The Second Day

The day started out very nice. We slept late, Freddie's mom made lunch for us, we basically hung out at his house. We technically didn't have a show that night (the stage collapsed at the club we were supposed to play at in Germany), so Freddie said we could play at the local youth center here in his town of Kasterlee.

We went over there and were a bit dismayed at the amount of filth and the small size of the club. What the hell, we went ahead and started to set up. There was no PA for Noli to sing thru, so again we had to setup our own (we didn't lose it this time).

The Jeugdclub is a tiny sqaure-shaped room with a bar. The kids that hang there range from 12 to in their 20's. They all seemed to be like typical American suburban kids, really into heavy metal like Limp Bizkit and Chili Peppers. We played a much better show that night than we did the previous night, but either the songs were getting lost in translation or we weren't hard enough for those kids (go figure). They did liven up towards the end of our set, but to be honest, I was expecting a little more of a response. I thought we would have knocked 'em dead, but they didn't seem to pay much attention to us.
This is pretty much the entire Jeugdclub. I'm standing in the doorway while taking this shot, so there's a littl more of the club on either side of me, but not much. I talked to the guy in the hat for a while. He's 18, going to university next year, not sure what he wants to do with his life except listen to rock music, drink every night an hang out with his friends. Sounds like a plan.
In pretty good spirits outside the Jeugdclub after loading the van (Stosh, me, Freddie, Noli). By this time everyone has had a few beers and loosened up. We started having conversations with the kids, and found they were eager to talk.

After the show, Travis and Stosh and I went to this guy Bert's house in town.We hung out for a few hours smoking and drinking, talking about cinema and Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude van Damme. On the inside of Bert's bathroom door was the full text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen (except for the space shutle). That speech should be required reading for all people."We must hew from the moutain of despair a stone of hope."

We got up early Saturday (today) and are now on our way to Chenmitz in Eastern Germany (right on the Polish border). It's a 10-hour drive. The van is really pretty good. With Freddis and Stosh's vast experience on the road and Noli's feminie touch, the van is really quite omfortable. There's a couch and chairs behind the driver, with our equpiment behind the couch and a sleepling loft above the equipment. The loft is great, but it taks ome time to get used to. It's not a smooth riding van, and when it lurches you're awoken with a start. It takes some concentration to fall asleep without being bothered by these things. I fell asleep for a few hours today and dreamt I was on the F train. I guess my brain was trying to rationalize all the motion.
These are Freddie's family's horses. They have 25. They race them, jump them, do a lot of competitions. Their farm in Kasterlee is really beautiful.

Next time we'll be writing from Germany.

Until then,
Shambo