POLLO DEL MAR 

European Tour January 2005

Day 2

Friday, January 07, 2005

Tour notes 1/7/05 Jono

Friday afternoon 07.01.05
Today we were going to try and foray to another town of Bruges, very beautiful Belgian jewel of a town. But we are still recuperating and decompressing from all of the travelling. We awoke too late and the caretakers were not around to help us. They would have needed to arrange the rail timetables and get us to the Herentals rail station.
But it is about 1 pm and I still haven't converted my dollars to Euros. The exchange rate is worse now than it was 2 weeks ago when I tried to budget. It is approx $1.50 per Euro which means that if something costs 10 Euros, it is really about $15, We ate at a Mexican restaurant last night (don't ask) and the average plate of food was 12-17 Euros. Doing the math, that is about $20. Fortunately, our meals are comp'd.

Eeklo - Jeff

The Hawaiian Astro Boys have never been to the great state of Hawaii, but would love to someday. They are a band from Eeklo. We met them tonight at club N9 - a venue with a large, monitored stage, full bar, and complete mixing board set up to record the HABoys-and, to record us as an added bonus!

But, that wasn't the only bonus. Before the show, our dinner was provided at the most beautiful dinning room in a building down the street - a family-style feast of soup, meat, vegtables, potatoes ... We've never eaten so well on any other tour in the states. Mickey D's it most definitely was not. N9, Gert and everyone were most gracious.

The HABoys were also nice guys. Discussions at the dinner table included a Belgian history lesson and the blue states/red states phenomenon back home.

Before the show, I found a public phone (not an easy task) at a nearby train station. Making my first call back to Calif was nice - actually, this is our first tour in a different time zone... and it being 9 zones away is making phone contact a bit tricky.

HABoys are great musicans. Their sound was thick and solid. They did several originals, as well as a (the) Dick Dale cover and finished their set with Hall of the Mountain King. (hey, we play a version of thst too!)

We had a rough start, but our set went well. It was great being on a big stage in front of a multi-lingual audience, already warmed up to the surf sound.

Show's over, an hour drive home and here we are back at the Akkerhuis. I'm really liking this Belgian version of hospitality. What's next in this tour Gert? Whew!

-jeff


Jeremy's Benelux tour notes day two

Day two began with eggs, coffee and toast after a restful sleep. Who knew that international travel followed by a full day of activity could make a mofo so tired? We took a stroll in our little town, Lichtaart, changed some dollars for euros, and went to the market for some provisions. After returning to the cottage, Jono and I went on a little bike ride. Then Geert came to drive us to Eeklo. Fantastic venue, great food in a deco palace down the block, wonderful people and a very plush kitty cat. At the show, the Hawaiian Astro Boys rocked the house with their thick, viscous greasy tone. The crowd was theirs. The people backed up a little bit for our set, but we were not deterred and quickly won them over. The HAB's let us use their backline including a beautiful custom Pearl drum set with powder coated black hardware. JF, the drummer, told me it was one of only three kits like it in all of Europe. I played my own snare drum, and during the last song or two, the strings holding the snare wires broke. For the encore, I used JF's matching black drum. The smoke was so thick in the club that flash photos revealed only fog.

After the hour ride home, Jeff and Ferenc crashed out, but Jono and I took Gert's suggestion and went to a pub in Lichtaart. The locals were very frindly and bought us many Stellas. The owner, Eddie, invited us to play, but we reluctantly declined, explaining that our schedule is completely full. We'll definitely go back to the bar tho'. We returned home at 7am(!), exhausted and ecstatic.