CRIMSON FALLS – FRAGMENTING EUROPE 2009
EURO TOUR REPORT
DAY 1 – 28.08.2009 – IEPERFEST, BELGIUM
Awesome to kick off our tour on the legendary Ieper Hardcore Fest! This is one of these fest every band dreams about to play on one day and it’s not different to us. We got to chance to play in the afternoon in the Marquee. The Ieper scene and its surroundings (Menen, Wervik…) have always been very supportive to Crimson Falls and it wasn’t different this time. I remember the first time we played in Ieper at the Vortn Vis benefit, early 2005. We still had to release our debut EP ‘Ruins 2K5’ at that time and we played as the second band early in the afternoon. We we’re amazed so many people already showed up to check us out. Safe to say we immediately fell in love with this scene. Now back to 2009; Ieperfest, still a lot of kids checking out all the bands and supporting them. Great to see the Ieper Mosh going on our breakdowns! But of course always bad things happen on the moments you least need them; my amp got damaged during the show. Luckily we were able finish the show decently, but a first tour problem to solve; hopefully we could get it fixed for the next day. Afterwards we hung around for a few hours, checking out some other bands. And we got to meet some of the guys in Stigma with whom we’d be teaming up for the next week. As the first two days of the tour were in Belgium we could stay at our own homes for the first days.
Wim @ Ieperfest, Ieper, Belgium, 28.08.2009
Nijn @ Ieperfest, Ieper, Belgium, 28.08.2009
DAY 2 – 29.08.2009 – CHAP’HELL SUMMER METAL FEST, CHAPELLE & DESSEL SWINGT, DESSEL, BELGIUM
Always easy to have a handy guy in the band! Our other guitar player Ringo was able to fix my amp overnight. Day two promised to be a hectic day as we had two shows planned out. First stop was the Chap’Hell Summer Metal Fest in Chapelle which had a very nice line-up with Stigma, In-Quest, Mystica and headliners Textures on the bill.
CF @ Dessel Swingt, Dessel, Belgium, 29.08.2009
Our most popular member: El Niño!
DAY 3 – 30.08.2009 – MUSIKBUNKER, AACHEN, GERMANY
The first show of the tour outside Belgium took place at the Musikbunker in Aachen. We already met our touring partners STIGMA shortly in Ieper, but starting from this show we were teaming up with them for good. What can I say? These 6 Italian stallions are very nice and cool guys with a professional attitude towards their band and shows, so we couldn’t wish for a better band to tour with. The show itself was nice; not a very big crowd, but an enthusiastic one so it was cool! We were taken care off nicely with a good evening meal, sleeping places, breakfast and a shower, so this was certainly a nice stop on our tour. Horns up to the black metallers in Arkans Arvet for opening this show. Meanwhile I can already tell you can find all sorts of people in a tour van; and a very strange one is our soundguy Bjorn. This dude not only has a very rich vocabulary on subjects as tits, sex and porn but he’s also capable to produce the most incredible farts. Following a vegetarian lifestyle might be good for the animals on this planet; it’s no good for the atmosphere in the van and of course the heating of the earth. This guy produces so much CO² you can close down our countries industrial activities completely. Damn!
The Fartmaster
Escaping the farts
Next to Björn and the five Crimson Falls members we were also accompanied by our friend Michael, taking care of the merch during shows and giving us a helping hand with unloading our gear every day and driving the van from time to time.
DAY 4 – 31.08.2009 – LYON
On the road!
After a nice shower and breakfast in Aachen we left for the biggest organizational problem of this tour; our show in Lyon’s Hall. This show first got confirmed, than cancelled, confirmed again and two days before the show cancelled again. Insisting and threatening to let this show go through didn’t help so it stayed cancelled. Sucks of course but if we had to loose one of the shows on this tour I preferred this one. The chance a lot of people would have shown up for this show was very small as we already noticed there was hardly any promotion for it. The guys in Stigma didn’t mind either as they were getting tired after a week of traveling long distances and playing shows daily. We stayed the night at a F1 hotel in Lyon. The surroundings of this hotel wasn’t the most cozy place on earth I have to say; we didn’t feel completely at ease and safe in this neighborhood, but luckily no problems occurred. To play it safe we always had one or two persons sleeping in the van. We didn’t want to risk this van or our gear to get stolen. Then we would have lost everything and the tour would be over immediately. Look at what happened with xNueva Ethicax who were robbed twice during their recent Euro Tour. Terrible stuff like that happens.
DAY 5 – 01.09.2009 – SALA HEAVEN, SANTANDER, SPAIN
Day 9 of the tour brought us to the biggest foreign show of our tour; the annual Deathcrusade Fest in San Quirino; organized by Nicolas, guitar player in Slowmotion Apocalypse. Deathcrusade is a fest with almost only Italian metal bands, like headliners Extrema and also Stigma & Katalepsis. This year we were the only non-Italian band on the bill. With 540 paying visitors this show was surely a success. The organization was very professional. Change-overs were limited to 10 minutes in between the bands and all the bands had to play on a common backline; except for Extrema. All this run pretty smoothly but posed a bit of a problem for us as we always want to use our own backline to get the right sound and playing-feeling. Luckily we could arrange something with the stage-manager so we could use some of our own gear. Unfortunately we still had some technical problems during our show which made it a difficult show for us to play as we didn’t have the right sound and monitor-mix on stage. So instead of being able to throw ourselves for the full 100% and give an energetic show, we had to focus on keeping everything together and play the songs correctly. Luckily the Italian crowd didn’t mind and became bigger and more enthusiastic during our set! After the show we got awesome reactions and the merch-sales went great this evening. We also got to do an interview with a local Italian radio-station that was doing a special show on the Deathcrusade Fest the day after; nice!
Nijn @ Deathcrusade Fest, San Quirino, Italy, 05.09.2009
Sigi @ Deathcrusade Fest, San Quirino, Italy, 05.09.2009
Afterwards we spend the night at the home of organizer Nicolas, who appeared to be a very friendly and funny guy.
DAY 10 – 06.09.2009 – DAY OFF ITALY
The day after we didn’t have to rush to the next city for the first time on this trip. We were in for two days off. These two days were welcome as we had been rushing through Europe for a big week now, without almost any sleep, so we were getting tired. Of course the bigger bands pull this kind of tours of for more weeks without problems but you have to image that we have to do everything ourselves on this tour. We don’t have a night liner and a driver; we drive ourselves in a van. We also don’t have a tour manager so we have to take care of all the arrangements and problems at shows and for food & sleeping places ourselves. All of this makes it just a little harder so we were happy with two days of vacation. We decided to drive to Lignano, a small city at the Adriatic Sea, a 1-hour drive from San Quirino. We stayed at a camping for two days, where we found some time to relax. We could sleep longer, take a good shower, go out to eat something ànd take a dive into the sea! Good times! I personally didn’t have a good time during the night. After a big week with hardly any decent sleep we finally got the chance to catch some sleep and then what happens? My mattress lost air and I still could sleep on the backseat off the van. Fuck it :)
DAY 11 – 07.09.2009 – DAY OFF ITALY
EURO TOUR REPORT
DAY 1 – 28.08.2009 – IEPERFEST, BELGIUM
Awesome to kick off our tour on the legendary Ieper Hardcore Fest! This is one of these fest every band dreams about to play on one day and it’s not different to us. We got to chance to play in the afternoon in the Marquee. The Ieper scene and its surroundings (Menen, Wervik…) have always been very supportive to Crimson Falls and it wasn’t different this time. I remember the first time we played in Ieper at the Vortn Vis benefit, early 2005. We still had to release our debut EP ‘Ruins 2K5’ at that time and we played as the second band early in the afternoon. We we’re amazed so many people already showed up to check us out. Safe to say we immediately fell in love with this scene. Now back to 2009; Ieperfest, still a lot of kids checking out all the bands and supporting them. Great to see the Ieper Mosh going on our breakdowns! But of course always bad things happen on the moments you least need them; my amp got damaged during the show. Luckily we were able finish the show decently, but a first tour problem to solve; hopefully we could get it fixed for the next day. Afterwards we hung around for a few hours, checking out some other bands. And we got to meet some of the guys in Stigma with whom we’d be teaming up for the next week. As the first two days of the tour were in Belgium we could stay at our own homes for the first days.
Wim @ Ieperfest, Ieper, Belgium, 28.08.2009
Nijn @ Ieperfest, Ieper, Belgium, 28.08.2009
DAY 2 – 29.08.2009 – CHAP’HELL SUMMER METAL FEST, CHAPELLE & DESSEL SWINGT, DESSEL, BELGIUM
Always easy to have a handy guy in the band! Our other guitar player Ringo was able to fix my amp overnight. Day two promised to be a hectic day as we had two shows planned out. First stop was the Chap’Hell Summer Metal Fest in Chapelle which had a very nice line-up with Stigma, In-Quest, Mystica and headliners Textures on the bill.
As we had a second show later that evening we played early as the second band. Thanks to organizer Bart from Mystica for making that possible! We played a nice show but lighting struck again at the end of the show; my amp broke down again and this time for real. So on the way from Chapelle to Dessel (timing was tight!) we had to think of a plan to solve this problem. Phase 1: we found our roadie Benji ready to lend out his amp if necessary for this show. Phase 2: our guitar technician Henny from guitargear.be could help out as well and wanted to fix the amp as soon as possible! So on the way to Dessel we split up in two teams; one team of to Benji for the back up amp; the other team to Henny to get the other one fixed. Henny was able to fix the amp in no time and we all arrived in Dessel in time. Team 1 even found the time to take a picture with schlager-queen Laura Lynn; one of the other artists appearing at Dessel Swingt next to Gorki, Sam ‘basketsloefkes’ Goris and (never getting old) Nicole & Hugo.
Not your average Hardcore/Metal bill, but we found it cool to get the chance to play on such a festival as well. Dessel Swingt is organized by the people behind Graspop Metal Meeting, so nice to meet them as well. Before this open air show we didn’t know what to expect; we even feared to play before an empty market place. Damn, we were wrong! The place was filled; I guess most people never heard of us or even like metal music; but they checked us out and kept watching the entire show; proving that Dessel is a city with an open mind towards hard and brutal music. We had a great time playing in front of so many people and with merch-sales blowing after the show and a lot of cool reaction of the younger kids we could surely call this one of the highlights of our tour already! Some impressions of this show:
CF @ Dessel Swingt, Dessel, Belgium, 29.08.2009
Our most popular member: El Niño!
DAY 3 – 30.08.2009 – MUSIKBUNKER, AACHEN, GERMANY
The first show of the tour outside Belgium took place at the Musikbunker in Aachen. We already met our touring partners STIGMA shortly in Ieper, but starting from this show we were teaming up with them for good. What can I say? These 6 Italian stallions are very nice and cool guys with a professional attitude towards their band and shows, so we couldn’t wish for a better band to tour with. The show itself was nice; not a very big crowd, but an enthusiastic one so it was cool! We were taken care off nicely with a good evening meal, sleeping places, breakfast and a shower, so this was certainly a nice stop on our tour. Horns up to the black metallers in Arkans Arvet for opening this show. Meanwhile I can already tell you can find all sorts of people in a tour van; and a very strange one is our soundguy Bjorn. This dude not only has a very rich vocabulary on subjects as tits, sex and porn but he’s also capable to produce the most incredible farts. Following a vegetarian lifestyle might be good for the animals on this planet; it’s no good for the atmosphere in the van and of course the heating of the earth. This guy produces so much CO² you can close down our countries industrial activities completely. Damn!
The Fartmaster
Escaping the farts
Next to Björn and the five Crimson Falls members we were also accompanied by our friend Michael, taking care of the merch during shows and giving us a helping hand with unloading our gear every day and driving the van from time to time.
DAY 4 – 31.08.2009 – LYON
On the road!
After a nice shower and breakfast in Aachen we left for the biggest organizational problem of this tour; our show in Lyon’s Hall. This show first got confirmed, than cancelled, confirmed again and two days before the show cancelled again. Insisting and threatening to let this show go through didn’t help so it stayed cancelled. Sucks of course but if we had to loose one of the shows on this tour I preferred this one. The chance a lot of people would have shown up for this show was very small as we already noticed there was hardly any promotion for it. The guys in Stigma didn’t mind either as they were getting tired after a week of traveling long distances and playing shows daily. We stayed the night at a F1 hotel in Lyon. The surroundings of this hotel wasn’t the most cozy place on earth I have to say; we didn’t feel completely at ease and safe in this neighborhood, but luckily no problems occurred. To play it safe we always had one or two persons sleeping in the van. We didn’t want to risk this van or our gear to get stolen. Then we would have lost everything and the tour would be over immediately. Look at what happened with xNueva Ethicax who were robbed twice during their recent Euro Tour. Terrible stuff like that happens.
DAY 5 – 01.09.2009 – SALA HEAVEN, SANTANDER, SPAIN
The next morning we had to get up at 04:30 and we left for Santander at 5:20 in the morning. We were in for a long drive, 1050 kilometers, but apart from some queues in Spain everything ran pretty smoothly. We expected to drive towards the sun, but none of that, clouds and an occasionally some rain, it seemed like we were still in Belgium. After arriving in Santander we had a hard time finding the venue. Luckily a guy we asked the direction at jumped into his car and guided us to Sala Heaven. A nice example of the Spanish hospidat! The venue itself was quite big; it was more fitted for bigger touring packages like The Black Dahlia Murder/Despised Icon/White Chapel for instance. But of course cool we could play in such a venue as well with a smaller package. Not that many people showed up, also because there wasn’t a local support band, but enough to make it a nice evening. We played a cool show and as half of the audience got some CF-merch after the show we were happy with how this show turned out. We got to bed very late as we still had to find a decent place to park our van. Five of us stayed in small hostel, two in the van and the guys from Stigma at the house of Sergio, the organizers of today’s show. Sleeping time!
DAY 6 – 02.09.2009 – BARRACUDAS, MADRID, SPAIN
DAY 6 – 02.09.2009 – BARRACUDAS, MADRID, SPAIN
Sometimes bad luck hides in a little corner. After a short night in Santander we left for Madrid quite early. Before taking the highway to Madrid we decided to grab breakfast in a small restaurant at a gas station near Santander. We thought it was nice to eat this breakfast in the freshness of the airco of this restaurant. A few hours later, close to Madrid, our singer Wim had almost lost his voice entirely. We expected his voice to suffer from the amount of shows in a row and from being tired because of the lack of sleep and the long travel. But we hadn’t expected this. Wim already proved more than once he’s capable of singing more days in a row, even when he’s tired. During the recordings of ‘Fragments Of Awareness’ for instance, Wim sung days in a row every evening, while he still went to work every day. No; something else was up. We didn’t have to think long to find who was guilty for this; that fuckin’ airco in Santander! So, what now? How would the shape of his voice evolve? Would he be able to do tonight’s show? We all were a little scared about what was going to happen. We had been working hard to get this tour arranged and drove a long way to get in Madrid. And now we were finally there, we even feared we had to cancel shows if Wim’s voice would give up completely. So what could we do? We got some medication for Wim, made sure he could drink some hot lemon teas and, the hardest part, we had to get him to shut up for a few hours. At first we thought about using some good old A-Team tactics and just punch him out like they used to do with BA. But after all that wasn’t necessary and Wim took the rest he needed. We also had a hard time finding tonight’s venue (Barracudas), probably because a certain soundguy in our van had given in the wrong address :). When we finally found the venue, we soon met Bob from Burning You! who organized tonight’s show. The venue proved to be a very cool one, a small but clean and cozy place with a nice separate room for the bands to relax. Dinner was tasty and typically Spanish (nice tortilla!) and by the clock of ten; Bob proved he had done an awesome job promoting this show; the place was packed! Uncreated kicked off and then it was up to us. We were still in doubt if Wim’s voice would hold out and we were prepared to continue this show instrumental ‘till the end if necessary. Luckily some whiskey and the support of an enthusiastic audience did the trick; all in all we played a cool show in front of a cool crowd; the picture says all!
Horns up! @ Burning You! Fest, Barracudas, Madrid, Spain, 02.09.2009
Wim @ Burning You! Fest, Barracudas, Madrid, Spain, 02.09.2009
Also cool to meet some other Belgians at this show who noticed we were playing in Madrid this evening. After Stigma’s show we had to drive to our hotel room in the centre of Madrid. Not as easy as it might seem but we got there. As we didn’t have a decent place to park our van there was no other solution than to leave early the next morning. Hardly any sleep; again. You get used to it :)
DAY 7 – 03.09.2009 – DARKNESS PUB, VALENCIA, SPAIN
Next up was Valencia; a show we had been looking forward to. We were going to play at the Darkness Pub, a place where other Kempen-based bands as Pushed Too Far, Angelskin and Tear It Down had played before. And they all told us about one aspect; Carmen; the waitress with two exceptional qualities :). As we arrived in Valencia early, at noon, this was the perfect opportunity to relax. We drove towards the sea, got some food and then went to the beach for a dive in the sea; awesome! The water was hot, the weather was nice, what more could you ask for? Other good news was that Wim’s voice was still there and that it wasn’t getting worse. It still wasn’t in optima forma, but still, our faith grew he would be able to pull this show and the rest of the tour off. Things were getting better slowly. But during the past days we already felt that on tour you’re faced with another problem every day. We quickly learned that on tour you have to live day by day and can’t plan everything out the way you expect things are going to be. Of course you can’t leave without a decent & profound preparation, but once on the road there are too many factors that are variable and insecure. And this day was no different. At the venue we met Javier, singer of Noctem, a local black metal band and the organizer of the show.
Horns up! @ Burning You! Fest, Barracudas, Madrid, Spain, 02.09.2009
Wim @ Burning You! Fest, Barracudas, Madrid, Spain, 02.09.2009
Also cool to meet some other Belgians at this show who noticed we were playing in Madrid this evening. After Stigma’s show we had to drive to our hotel room in the centre of Madrid. Not as easy as it might seem but we got there. As we didn’t have a decent place to park our van there was no other solution than to leave early the next morning. Hardly any sleep; again. You get used to it :)
DAY 7 – 03.09.2009 – DARKNESS PUB, VALENCIA, SPAIN
Next up was Valencia; a show we had been looking forward to. We were going to play at the Darkness Pub, a place where other Kempen-based bands as Pushed Too Far, Angelskin and Tear It Down had played before. And they all told us about one aspect; Carmen; the waitress with two exceptional qualities :). As we arrived in Valencia early, at noon, this was the perfect opportunity to relax. We drove towards the sea, got some food and then went to the beach for a dive in the sea; awesome! The water was hot, the weather was nice, what more could you ask for? Other good news was that Wim’s voice was still there and that it wasn’t getting worse. It still wasn’t in optima forma, but still, our faith grew he would be able to pull this show and the rest of the tour off. Things were getting better slowly. But during the past days we already felt that on tour you’re faced with another problem every day. We quickly learned that on tour you have to live day by day and can’t plan everything out the way you expect things are going to be. Of course you can’t leave without a decent & profound preparation, but once on the road there are too many factors that are variable and insecure. And this day was no different. At the venue we met Javier, singer of Noctem, a local black metal band and the organizer of the show.
Immediately we noticed that things wouldn’t be going the way we wanted it to. We were told the first band, Noctem, would have to start at 20:00 and that all bands had to stop playing before 22:00. What followed was 1,5 hour during discussion between the bands about the backline. This in spite of the agreements that were made upfront and the contract that stated that Stigma & CF would bring their own backline and not lend it out to other bands on the bill. But as we are nice guys we always try to cooperate and get problems solved. So in the end we found a solution. But at 20:00 Noctem still wasn’t ready to start their show. The drum wasn’t set up, they hadn’t done a sound check and the drummer wasn’t even there. Later that evening we learned they also still had to get dressed and made up. So as we still wanted to have a chance to play this show and we didn’t want Stigma to be cancelled we decided to jump the stage, set up our gear up in no time and start playing. Quite some kids had shown up, so it would be a shame to let this chance to convince some new people of our music slip away. We started playing at 20:30.
Crimson @ Darkness Pub, Valencia, Spain, 03.09.2009
xlatinox @ Darkness Pub, Valencia, Spain, 03.09.2009
One hour and 10 minutes later both Stigma and CF had played at 30 minute set. How’s that for being fast? After that it was up to Noctem who put up a pretty shocking old school black metal show including corpse-painted and dressed band members, raw meat being thrown at the public and a singer spilling blood (or blood colored paint?) over his face and into the venue. Yes; we emo-deathcore-rockers are shocked easily :). But no matter how emo we get, respect remains very important to us and our buddies in Stigma feel the same. So when we found out they spilled blood/paint on the bassdrums of Stigma & CF; we all were pretty pissed.
Now I don’t want to talk all bad about Javier and Noctem. They organized this show for us, gave us drinks and food as we agreed on before and we got the payment that was negotiated. This way they helped us to make our tour possible and that’s something we’re grateful for. The fact they met these agreements shows they respected us and Stigma. But in the end there are still some things I don’t get. Why didn’t they get ready to start playing the show at 20:00? Why was the curfew suddenly no problem any more? Why didn’t they realize that spilling blood/paint on another bands drum would be a problem? All of that is disrespectful while they certainly were respectful at other points. Weird. And a weird evening. Let’s just blame it on communication problems and maybe a clash between two metal subgenres. What we do remember is meeting some cool people there, the cool show we got to play after all and the new fans we won.
Two side-notes:
1. after we got home we checked out Noctem decently. Honestly, their recordings show an ass-kicking black metal band that is going places. Check ‘em out if you’re into this style of music.
2. Angelskin & Tear It Down were right; Carmen!
DAY 8 – 04.09.2009 – UNITED CLUB, TURIN, ITALY
After the show it was time for the second part of our day. As we were in for a 1250 km-drive from Valencia to Turin, we decided not to sleep in Valencia, but to drive straight through to Turin. If we’d stay in Valencia we’d had to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to be able to reach Turin in time. We thought it was ridiculous to go to sleep for 3 hours; 3,5 hours max. We set out a master plan in which always 3 persons had to stay awake (1 driver and 2 guys to keep an eye on him), while the other 4 could try to catch some sleep in the van. Tight plan; during the first hours of the drive we made a lot of kilometers as there was hardly any traffic. We left Valencia at 1:00 and by 13:00 we were already close to the Alps. We drove to Barcelonette as we were told we could avoid some peages on the way. From Barcelonette we could have driven straight through to Como and then to Turin. But guess what we did? We took the wrong turn, slowly the roads got smaller and steeper and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of the mountains. As you don’t have a zillion roads in the Alps, at some points you can’t but follow the single road you have and you have to keep driving. So, now we knew what today’s problem was going to be; getting out of these goddamn Alps! A few hours later, after passing over the Col de Vars and another mountain that is regularly done in the Tour De France, we finally reached the Italian border, and Turin a few hours later. I can tell you; during this 4 hour drive through the Alps; the fucks and shits we’re flying through the van. But afterwards it became a nice memory; we had seen some beautiful nature along the road.
Tonight’s venue was United Club in Turin; again a very nice venue and delicious food.
Crimson @ Darkness Pub, Valencia, Spain, 03.09.2009
xlatinox @ Darkness Pub, Valencia, Spain, 03.09.2009
One hour and 10 minutes later both Stigma and CF had played at 30 minute set. How’s that for being fast? After that it was up to Noctem who put up a pretty shocking old school black metal show including corpse-painted and dressed band members, raw meat being thrown at the public and a singer spilling blood (or blood colored paint?) over his face and into the venue. Yes; we emo-deathcore-rockers are shocked easily :). But no matter how emo we get, respect remains very important to us and our buddies in Stigma feel the same. So when we found out they spilled blood/paint on the bassdrums of Stigma & CF; we all were pretty pissed.
Now I don’t want to talk all bad about Javier and Noctem. They organized this show for us, gave us drinks and food as we agreed on before and we got the payment that was negotiated. This way they helped us to make our tour possible and that’s something we’re grateful for. The fact they met these agreements shows they respected us and Stigma. But in the end there are still some things I don’t get. Why didn’t they get ready to start playing the show at 20:00? Why was the curfew suddenly no problem any more? Why didn’t they realize that spilling blood/paint on another bands drum would be a problem? All of that is disrespectful while they certainly were respectful at other points. Weird. And a weird evening. Let’s just blame it on communication problems and maybe a clash between two metal subgenres. What we do remember is meeting some cool people there, the cool show we got to play after all and the new fans we won.
Two side-notes:
1. after we got home we checked out Noctem decently. Honestly, their recordings show an ass-kicking black metal band that is going places. Check ‘em out if you’re into this style of music.
2. Angelskin & Tear It Down were right; Carmen!
DAY 8 – 04.09.2009 – UNITED CLUB, TURIN, ITALY
After the show it was time for the second part of our day. As we were in for a 1250 km-drive from Valencia to Turin, we decided not to sleep in Valencia, but to drive straight through to Turin. If we’d stay in Valencia we’d had to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to be able to reach Turin in time. We thought it was ridiculous to go to sleep for 3 hours; 3,5 hours max. We set out a master plan in which always 3 persons had to stay awake (1 driver and 2 guys to keep an eye on him), while the other 4 could try to catch some sleep in the van. Tight plan; during the first hours of the drive we made a lot of kilometers as there was hardly any traffic. We left Valencia at 1:00 and by 13:00 we were already close to the Alps. We drove to Barcelonette as we were told we could avoid some peages on the way. From Barcelonette we could have driven straight through to Como and then to Turin. But guess what we did? We took the wrong turn, slowly the roads got smaller and steeper and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of the mountains. As you don’t have a zillion roads in the Alps, at some points you can’t but follow the single road you have and you have to keep driving. So, now we knew what today’s problem was going to be; getting out of these goddamn Alps! A few hours later, after passing over the Col de Vars and another mountain that is regularly done in the Tour De France, we finally reached the Italian border, and Turin a few hours later. I can tell you; during this 4 hour drive through the Alps; the fucks and shits we’re flying through the van. But afterwards it became a nice memory; we had seen some beautiful nature along the road.
Tonight’s venue was United Club in Turin; again a very nice venue and delicious food.
As this was Stigma’s homecoming show and with the local support of Nailed To The Oceans, a lot of people arrived. We were again able to reach some new fans and I think we played a good show. To some of us this wasn’t the most fun show to play as the monitor sound sucked big time. Afterwards we stayed the night at the homes of two of the members of Nailed To The Oceans who took great care of us!
Soundguy @ work!
DAY 9 – 05.09.2009 – DEATHCRUSADE FEST, SAN QUIRINO, ITALY
Soundguy @ work!
DAY 9 – 05.09.2009 – DEATHCRUSADE FEST, SAN QUIRINO, ITALY
Day 9 of the tour brought us to the biggest foreign show of our tour; the annual Deathcrusade Fest in San Quirino; organized by Nicolas, guitar player in Slowmotion Apocalypse. Deathcrusade is a fest with almost only Italian metal bands, like headliners Extrema and also Stigma & Katalepsis. This year we were the only non-Italian band on the bill. With 540 paying visitors this show was surely a success. The organization was very professional. Change-overs were limited to 10 minutes in between the bands and all the bands had to play on a common backline; except for Extrema. All this run pretty smoothly but posed a bit of a problem for us as we always want to use our own backline to get the right sound and playing-feeling. Luckily we could arrange something with the stage-manager so we could use some of our own gear. Unfortunately we still had some technical problems during our show which made it a difficult show for us to play as we didn’t have the right sound and monitor-mix on stage. So instead of being able to throw ourselves for the full 100% and give an energetic show, we had to focus on keeping everything together and play the songs correctly. Luckily the Italian crowd didn’t mind and became bigger and more enthusiastic during our set! After the show we got awesome reactions and the merch-sales went great this evening. We also got to do an interview with a local Italian radio-station that was doing a special show on the Deathcrusade Fest the day after; nice!
Nijn @ Deathcrusade Fest, San Quirino, Italy, 05.09.2009
Sigi @ Deathcrusade Fest, San Quirino, Italy, 05.09.2009
Afterwards we spend the night at the home of organizer Nicolas, who appeared to be a very friendly and funny guy.
DAY 10 – 06.09.2009 – DAY OFF ITALY
The day after we didn’t have to rush to the next city for the first time on this trip. We were in for two days off. These two days were welcome as we had been rushing through Europe for a big week now, without almost any sleep, so we were getting tired. Of course the bigger bands pull this kind of tours of for more weeks without problems but you have to image that we have to do everything ourselves on this tour. We don’t have a night liner and a driver; we drive ourselves in a van. We also don’t have a tour manager so we have to take care of all the arrangements and problems at shows and for food & sleeping places ourselves. All of this makes it just a little harder so we were happy with two days of vacation. We decided to drive to Lignano, a small city at the Adriatic Sea, a 1-hour drive from San Quirino. We stayed at a camping for two days, where we found some time to relax. We could sleep longer, take a good shower, go out to eat something ànd take a dive into the sea! Good times! I personally didn’t have a good time during the night. After a big week with hardly any decent sleep we finally got the chance to catch some sleep and then what happens? My mattress lost air and I still could sleep on the backseat off the van. Fuck it :)
DAY 11 – 07.09.2009 – DAY OFF ITALY
On the second day we spent on the camping with did some more of the same; sleep, shower, eat & swim. Ringo & Nijn took part in a ping-pong-tournament held on the camping and won it Jean-Michel Saive-style. After our evening-meal we sat together with some bottles of wine and then went to sleep. I got myself a new mattress which helped a lot. The next day we had to get up at 8 and leave towards Vienna at 10.
DAY 12 – 08.09.2009 – ESCAPE ROCKCORNER, VIENNA, AUSTRIAOn the way to Vienna, just before we passed the border between Italy and Austria, we decided to stop at a gas station to tank, take a piss, get something to eat & drink ànd to pump up the tires on the back of the van. An unlucky decision… Two Italian policemen had just arrived on the same gas station and they noticed that our van was heavily loaded because the back tires were hanging a bit through. So we had to follow them to a bridge to weigh the van on. We didn’t expect that to be a problem as we hired a tour van in which 9 people could take place and we were only traveling with 7 persons. Except for our guitar cabs and bass cab we weren’t carrying along any extremely heavy stuff either; though we were seriously loaded with the rest of our backline, our merchandise and our personal stuff. But the verdict was hard: we were 800 kilo overweight and had to pay a 160 euro fine immediately! And then we were still lucky they didn’t make us stop completely. This took us by surprise, how could this happen? After going through the papers we got to know that the weight of our van was 2700 kg and that the maximum total weight of the loaded van (people included) was 3500 kg. At first we were pissed about this because this means we could hardly take any stuff on tour with us. The 7 of us had a total weight of 525 kg. This means we could only bring 275 kg of gear, merchandise and personal stuff with us on tour; which is of course impossible. We decided to talk with Tour Support about this (who hired us the van) and we got a very clear and decent explanation about this: they always inform bands decently about this before they leave; something we hadn’t taken into account enough. Every band hiring a tour van has to decide for itself which risk they want to take and which stuff they leave at home or not. It’s also important to pump up the tires of the van hard enough and apart from that you just have to be lucky you don’t run into cops trying to reach their quota the way we did. So Tour Support wasn’t to blame on this one. Every van renting company, also in other countries, apparently works this way and they had informed us. But still a hard 160 Euro to swallow…
Anyway, we had to leave this chapter behind us and drive further to Vienna where we were going to play at the Escape Rockcorner. This show should have been our first show together with Ignominious Incarceration, a UK melodic death metal band on Earache Records. The intention we had when we set-up this Euro Tour was to do 1 week with Stigma an a second week with Ignominious Incarceration from Tuesday 08.09.2009 until Sunday 13.09.2009. Unfortunately one of the guitar players in Ignom left the band one week before the start of our tour. A big disappointment to me personally as I put a lot of work in setting up this tour, spending countless hours of emailing and negotiating with (possible) bookers and organizers. At a certain point it seemed we were going to loose all the shows of this second week, except for one, and then all of this work would have been for nothing. Luckily Dominik from Catapult Promotions managed to save the shows in Vienna & Brno for us and Kompleks Metal Meeting wasn’t cancelled either. So the only show we actually lost due to Ignom’s cancellation was the show on Sunday 13.09.2009 at the 013 in Tilburg (HOL) as we weren’t going to play on Saturday anyway and Thursday 10.09.2009 was still unbooked. So, apart from some extra stress; damage was controlled nicely for us. Not that we blame Ignom for anything. We understand there was nothing they could do about this and that they were taken by surprise themselves. Coming over as a 4-piece was no option either on such short notice. So we hope to team up with Ignom for real in the future!
No Ignom unfortunately
Escape Rockcorner appeared to be a nice place for shows, apart from the stairs leading down towards the stage. We were playing with three local bands. The first band played its first show and brought a lot of people to witness this so the place was packed from the start. Unfortunately some people left after the first band, but enough people stayed to make it a cool and cozy show, something we didn’t dare to expect up front for a show on a Tuesday evening. After this show we stayed at the apartment of Guy De Craemer and his girlfriend Natasha. Guy is a Belgian friend of our bass player Tom. They had played together in I Witness, a band that also featured current In-Quest bass player Korre. The Belgian metal scene; a small world :)
Some other impressions:
Sometimes love doesn't come from both ways...
Keeping it straight!
DAY 13 – 09.09.2009 – BROOKLYN CLUB, BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC
The next morning Guy and Natasha surprised us with a very nice breakfast, including eggs and sausages. That’s what we need to get the engine running! After watching some horrible (Wasilewski-Witsel) and funny (a sleep-jumping dog) on You Tube, we left for Brno, where we’d play our first show in the Czech Republic.
A short trip in distance, but still it took as a long time to get there as there wasn’t a real highway leading from Vienna to Brno. After the usual trouble finding the venue we met Fred, singer in Smashed Face and the organizer of Defacing Fest. This fest was held in RC Brooklyn, a cool club but again with some stairs leading down towards the stage. We managed to get all our gear down and when the doors opened we were in for one of the biggest surprises of our tour. Not only was the show completely packed (and this on Wednesday evening!) but the average level of the bands playing tonight was very high! God Defamer form Slovakia played fast death metal with a lot of blast and sweeps (Chris Storey-style); Smashed Face from was brutal as fuck and made us think of the Czech answer to White Chapel and finally Desiccated (Austria), who replaced Ignom on this show, played a very energetic show. For a moment we looked at each other, scratched in our hair and thought; do we have to go on after these great bands? :) It seems these countries have a strong but unknown scene. But, who’s afraid gets hit anyway, so we did what we always do; go for it and throw ourselves for the full 100%. And it worked again this time as well; people stayed to check us out and supported us a lot during the entire show. We didn’t expect it, but this show was certainly one of the highlights of the tour for us!
Horns up! @ Defacing Fest, Brooklyn Club, Brno, Czech Republic, 09.09.2009
After the show we were supposed to stay at Fred’s place, but as we didn’t have a show to play on Thursday we decided to drive straight through immediately after the show; like we had done after the show in Valencia. We left Brno at 01:00…
DAY 14 – 10.09.2009 – DAY OFF, BELGIUM
… and the next morning we were already in Germany. We reached my hometown Dessel at 14:30 in the afternoon. After cleaning out the van and unloading our gear at our rehearsal place we all could head home and spend some quality time with our girlfriends. Of course it felt great to sleep in our own beds again.
Cleaning up the van.
Roadie Michael completely wasted after two weeks of touring.
DAY 15 – 11.09.2009 – KOMPLEKS METAL MEETING, HEERHUGOWAARD, HOLLAND
The next day we played the final show of our tour at Kompleks Metal Meeting in Heerhugowaard, Holland. As our guitar player Ringo preferred to stay with his wife and daughter after 2 weeks of touring, this was a nice opportunity to offer our stand by-guitar player Jeroen (Strych.Nine, ex-Catafalque, ex-Wretched Vixen) a show to play. As on the previous occasions he did an awesome job! Kompleks Metal Meeting proved to be a perfect closure to our Euro Tour. The place was packed with young and enthusiastic kids who were in for one thing and one thing only; moshing the place up! And so they did, with a huge wall of death on ‘Controle Alt Delete’ as the highlight. What no one noticed is that we did had some trouble getting on stage decently for this show as our singer Wim only arrived when the rest of the band was already setting up. Traffic jams made it a 5,5 hour drive for him, but no harm done in the end, we were in touch constantly and knew he would arrive just in time. Congrats to the organization of Kompleks Metal Meeting as well for making this show a success despite three cancellations (Ignominious Incarceration, The End Of All Reason and The Vile Creation). Their replacements As Enemies Arise and Pound did a great job.
CF @ Kompleks Metal Meeting, Kompleks, Heerhugowaard, Holland, 11.09.2009
THE AFTERMATH
Looking back on this tour we are very happy and proud about what we realized. We got home safely and had an awesome experience. It became a trip we won’t forget. On top of that most shows were a real success so what more could we ask for!
THANKS TO:
Vlad & all in Stigma, Stey & Genet Records/Bookings , Dominik & Catapult Promotions, Anibal & Violence In The Veins, Jeroen Foré, Bruno & Ieper Fest, Bart & Chap’Hell/Mystica, Peter and all at Dessel Swingt/Graspop Metal Meeting, Lars and Musikbunker, Sergio Santander, Bob & Burning You!, Javier, Roberto & Nailed To the Oceans, Nicolas & Deathcrusade Fest, Guy & Natasha, Fred & Smashed Face, Mike & Shitstorm, Henny & Guitargear.be, Joel Black Box, Stefan The Prophecy, all the bands we played with, everyone we met along the road, everyone who took care of us & everyone who supported us on this tour; Horns up!
