Catching Up

Wow! What a week this has been. I feel like I've not had a seconds rest (which is a not true, but that's how it feels) and now I'm very much looking forward to a quiet couple of days before heading to York on Monday.

It all started last Thursday when we went to Utrecht to see our good friends Dewolff playing their Album release show at Tivoli Oudegracht. The show was stunning and then we had a great time at the afterparty, with plenty of dancing, catching up and drinking (maybe a little too much of that for some!). Finally, we trundled back in the wee hours of the morning and engaged in some drunken kebab eating.
Early Friday afternoon we all were in some state of consciousness and spent a few hours just relaxing at Pablo and Nikki's (our hosts). They have an amazing little house that is actually on the canal in a wharf cellar! It's so nice sitting outside in the sunshine watching little boats go by.

On Friday evening my band, Southern Sunrise, was booked to play Cafe Stathe in Utrecht, so we hauled all our gear through town, got set up and having revived ourselves a little, played a really fun show! The audience was great and we were really pleased with how it went. Remco, our keys player, also lives in Utrecht so his girlfriend Anna came to see the show and took a couple of pictures.

Remco's famous dancing during 'Elspeth'

We had an earlier night on Friday as we had to have a relatively early start the next morning for a photoshoot with Nikki.
To give ourselves a good start to the day, Pablo lead us to a cafe with promises of breakfast for only €1.50. I was dubious, how good could a breakfast really be if it only costs that little?! I had images of grotty little places serving watery coffee and stale bread. However, upon arrival at our destination we were pleasantly surprised! It was actually a La Place, a Dutch restaurant chain with locations up and down the country that has a a wonderful selection of 100% fresh, sustainably produced foods. I'd never actually eaten there before, but I'd stared longingly at their fresh juices more than once in passing.
The breakfast offer was incredibly good, for just €1.50 you could choose 5 items from a small selection amongst their regular meals. This included an assortment of mini bread rolls and croissants, ham, boiled eggs, freshly-made herby cream cheese, hazelnut spread (with actual bits of hazelnut!), cheese, fruit etc and with that you also got a large glass of freshly squeezed juice and a cup of coffee.

Breakfast! (excuse the picture quality, Arjan's in need of a new phone) 

After eating up and resisting the urge to go back for seconds, we headed back to the apartment and got ourselves ready for the shoot. Utrecht is a beautiful city, so we weren't short of locations to use for pictures. Nikki was shooting with an old analogue Praktica so we haven't seen the results yet, but judging by this iphone picture she took we're in for a treat!

Later that day we bid farewell to Pablo, Nikki and the lovely Utrecht and headed North for Haarlem, where we had our second gig of the weekend at Bar Wolkers. The event was put on by Musicspotter and again we had a lovely gig with a really nice audience and it was a very pleasant Saturday evening in the sun.

On sunday we slept, got up for some food, said hello to Oma and then slept some more.

Monday came and it was back to business! The 4th and 5th of May are holidays in the Netherlands, the 4th is a day of remembrance for the casualties of WWII and the 5th is a day of celebration of the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany. On the 5th there are 'Bevridingsfestivals' (freedom festivals) up and down the country and we were asked to play the one in Heerlen. The weather was perfect and the setting was very cool. The stage was in the main square in Heerlen and was set at one side so that the audience could enjoy the music from one of the many bars surrounding it. It was incredibly chilled and we had a really great time.

Sadly, that was the end of our mini-tour, but we've been keeping busy since then! Yesterday we spent the whole day helping a friend with their garden, "oh some light relaxing work" you might think, but we were digging up tree stumps and redistributing a huge mound of earth. I am currently in a world of deep muscular burn but it was good, satisfying work and it always feels nice to help out friends.

Today has been assigned a pyjama day and it's already starting to help a little...