So we arrive, August 27th, Thursday morning, to a brisk and alternating overcast/sunny Amsterdam morning, grab our stuff easily despite a small wait for the guitars, and head for the Ramada Inn off Vondel Park. Still a few hours to kill before our early check- in so we head into town for a walkabout, take in the morning bike commute, and grab a pancake and beer. It’s good to be here again.

The next day after little sleep for Scott and I (circadian rhythms readjusting, etc.) we head to sixt and pick up the car, deciding that the Diesel Ford Montero wagon will be better than the MPVs that they have. We pick up the girls, load up, and head for Rock Eikerheide, the first festival in Bornem, Belgium. It’s less than a 2 hr drive, even with some congestion on the A2 south of Amsterdam. The drive is a pleasant farm-flat trip though Holland; metal windmill farms, cows and more cows, and the occasional nuclear power plant the only things you are likely to see, except for the occasional bike path along a highway. Yes, these people ride their bikes a lot.

After stopping for a beer at a pub somewhere very near the venue, where we were entertained by Laslo, a very lassie-esque dog that liked to be stroked on the rear, we get to the festival plenty early. Turns out to be a school for the handicapped that they are using for the dressing rooms and mess hall , the concert itself to take place under a big tent outside. As usual, the Belgian organizers are super nice attentive folks instantly setting us up with all we need and then escorting us to the hotel. After attempted naps (we always end up in a hotel in an old city square, next to the ancient church that bell-rings you to death every hour) and showers we head down to the festival to get some eats. We meet Ronnie, our backline guy and get a look at the gear. We eat chicken rice something or other and soup, bread and cheese and wait to play. I’d rather play early but we are headlining this one. Stage sound wasn’t the hottest, but that’s the breaks. The crowd seems to enjoy it and that’s really all that matters at these things. Afterwards we drink some beers and relax, but it’s not until we get back to Bornem that I realize I don’t have my hotel room keys and haven’t seen them for hours. I head back to the festival myself and some stage hands begin to look around with flashlights. No dice. I scour the band room to no avail. I’m starting to freak because tomorrow we have 3 festivals to play and this isn’t the night to sleep in the car. When all hope is almost lost I ask one of the volunteers who was leaving the school if she had seen them in the kitchen. She hadn’t, but miraculously she has the phone number of the owner of the hotel, a Magnapop fan, who had been at the festival earlier. I feel like a total jackass, but we call him and he meets me there in 10 minutes. What luck. So let me just say that the “Lands Inn Bornem” rocks. Sleep was good (didn’t hear much of the bells with earplugs) and the breakfast was an awesome array of cold cuts and breads and cheese and fruit and juice.

We are then off with Frankie, our driver and tour manager for the day, since we have 3 festivals to play this Saturday. We get to Rock Kortenaken (Kortenaken, Belgium) to find a similar tent city venue and dressing room cubicle farm in some sort of civic art center across the street. There isn’t much time to kill so we have a coffee and head over to the venue. The backline is there and the drums are great, a Premier Genista kit (what I play usually) and good cymbals for a change. It seems that ofter the kit is decent but the cymbals are crap. Same backline for the festival after this so I am psyched. Keeping variables constant is good. We play after Funeral Dress, who belt out quality punk rock. It’s early, 3:30 pm when we play and the festival isn’t densely populated by then, but still a good crowd forms when we begin. Technically, it is a really good sh0w I think, but then every band member always has their own opinion, and it usually is formed by first evaluating their own performance. There are people singing along in the audience, but its 3:30 so you don’t have the midnight-drunkard dance party. We head back to the art center and get fed, nice tri-color potatoes, I wander back to the festival and check out another band with a cool sunglassed female rhythm section whose name I can’t recall. Later that night Suzi Quattro, aka Pinkie Tuscadero from Happy Days is to perform!

It’s time to head to Jospop, in Schepdaal, which is slightly west of Brussels. Everyone is talking about how Jospop is a really awesome festival. We arrive to very soggy grounds on a field that appears to be on the edge of some tall pine forest. The first thing I notice is that everyone seems to be 16 years old. I feel like Tommy Lee goes to college. We head to the backstage cube farm, inspect the goodies, candy and fruit, Heinz Ketchup flavored potato chips, the usual, and then head to the beer tent. Ruthie and Linda do an interview for a newspaper, and then a photographer takes a million pictures of us. I’d love to see what newspaper they ended up in. The festival has a middle earth kind of vibe to me, being under trees, out in the middle of nowhere. With the sunsetting you expect the trolls to be out in no time. Out front there is a DJ, stage shielded by a million crates of Stella Artois, and some vendors selling the latest in festival fashions. The set is good. We are obviously warmed up and play everything pretty much flawlessly. It’s amazing how bad you can be and then how good you can be as a band. So many variables to add up when performing live, but when it comes together, it really does, and you really feel it. The crowd gathered well for us too.

On to Skalulfeesten (Lendelede, Belgium) for the final of three festivals in one day. Again, it is a school of some sorts in a small town. We get a classroom backstage and we are exhausted at this point. I begin drinking beer because it’s fun, and we are at the end of the road. The set is fine enough, yet I am at the end energy reserves with blistery sore hands. The crowd is drunk and lively. Afterwards Scott and I head to a nearby club where everyone is hanging out. It’s too easy to get drunk in Belgium with the beer being stronger. Sneaks up on you fast. Clubs are open all night in Belgium as well and everyone stays that late. As a result, we get home at 6am.

Sunday is a mean hangover and we begin the several hour drive to Maaseik to play at Club Fuego. I am slightly nauseous the whole day. Arriving in the town we make a wrong turn and soon pass a van with a driver that appears to be looking at us suspiciously. Ruthie comments “that guy is looking for us” and we all laugh, but sure enough at the next stoplight he jumps out of the car and comes up to the wagon inquiring, “Magnapop?” We follow him to the venue, some sort of YMCA like cultural center with a club, big place, good sound system, nice facilities. Right off we go to the hotel, Hotel Van Eyck which is an amazing new hotel in the center of town. It’s the nicest room I’ve ever been in in my life. Straight out of a magazine. We eat at the Greek restaurant down the street, where the cook happened to be a Magnapop fan and did us right with a delicious pile of ribs and chops. Once to the club, there was some initial struggle with the gear, Scott’s amp and the drums I was using, but after sorted out the show went well. We played well, except for the mysterious Open The Door bungle, but hey, shit happens. Bungles happen. And they don’t fucking matter. People just want to have fun and they want you to be having fun. I really liked how it sounded on stage here, awesome monitors and mix. Very important for drummer boy. Afterwards I spoke with a drunk guy with a DRI tattoo that took up half of one side of his body, and then tried to fix our bandwidth exceeded website from the their offices but there was some problem with the network. Back at the hotel we had drinks and then Scott and I chatted with some slightly tipsy folks, one of whom had acted in a Molière play that evening (The Miser, I think it was). These are the kinds of people you meet in fancy hotels. Thus ends week one, and we are off to Prague to kick it for a few days before returning for Wonderfest in Antwerp Friday night.

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