. And, as you can expect, a dozen Polish people stared at me, and at my crazy hair. Hopefully the 'just-out-of-bed-look' has just gained popularity in Poland.
After loading out all the merch and setting up with Todd, Max and Sebastian (Roine's son) we had a very good dinner. They had some pasta with spinach and something like french cheese (brie) which I am now officially fan of, haha, do they sell t-shirts with that on it?
When the doors opened our merch booth was crowded straight away and it's funny to see the difference between German and Polish people... Polish people wait for their turn, speak a little or no English and are really really direct. It's so funny because compared to Americans we Dutch dudes are very direct but luckily Polish people are worse, haha, but I love it. Where in the states I would say (would cause I didn't go, aargh!) “hello, how can I help you?” but here I just nod my head or say: “WHAT?” and they tell me: “eh, t-shirt!” so I ask: “Which one?” and they point it out. Very masculine and very effective haha
So I'm typing during the first half of the concert again and it's almost over so I better organize my table and Zloty (Polish money)... I'll be back!
This morning I was woken by Collin saying: “I need you downstairs, now!” So after realizing where, who and why I was I put on some clothes (Mirjam please dont think they were the same ones I wore last day) who just happened to be near my bed and rushed downstairs, got out of the bus and stepped into Poland. And, as you can expect, a dozen Polish people stared at me, and at my crazy hair. Hopefully the 'just-out-of-bed-look' has just gained popularity in Poland.
After loading out all the merch and setting up with Todd, Max and Sebastian (Roine's son) we had a very good dinner. They had some pasta with spinach and something like french cheese (brie) which I am now officially fan of, haha, do they sell t-shirts with that on it?
When the doors opened our merch booth was crowded straight away and it's funny to see the difference between German and Polish people... Polish people wait for their turn, speak a little or no English and are really really direct. It's so funny because compared to Americans we Dutch dudes are very direct but luckily Polish people are worse, haha, but I love it. Where in the states I would say (would cause I didn't go, aargh!) “hello, how can I help you?” but here I just nod my head or say: “WHAT?” and they tell me: “eh, t-shirt!” so I ask: “Which one?” and they point it out. Very masculine and very effective haha
So I'm typing during the first half of the concert again and it's almost over so I better organize my table and Zloty (Polish money)... I'll be back!
woensdag 5 mei 2010
Beat the street
.jpg)
Well I finally have some time off! Hurrah... I'm sitting in Hamburg in the 'Markthalle' a pretty nice venue which can hold like 1200 people and it seems its almost sold out, which you can clearly experience by the temperature! Man these Germans are steaming haha...Sales go really well and as expected we sell a lot of orange shirts. Which, especially today, makes me really proud because it's liberation day in Holland. Then we all wear orange as a reference to our royal family which family name is 'van Oranje'. Anyway, my job is to sell so that's what I'm doing :)
Life on the road is just great. I love the dynamic of it... one moment you're folding t-shirts in the sun, one moment you're trying to figure out exactly what food the venue has provided (today there was the best Broccoli and Pees I have ever had! No, seriously how do they do that... I mean after all it's still vegetables... anyway) and one other moment you get caught in your underwear by Mike Portnoy while you're trying to sqeeze yourself in your tiny bed, which is at floor level: "haha fancy seeing you in your underwear". I didn't tell him it was actually a very trendy Zeeman boxer I got from my girlfriend! I also didn't tell him she once gave me a sleeve for my pillow (how in the world should I know the english term for that?) with a romantic poem and pink hearts... (hey it's all I got to remember her)... naaa! I won't tell anybody.
Well the first part of the concert is nearly over and during the break people are dying to get a Transatlantic shirt or cd so I better be ready!
stay classy! (anchorman reference ;)
Ruben
woensdag 21 april 2010
Well... that's it!
The first flight I can get leaves this friday, which means I could theoretically still attend the show in Philadelphia but that too much effort just for one show... And my dear friend Todd Morell is managing the merch, so I don't even need to ;)
So with pain in my heart I say good luck to the guys in the US who just rocked their socks off in Chicago! Looking forward to their reports...
Thank God I can still join for the European tour!
Sorry for not posting anything interesting, but that will come soon! :)
So with pain in my heart I say good luck to the guys in the US who just rocked their socks off in Chicago! Looking forward to their reports...
Thank God I can still join for the European tour!
Sorry for not posting anything interesting, but that will come soon! :)
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