| Maandag 2 Maart 2009 |
Lost in Almere 31-01-2009
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Ah the tour, music, romance, excitement, beer, more romance. Hang on, where ARE we?? Our first gig was in Almere. It went well, the theatre people were nice to us, the audience liked us, they gave us flowers and bought nearly all our CD's and we were moderately pleased ourselves. Things almost got off without a hitch…almost. Except that starting 'Lost in Dunkineely' really started by getting lost in Almere…
First of all, it's in the middle of the bright new city and still manages to be, sort of, in the middle of nowhere. You simply can't get there. Once you're in the vicinity, the shiny metal, craftily poured concrete and traffic lights close in on you and your retinas start to water for the Esscher-esque architecture of the place. But when you finally give up, close you eyes and decide to drown yourself and your car in the lake, you accidentally drive into the theatre you couldn't find…why?
The architect is Japanese and the Japanese are known for artful simplicity, cleanliness, veeery sharp, veeery shiny tools and extremely smooth design. Therefore there are no cluttering signs that tell you where the entrances are. We got there after Peter and his wife Trix and that was lucky…because the only reason we ever saw the entrance was a piece of paper fluttering in the icy wind, saying, in tiny lettering: 'theatre' and the enormous bum of Peter's car…So then that's ¾ of the band accounted for, Hans and Edzo, check…and then my phone rang. On the other end a slightly annoyed Siard announced he'd just gotten off public transport and was now getting steadily more lost (or is it loster?) in the metal jungle that is this designer sprout of building technology. I however, was safely inside the building and reassured Siard by bluffing I would come and get him…hah… With the phone to my ear I commenced running through the stark white building with surrealism slowly taking control of my mind. Apparently someone had decided it would nice to have a fairy convention, probably to compliment the Irish music.
So apart from being incredibly hard to find, my exits were blocked by hordes of sweet little chattering ballerina girls dressed as pixies. Some bigger pixies showed me the way out which led to a concrete box from which there was no escape. I successfully managed to lock myself out and had to beg a friendly faceless intercom to let me back in. To top it off the line kept breaking up and I kept having to call Siard back. His questions came through in bits and the last I heard was: '….(crackle) these people won't tell me where it is! (…crackle) Is it a round building…or square…or rectangular?' I couldn't help him. My amazing sense of direction turned out not to be so amazing and I missed all the exit signs that were , as I found out, exactly where they should be.
By the time I was near tears and my mind had started to unravel as much as my phone connection to Siard, he had somehow managed to get in and kidnap two nice ladies who showed him the way to our stage…From then on there was a stage crew led by friendly grizzly bear of a man by the reassuring name of Bert, who was nice to us and smelled peacefully of coffee.
Our guys on the technology did a great job as well and we were quite happy with our first night on tour…Fate let us off and had us playing in Gorredijk in Frysland the next day, where we didn't get lost at all…too bad really…you might have gotten a story out of it…
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