ProgPower Europe 2007:

The following is an account of our trip to Baarlo, Netherlands to play at the ProgPower Europe festival on October 7th, 2007. Everything described here actually happened - we are not making this shit up!

9/20/2007 - 12:15am
We'll be keeping you up to date on our trip to Europe right here on this blog. Starting Oct. 4th when we hit the airport on through the day of the show and back to Austin. So stay tuned! we're a bunch of techie nerds so we'll be blogging from our phones and shit. I'm doing that right now actually,even though I'm sitting right next to my computer. I had to see if this could even work, and it does! We haven't blogged in a while and I've never done this for the Meyvn page,or ever for that matter, so keep checking back. On a local note, don't forget we're playing Buffalo Billiards on Fri 9/28. Peace out suckas!

- Ken

After posting this i realized that for some reason it doesn't put the date or time on it, must be soemthing to do with my phone. Maybe Drew's fancy iPhone will be able to do it. Oh well, I'll just have to do it manually.

By the way, it's kinda hard and rather time consuming to do this on a phone, even on one with a keyboard, so i hope somebody out there is fucking reading this.

9/20/2007 - 12:24am
Don't worry, I'll post from my fancy iPhone as long as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg :)

- Drew

9/20/2007 - 12:30am
Ok I was wrong, it has nothing to do with my phone, i guess it just doesn't put the date,unless i missed something. I did see the time though. Maybe I'm just not myspace savvy enough. Whatever, i'll still include the time and date within my actually blog, as for the other guys they can do whatever the fuck they want. This portion was written on my computer cuz something fucked up on my phone, hopefully it won't happen again or this will be only blog about our trip until after we get back.

- Ken

9/21/2007 - 2:05 pm
So we've been having some issues trying to get passports for everyone that's going to Europe. My wife has had a hell of a time because they don't believe she's a U.S. citizen. For those of you that have met her, you know she's as white as can be. Our drummer ,Reuben, has also had issues cuz some monkey brain at the post office may have fucked up and not even sent his application off to begin with. So here we are 2 weeks away, what a bitch.

- Ken

9/26/2007 - 9:35pm

Hooray! Everyone has their passports! Now we can breathe easy and know the whole band will be in Europe. The task at hand is to make sure we all meet up in Baarlo before the show. Basically meaning that we hope Jon doesn't get kicked out of France and sent home for being too "redneck". Apparently it may cost an arm and a leg to use our phones to blog, so we may have to find other ways of doing it or post really short messages like "this rocks! bye!", "what the hell is in those brownies?" or "redlight district, nuff said." Anyway, right in front of us is our sendoff show at Buffalo Billiards this Friday. Hope to see you there!

- Ken

9/29/2007 - 1:00pm

Let this be the first of the crazy stories. So last night, we had our "warmup show" to get all the kinks out and play one last time in Austin, etc. We played at a place called Buffalo Billiards right on 6th street - this was a weird place to play, I had no idea they had live music or even had an upstairs with a stage. I used to go this bar all the time when I was in college and it turns out there's a huge, very nice area upstairs with a full bar and a pretty decent stage! And they had an *elevator* - how could this be a bad gig? Well let me tell you. The stage was weird - it was set up like a "T", where there were big open spaces on both sides of the drummer. We set up our amps on these broken speakers in the empty spaces next to the drummer - it was a little precarious, as my amp had wheels and the broken speaker it was sitting on was not very wide. So halfway into the set, Jon and I are doing our twin guitar Racer X shred thing and Rick is frantically trying to get out of the way and he decides to go stand by my amp. Somehow or another he trips into the empty area between the stage and the amp and decides to grab the amp for support. And the amp rolls right off the stage. When my guitar cuts out, I think "oh great, Rick stepped on my cable and unplugged me" - I turn around, and there he is sprawled out on top of my amp behind the stage with the most dazed and confused look on his face. The amp head and cabinet suffered quite a blow, falling from 6 feet off stage with a 190 lb. British singer landing on top of it, but amazingly the only damage was a broken jack or two in the back of the head and some innards of the head getting knocked loose. Thank you Diamond Amplification for your near singer-proof amplifiers! We limped through the rest of the set and now I'm going to have to get the damn thing repaired, but it shouldn't be too bad. The worst part about the whole thing was that no one caught it on video! Damn!

- Drew

10/5/2007
OK, first let me say that if you're interested in reading this, settle down because you are in for a long read and this is only the first day or two of the journey. SO much happened it is simply impossible for me to tell the story briefly, and besides, some of this shit is simply too funny to keep short and to the point, so with that in mind...let me take you back to Thursday October 4th and Austin International airport............

First lie, this was dull, the band met up there (Drew, Reuben, Ken and his wife Mellisa and Megan). We ate and I watched them get on another flight since being a singer and very self important I need a completely seperate flight than every one else. (That's not entirely true..most of it is, but the truth be told - after ProgPower I was going to do some brief sightseeing on my own). My flight went well, Austin to Houston, then Houston to Paris with Air France which had tremendous food, great service and I must admit rather lovely air hostesses.

I landed in Paris and finally made it to my departure gate to find that 3 plane loads of people were waiting to depart from one gate..talk about chaos! Still MY plane was on time and I got leave before EVERYONE else, which only served to stroke my already over inflated ego of myself, plus I did fell a little bad, at the airport I had missed the urinal and peed all over the floor - oh well. (There's a joke somewhere in there - I promise). The flight from Paris to Dusseldorf was smooth and finally - at 11.50am, I touched down in Germany, cleared customs, grabbed my bags, sorry grabbed ALL my bags....(we shall come back to that small point later) and headed out to the pre arranged meeting point which was the first Bar on European soil we'd all drink at.

I drank - and waited.....and waited.....and waited, but finally I was reunited with Drew, Ken, Reuben and the rest of the gang. Exhausted but full of energy we sat down to a feast of beer and suspiscious looking sausage to regain our energy before we picked up the rental cars and drove to Holland. (If you're wondering why we landed in Germany when we were going to Holland - you're probably American....Europe isn't that big in reality, and besides Dusseldorf to Baarlo was only 65 km and would theoretically only take us 45 minutes - remember that too - we'll be revisitng that important piece of data later).

Reuben is our drummer, he knows I love him....but sometimes Drummers do things that make you crack up - and it didn't take long for him to fire the first shot. As we were getting ready to leave he realised that at customs he had picked up his cymbal bag but had completly neglected to pick up his suitcase....seriously!!!.....so off he went to find them.

An hour later he still wasn't back and we were starting to worry....

An hour and a half later we found him and his luggage and picked up our rental cars. That's all I have to say about that.......dumbass....lol

Rental cars in Europe are small, very small, EXTREMELY small if you book "economy", and fitting all of us and our gear into 2 very small Peugot 207's was hysterical, but the ride out of Germany into Holland was even funnier. Remember when I aid it would take 45 mins?....bollocks....2 hours later we finally arrived in Baarlo at our Hotel. So a quick word of advice to the German transportation department..PLEASE, PLEASE stop naming 8 fucking towns the same way and then not putting them either on the map or on any of the road signs...it completely screwed us up..lol...but on the bright side we saw a tremendous amount of the lovely West German countryside.....Reuben also found out it's really fun to drive the wrong way down a one way street......Italian Job? - more like the german Job......you betcha!

SO, finally we arrived at our hotel, the incredible Hotel de Bercht in Baarlo, originally built in the 12th Century it couldn't have been a more fitting place to host a mass of metal head visitors...and since I need to go pee and make some more coffee, here's a brief interlude and some pictures....(cue Musak)

Now at this juncture, we had planned to drive to Brussels that night and meet up with John and Joe who had set out for Europe a few days earlier, but we were freaking exhausted, a good night sleep was desperately needed so we could recharge for the trip to Amsterdam on Saturday - but then, someone reminded us that the ProgPower Preshow Party was that night......well it would have been plain rude to not attend since we were one of the bands playing wouldn't it now?

(Note to American friends: There's a really good reason why people in Europe love the Tour De France - that's because even the dogs have their own bicycles, they were EVERYWHERE and if you don't have a bike...you WALK...imagine that, not getting in your car and driving drunk - you walk to a bar even if it is over a mile and a half away down a dark country lane with no lights and blind corners.....you WALK!!!...........................we would later all come to regret the decision to try and be more European and walk)

But first, please allow me to paint the scene of Baarlo....what a gorgeous town, simply incredible and extremely small, the last place you'd ever figure a major Metal Festival would take place, but more of that later. To get to Baarlo from the Castle or "Kasteel" off we walked like everyone else...and after 30 mins - we arrived here......

The sprawling Metropolis of Baarlo.....(note: this picture is important because the building in front of you is the Pub where I really messed up Drew's night, more of that in a mo....)

Actually sod it - I'll do it right now....with Ken and Mellisa, Reuben and Megan off to find some food, Drew and I went to the bar to live upto our promise of sampling local ales whereever we went.....we sampled and found a glass of heaven in "Kasteel" yes, they even name their beer that...but in this case I'm sure it translates from Dutch into English as "this will really fuck you up".

4 pints later, Drew is wobbling, we've made some new friends at the bar and it was off to the real pre party...

(Before we go any further, I must raise this point - the Dutch are quite possibly the most hospitable, friendly, people I have ever met in my life, even the dogs bark politely....and everyone we met in Baarlo was without question - amazing...espcially nice men in the middle of the night on bicycles....but more of that in a bit).

The pre party was under the venue in a bar that you'd never have expected to see in such a sleepy town, but it was a blast, the booze flowed, the pre-party bands rocked everyone out and much fun was had by all...except for Drew....he was really hammered drunk...so was I, but for one night only I realised I can out drink him...however he took the smart move out and had Ken and Mellisa take him back to the Kasteel (after lots of pavement pizza's) - I however was bullet proof....and drunk.....really drunk...and there's certain things when you are in that condition and in another country - you should NOT do on ANY occassion...they are:
1. Get that drunk
2. Get that drunk and walk outside for a breath of fresh air
3. Keep walking
4. Not have a jacket
5. Not have a map/phone/flares
6. Keep walking
What you should do is STOP and realise that it's 2 in the morning, you're lost, drunk, with no idea how to speak the language and you really don't know how to get home. Technically - I was completely fucked..:)

And then he arrived.....my knight in shining armour (yeah, with a "u", they spell it that way over there, deal with it). I'm convinced his name was Helmut, but names aren't important at times like this....what is important was that he found me, he rescued me, he took me under his wing, balanced me on the back of his bicycle on the luggage rack and peddled like like the winds of very change themselves that the Scorpions so love to sing about. It was all very romantic, breathtaking in it's love for man to his fellow men, and really fucking painful when he went over a speedbump. I am still not sure if the Dutch have a word for "goolies" but the phrase "ARRGGG my goolies" or "my poor knackers" was screamed into the crisp Dutch air on more than one occassion. Not only did Helmut pedal like a man possesesed, he also assured me in English all the way that I would be fine, and after 3 miles he dropped me off at a spot I could not fail to properly navigate back to the "Kasteel" from - the only road to it. I felt bad, I had nothing to give him for his effort and I wasn't going to go all the way on a first date even though he had a very supple waist...but I left with my thanks, and a brief yet meaningful handshake.....he peddled off into the night leaving me with a sense of true friendship and I plodded off down the road to the "Kasteel".

It wasn't quite over yet, along the way I found 5 great German lads, who like me were headed back rather drunk - ok, we were all completely shitfaced...so we joined forces and after 30 mins we made it back to the Kasteel, well......me and 3 of them did, we lost 2 along the way, but when you hear the sound of shoes on pavement followed by the sound of someone falling off the road and into a bush then silence it's never a good sign.

So I made it, Drew made it, but unfortunately for Reuben - who we now know has the homing instincts of a Scud Missile, his night was not so easy.....after leaving and being totally lost he and Megan wandered the quiet streets of Baarlo until the early hours and upon giving up all hope of ever being rescued....they lay down in a field and went to sleep....

Dawn broke on Saturday in Baarlo....and so did the wind when Ken woke up....Amsterdam lay in our future..but the burning question...."where the fuck was Reuben and Megan, and why was Rick walking funny?

- Rick

10/5/2007 - Morning
So I couldn't get my damn phone to work out in Europe and I didn't want to rack up the bill on the other guys phone, so we're back and we'll have to tell you what happened by memory. Even if my phone were working I don't think I would have been able to sit down long enough to get anything blogged anyway. I don't drink, so i have a good recollection of events, but so much shit happened, i'm sure i'll forget something. Also, as to not embarrass those who do not want to be, i may not go into full detail as to what happened to some of us. I'll leave that up to the individual.

Memphis was the last place my phone worked so you got a taste of that as it happened. We had like a 6 hour layover(me, Drew and Reuben) so we had some time to kill. We jumped on to the plane headed for Dusseldorf and met up with Rick at the airport. Everything was going well. We had all of our equipment, our merchandise and 4 of the 5 band members. Then Reuben realized he had forgotten his own personal luggage, guess he was more concerned about his cymbals making it. So he disappeared for what seemed like an hour looking for where he could get his luggage. We got there a little after 1pm, we didn't leave til after 4pm. We proceeded to get our rental cars which was another snag. Standards only and they were small. Luckily we had 2 people who could drive standards and 2 standards that needed to be driven. We had to fold the seats down, and cram all of our shit between the 2 cars, 2 guitars, a bass, a rack, cymbals merchandise, and like 10 pieces of luggage - we had 2 other people with us.

Two in one car, with the seat folded down to cram the equipment, four in the other with more luggage we're on our way. Baarlo is only about 45km away so about a half hour drive, we should be there in no time. Wrong! Germany's street signs are fucked up. They aren't like what we're used to here. They don't tell you what direction they take you in, and they have the same name for like 10 different cities. We got lost. I rode with Rick, Reuben and Drew were in the other car. We lost them about 30 minutes into the trip. We finally got to Baarlo around 6:30pm, we left Dusseldorf around 4:30pm. 30 minute drive my nutsac! It shouldn't have been that hard, but it was. The locals made fun of us for taking so long. Keep in mind, Jon has been in Brussels for two days already, we had no idea what he had been up to. Our evening is about to start, stay tuned.

- Ken

10/5/2007 - Evening
So I thought the other guys would post there point of view blogs here with mine, but i guess not. Rick has finished his blog on his page so you can see his point of view over there. I guess I'll continue to use the band page as mine. Any views, opinions and other shit do not reflect the rest of the band, record label or any sponsors. There's my disclaimer.

I forgot to mention that apparently Reuben fell asleep at the wheel randomly while driving from Dusseldorf to Baarlo. While Rick and I somehow navigated with a country map, we got going in the right direction finally and were literally 100meters from Baarlo when we finally stopped to ask directions. Everyone in Holland knows english, and very well also. Better than some people I know here. The truck driver we asked directions from also knew of the big "heavy metal party" going on in Baarlo. Drew used his fancy phone to navigate, but we still beat him to the hotel.

The Hotel was awesome. A huge castle some rich fuck in the 1200s had built as his home i think. The rooms were small, the beds were like tiny dorm room beds and the toilet and shower was down the hall. Somehow, sharing one toilet and one shower on that floor among a bunch of metal head drunks worked just fine. No puke in the toilet that I saw, Europeans can hold their alcohol better than Americans I think. We'll prove this later. Tiny, hard bunk beds. Not much, but when you need a good nights sleep after traveling and for some after drinking, they're very welcoming and better than the street or field. We'll get to that later.

Although we were told it would be better to drive to town, we didn't listen and we walked. The rationale was that they didn't want to drive drunk, and drunk they wanted to get. We're bad at directions, instead of taking a right where we needed to, we took a left went around some park and finally made it to town after a 20 minute detour. We found a bar, Rick and Drew stayed to drink, the rest of us went to get some grub. Now I don't know if it's just me, but when we asked two different people about where to eat, they both directed us to chinese food. Hmmm. I don't only eat chinese food you know! So we passed up other little dives to eat some mediocre, overpriced chinese food. Oh well. It didn't seem like we were gone long when we got back to the bar, but it was long enough for Rick and Drew to get shit faced and make some new friends. From calm and collected to "Heyyyyyyy! Maaannnnnn! AHHHHHH!" in about an hour and after only 4 or 5 drinks. The alcohol content is higher in their beers and they hadn't eaten since 1pm. This is where we see Europeans can hold up better. After 4 or 5, Drew's done, while Rick's still ordering more drinks.

We wander across the way to the venue for the pre party and watch Drew stumble down the stairs without falling. We meet Rene, the promoter, inside. Drew doesn't remember meeting him, two days later when we're loading in for the show, we were asked if we had met Rene, Drew said no. Uhh, yeah we did, you just don't remember. Anyway about 30 minutes go by and we find Drew outside wanting go back to the hotel. It's about a 2km walk and it was dark. The path we took had no street lights. He was stumbling and we didn't think he would make it on his own. Me and my wife decided to try to walk back with him. That was a mistake. We got all the way to the main path, and it was so dark we passed it up. We decided we need to turn around and get a taxi. Drew was stumbling around in peoples yards, wanting to go to their door and ask them to get him a taxi. We finally made it back to town and went to some teeny bopper bar to get a taxi. There were kids on bikes coming from all directions to get to this bar. It was a happening spot. A spot we will not be returning to. We sat outside and waited 45 minutes for the taxi. Drew sat on the steps, farted then puked all over the steps. I had an open soda can near where he puked. I didn't take any chances and threw it away. i walked him to the lamppost where he spit up some more. Did I mention the bartender laughed at us for wanting a taxi to take us down the street to the Kasteel? The taxi finally comes. Taxis usually go fast normally anyway, but when it sounds like someone's about to puke in their car, they go even faster. We arrive and Drew almost falls into the moat. Yes there's a moat around the castle.

We decided to goto bed. It was about 11:30 or so. Drew was in the room with 6 beds, and since Jon and his gang weren't there yet, there were only 3 people in that room. We had discussed with Rick that if he wanted to get drunk he was going to crash in their room and let me and my wife sleep. Well he didn't stick to that plan. At sometime in the middle of the night Rick was in the room. We locked it, he had no key. My wife opens doors for people randomly in the middle of the night apparently. I wake up to him telling a story of being lost on his way back to the hotel and being found in a field by a boy named Helmut. He mentioned his "dainty waist" not his "supple waist" as he says in his blog. He also mentioned being found as he was using the bathroom in the field. I realized I had taken his pillow since i didn't think he was going to be in the room that night and chucked it up at him. He was in the top bunk. I'm not sure how he was able to get up there but he did. He managed to tell me to "Fuck off!" at least 3 times when i gave him his pillow back. I'm not sure why, I thought i was doing him a favor.

Rick came back alone by the way. We don't know what happened to Reuben and Megan. We joked that they were probably in some field all night. Well that wasn't really a joke after all. The next morning we get up to find they had not made it back and Drew got to sleep all alone in his room. It was about 10am when Rick and Drew went to go find them. They could have gone earlier but I guess they felt a cup of coffee was more important. They had already been up and had breakfast before the search party began. They were found, it didn't take long surprisingly. We ate, and accidentally "stole" some drinks out of a fridge we weren't supposed to be in. Oops.
Day 2 coming next.

- Ken

10/5/2007
What a freakin' day. So we arrive in Dusseldorf, finally, and get in these tiny little rental cars to head to Baarlo and we get lost pretty much immediately. Reuben and I are trying to figure out where we are on this little map, which doesn't have most of the roads on it - its a map of Germany and Dusseldorf is way down in the corner. We start looking for signs, major highways, anything we can find on the map to tell us where we are. We see a sign for "Ausfahrt" and laugh - "huh huh, fart" - and then we see it again, and think "Hey let's find this Ausfarht on the map, must be a pretty big town". So after 15-20 mins of looking on the map, we give up, and later realize that "Ausfahrt" is German for "Exit". Hahaha. Then we randomly run into the other car with Rick and Ken, in the middle of nowhere - what are the odds? Of course, they're lost too and we get split up again pretty quick. At this point we're starting to worry, making all kinds of driving mistakes like going down one-way streets and running stop signs, and the damn car keeps stalling out at the worst possible times. And the Germans are honking and yelling scary things in German. So I bite the bullet and pull out the magical iPhone, which guides us to our destination (probably cost me a fortune, but we made it there).

So that night we go out for dinner and Rick and I stop in a bar to sample the local brews. "We'll only be a minute, one drink and we'll meet you in the restaurant." Well, this beer I tried (Kasteel) was SO GOOD... An hour and a half later, after a couple more drinks, we leave the bar and I immediately start to feel that something is off. Hmmm... I skipped dinner and drank a bunch of heavy, high alcohol content beer instead - not a good idea. After a while in the club, I feel worse, so I decide to go back to the castle and Ken and Melissa are nice enough to escort me. I'd like to note that, at this point, I am not super drunk (as I'm sure I appeared) but instead really sick. After we can't find the way home, I get a little desperate trying to find a taxi - eventually we call one. Of course, by the time it gets there, I'm feeling "much better"...

- Drew

More Photos:
                       

10/6/2007
Apparently I mumble complete and utter crap when I'm passed out drunk. That is the story Ken gave me in the morning when I finally awoke with a fairly nasty hangover. To be honest that was the last thing on my mind, the first was brushing my teeth and secondly finding whatever animal had taken a dump in my mouth over night and give it a really stern "telling off".

Oh yes, and breakfast. There is something very refreshing about having a continental breakfast in Europe because it's nothing like what you experience in the States. Fresh boiled eggs, a super cold meat and cheese selection, sweet breads, plain breads, cereals, juices...the list was endless, the taste glorious and equally as welcome to the other casulaties of the pre party the night before who stumbled in slowly to eat. (The noisy removal of an egg shell from a hard boiled egg was cause for serious hard stares as even the sound of a mouse farting was painfully loud to most of us).

Speaking of farting, Ken and I discovered as well that old wooden corridors in a Castle really reverberate with a solid and meaningful fart, highly entertaining. <;P>Breakfast done and out of the way I found Drew who informed me that Reuben and Megan were missing, that he had spent the night puking, reminded me we were headed to Amsterdam that afternoon for a day trip and we really had find our drummer, so in the car we popped and we retraced our steps to Baarlo following the single quiet country lane.Remember Baarlo is NOT that big, however I managed to get completely lost the night before and therefore the chances of finding Reuben and Megan were.....STOP THE CAR!!!

Incredibly there they were, stumbling through Baarlo by the Church and I have to admit, looking very much the worse for wear.....my gaze however was averted briefly by the following sight...

It was far funnier at the time but you have to be pretty proud of a Watermelon to include it on your street sign.

To Say that Reuben and Megan were delighted to see us was an understatement, they'd spent the night as I had walking helplessly lost through Baarlo, at one point loosing Megans purse with all the money and ID and stuff that ladies keep in their purses. Miraculously they found it in the dark but still unable to find their way back to the Kasteel had simply curled up and gone to sleep outside. Original reports were that a field was involved, but I think full confirmation was on the sidewalk. We whisked them back to the Kasteel for breakfast and so they could catch a few zzzz's before we headed to Amsterdam to meet up with Joe and his lovely girlfriend Alesha and the equally lovely Jon.

I had my doubts after 2 hours that Reuben and Megan would ever wake up again, but the pull of Amsterdam was too much, so we hopped in the cars and sped up to Venlo to catch the train to Amsterdam.

Remarkably, nothing out of ordinary happened at this point, we even managed to board the correct train and off we sped getting a great view of the Dutch Countryside all the way from Southern Holland to Amsterdam...even Reuben looked human again..

Two and a half hours later we arrived in Amsterdam and there, for the first time on European soil, the Meyvns were all together at last, and apart from a few yawns and sore "goolies" we were all in fairly good shape.

John had survived his night in Brussels and I strongly urge you to go check out his blog if he ever posts his experiences, it must have been hysterical to see him staggering through the streets of Brussels yelling (in his best drunken redneck voice "Biscuits" and having Alesha punch him out at a bar....priceless)

Now this next picture below is very important, and anyone who intends to visit anywhere where could call yourself a tourist should pay attention....

The lesson is simple, if you stop every 10 fucking feet to take another fucking photograph you'll never get anywhere and if you're in Amsterdam you are highly likely to get run over by the bicycle equivalent of the Running of the Bulls. Still, we were tourists and in Amsterdam and pretending to be rock stars and all famous....and where was the red light district?

First things first though, a few souvenir shops where a certain member of our party (who shall remain nameless) insisted on purchasing a variety of glass objects which I believe could possible be used to burn a sort of plant for the purpose of becoming "elevated" and also a lovely plastic keychain accessory with a rather large sample of such a plant sealed within - of course I just thought "US Customs is going to have a field day with you" but we all like to take our own individual chances.

But the walk through Amsterdam was great...

And yes we had to have at least a few "together" shots...

"Vettewinkle" - what a great word....oh and just so you know the dutch word for Shower is "Douche" - ironic really.

Reuben was starting to get all tingly as we got closer to the red light district, and Jon was eagerly looking forward to going window shopping....isn't that right Jon?

Now I am sorry to say that I don't have any photographs of the main attraction in the red light district because you're not supposed to take pictures down there...I have no idea why, perhaps the prostitutes are shy? Who knows, but suffice to say it was priceless to see the look of some of the parties faces as they passed the first windows behind which were (and I have to be honest) some incredibly gorgeous young ladies who seemed very eager and very accomodating. Now I've been to Amsterdam before so it was no great suprise to me, but it was still priceless to watch the reaction on everyone elses faces. Word is though that the red light district is about to change forever as it is being bought out and the number of windows and ladies will be severely restricted - so if you want to see Amsterdam before it changes, go now....oh yes, and they're about to ban Magic Mushrooms too. Oh the humanity!

The gang split up in order to maximise the damage we could achieve in a short period of time with several members deciding to go find a Coffee house and some of us deciding that food really was a neccessity. I fairly reasonable meal followed and we met back up suprisingly easily considering the state of 2 people in the group who had taken full advantage of all that the coffe shop had to offer....oh yes, and hash brownies, let's not forget them.....

Believe it or not, Amsterdam was simply uneventful, we had a blast walking the street, watching the girls, sniggering at the drunks and stoners, enjoying the scenery, taking it all in and trying to soak in as much of our surroundings as possible. so as 10.30pm and our last train to Venlo approached we headed back to the train station where we watched a women piss herself standing up (which was absolutely hysterical) we then boarded the train and the hash brownies kicked in....

1am we stumbled into the Kasteel to find that the guys from Circus Maximus were our new neighbors, that their keyboard player was even more drunk than I was the night before and that if you don't get to sleep before the drunks get back at 3am, you never will....still we had a long day ahead of us the next day as it was soon to be our turn to grace the stage at ProgPower.

Stay tuned...........

- Rick

10/6/2007
So after letting them sleep off their night for a while, it was off to the train station to catch a train to Amsterdam. While in line for tickets, we saw a mom AND child with matching mullets. Man I wish we had pictures. Contrary to what Rick said, I think we got on the wrong train. Luckily, they all connect one way or another so we got there eventually. We were to meet with Jon and crew when we got there, we were running a little behind.

We met up with Jon around 6pm and made a beeline for the Red Light District. Well not really, but we did make our way there. along the way we saw some interesting post cards, like close ups of tits and a set of lips next to a cock. I'd like to show you but I don't think Tom would be our friend anymore if I did. Joe was off on a boat ride with his gf, we caught up with him later. Hot chicks half naked behind glass wanting money so you can hide your bratwurst until the sauerkraut comes out (I know that's more German but close enough), that's what the Red Light District is all about. NO pictures though. Supposedly cameras get broken. I wasn't willing to find out. We met up with Joe, and went to find something to eat. With the dive the US dollar has taken, everything was that much more expensive, especially in a tourist town. We found a place to eat and were waited on by an Asian. Is there something going on around here? People telling me where the chinese food places are, asian waiters, what the hell? He told us a story of racking up a $4000 bill on a cruise because he thought all the food and drink was free. That's a lot of fucking food and booze! At some point during dinner, as we we're telling stories, Jon blurted out at such a perfect moment of silence in between stories,"I puked in my shoes." We all erupted in laughter, he said he cleaned them but they still stunk. We continued with our stories as that was the end of his. I had to take a piss.

I also had to pay to take a piss. What the fuck!?! No drugs eh? Aren't we in fucking Amsterdam? Well at least the bathroom was actually clean. That fly's painted on, not sure why.

We roamed back through the district, this time, the girls weren't so hot. We must have wandered into the poorer part. We headed back to the train station, it was around 10:30pm. We saw a woman walk by that pissed herself and we ran for the train. Our group had 1st class train tickets. Don't ooh and ahh, all it meant was a slighty softer seat that could recline as far as a coach plane seat can. Yay. About 20 minutes into the ride, Joe and Jon got kicked out of 1st class to ride with the rest of the peasants. Needless to say we were pretty tired from all the traveling and walking around.

At one point, the train started to go backwards. Damn were we on the wrong train again? Luckily not. We got back to the hotel around 1am. Me and Rick had a farting contest in the hallway. It echoed oh so lovely. I think he won by sheer quantity, while I won by sheer stench, not that i'm proud of that. We eventually farted ourselves to sleep, I am told I snore, i do not beleive it. i think the other guys stayed up a little while longer. And then the drunks came back. Our sleep was disturbed, but not for too long.

Day 3 up next!

- Ken

10/6/2007
It was very odd waking up in an empty room. My first thought was "Oh crap, I locked everyone out last night". Then it was "Oh crap, they all woke up before me and left me". But then I run into Rick in the halls, and its apparent that they never made it back last night... I have to admit, I liked the empty room because the following night it was full and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU BASTARDS SNORE LIKE A DAMN FREIGHT TRAIN. Even the women. All kinds of snores - low buzz-saw snores, really nasally pig-sounding snores, hell someone had some kind of shreiking whistle snore going, never heard that before. So I barely slept at all Saturday night.

Amsterdam was beautiful, which suprised me - wasn't expecting all the neat architecture and canals and stuff. The train ride was fun too, got to see a lot of the countryside and even learned to read the maps after we got on the wrong train. We ate at a really nice restaurant - I had a Dutch Stir Fry, which is basically meat and potatoes. The Dutch are not known for their cuisine. My desert was quite metal though, a flaming creme brule. Our waiter was very impressed with my iPhone, which I thought was amusing until I realized they weren't out in Europe yet.

Got back to the castle without incident, messed around with Lasse from Circus Maximus (who was quite drunk and very funny) and tried to sleep.

- Drew

More Photos:
                          
           

10/7/2007
Ken snores.....and he farts, two facts you can not argue and that's about all I have to say about that.

Sunday dawned crisp and clear over the Kasteel, it came all too soon because I'd not slept much, a combination of the excitement of the show, Ken snoring and the fact that at 3am all the party goers from the Saturday Progpower had made their way back and decided (and rightly so) that it was time to continue drinking.

Several of the guys were extremely lucky to even make it back alive as they were nearly hit by a young girl in her car as she drove down the narrow country lane to the Kasteel. Swerving to avoid a group of returning metalheads, she flipped her car and went through a large hedgerow and ended up in the Apple Orchard upside down. Thankfully no serious injuries.

Breakfast was again a delight and it has to be said it was really refreshing to be involved in this whole deal. It's really a simple concept - put on a great show with lots of great bands in a a super environment. House both the bands that wanted to and the fans in the same hotel so they can mingle and get to know each other and you have created an environment like no other - where else do fans get to spend a coupld of days with the bands they have come to see in such a great way - it truly is special and a real credit to everyone involved - simply amazing.

Around noon we packed the cars and made the first of 2 shuttle runs to the venue to drop off gear and warm bodies, and I must admit, that it was at this point that I really began to look forward to the show, the only question...where was the Keyboard we rented for Joe since to bring ours from the US would have been prohibitive as far as cost goes.

Gear loaded, keyboard found...keyboard no worky.......fuck....

It would be fair to say that Drew was clenched in the buttocks area, it seems there was an issue with the memory card that we brought over with our patches on it...it didn't seem to want to load. THankfully after 20 minutes of pushing buttons and crossed fingers, the keyboard recognised the card directory and we were back in business.

That's when the power went out in the auditorium.

Silence and darkness and things started to look rather bad.....

Thankfully they are really familiar with electricity in Baarlo - it seems they've had it for quite some time now and when things go "pop" no matter how much pressure, the lads fix it nicely and go on with being nice to everyone, as usual. I am still going to have to go back to Baarlo one of these days to see if there's even one asshole there - strange thing is - I highly doubt it.

After chatting to the first band they gladly agreed to let us use their rack on the drum set since Reuben had an almost identical setup and would make change out really easy. ProgPower had supplied us with amps and cabinets for the guitars and a full drumset so all we had to sort out was the guitars and cables, effects and Keyboards - extremely generous of them.

A quick change of clothes and setup followed and after a very nice verbal introduction, the intro tape started and before you knew it the first beats of "Answer Me" were being hammered out - game on.......

Now I won't lie, those of you who have seen us play know we set very high standards for ourselves and we so wanted to be perfect but a few little mistakes did not sit well with any of us, but what we certainly were not prepared for was the extremely warm and generous reception we recieved from the crowd - they really seemed to dig what we were doing and after we said good night with "Distrubed" I think we all were flatered by the sheer volume of applause and cheers - it was humbling and something I won't ever forget in a hurry. Thinking back on it now I catch myself smiling - thank you Baarlo, than you ProgPower, thank you Rene (the promoter - below)....

And thank you to all the amazing friends we were lucky enough to meet, including the awesome Toby and his friend (below)...

But most importabtly thanks to Scott Strittmatter and Onboard Research/IntelliTouch Tuners for sponsoring us - we wouldn't have made it over there without your support!

We stayed, we partied, we drank beer and reluctantly we had to head back to the Kasteel, we all had long days ahead. I was flying out of Dusseldorf to go to England for a few days, Ken and Mellisa were going to Rome for a few days, Drew, Reuben and Megan were heading back to Austin, and Jon, Joe and Alesha were headed to Paris for a few days. 3am and the alarm clock to drive back to Dusseldorf was going to come far too soon.

When it did we packed up and suprisingly enough made it back to the airport on time, in one piece and with all our gear...it seemed that fate would not ruin such a great feeling we all had. And I can assure you that it was with a certain degree of sadness that we all boarded our planes and left ProgPower 2007 as a memory.

- Rick

10/7/2007
We got up and got ready for the show. We played fairly early around 3pm I think. The place was great. A place designated for load in, really nice event staff that actually help(they were all volunteers too, no pay!) and a backstage area with dressing rooms that had a fridge full of rinks and heineken and a bathroom with shower and toilet. A toilet which someone used to re-enact the bombing of Hiroshima. It was either Rick or Joe I don't remmeber. Hell I think I re-enacted one myself, but that was way before anyone else got there. We got our rental keyboard and were a bit worried when the memory card wasn't being read correctly. When we got to the venue, we met up with Christian, I'm pretty sure that's his name. He was in charge at the moment, i think he was like second in command or something. He asked if we had met Rene yet, i nodded "yes", Drew shook his head "no" Remember, he was drunk when he met him so he didn't realize he had done so.

We went and got something to eat before the show sans Rick and Drew, i don't think they ever eat. No we didn't get chinese food again, we got pizza. It was good, it took fucking forever but it was good. They serve the smallest drinks in Europe though, and no goddamn ice.

All of our instruments made it intact thankfully so we had no problems ahead of us for the performance. It went over really well, only minor mishaps as to be expected. Nothing major, nobody fell off the stage or anything and no power outtage during our set. It happened to the first band and has happened to us a few times. The place was packed, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We got a great ovation when we finished and it sounded like they wanted more. It was awesome. Hot and drenched with sweat, we exited the stage. Damn I wish i had brought my fan. I know Drew was thinking the same thing, he looked like he jumped into a pool with all of his clothes on.

We hung around and talked to some people who really enjoyed the show and made some new friends. We met up with some guys who Rick likes to refer to as the German Jay and Silent Bob. They're great guys and seemed to really have enjoyed our music.

I even had a beer with them and I don't drink. I think the only thing people might think is stranger than a guy in a metal band who doesn't drink(me) is a German who doesn't drink(the guy to my right) We had a great time hanging with these guys. Drew went back to the hotel to catch some Zs since his flight was at 7:30am. That meant we ahd to be back at the Dusseldorf airport by 5:30am. That meant we had to get up at 3am to leave by 4am to make sure we get there in time. Fuck. It took us over two hours to get from there to Baarlo, how long was it going to take to get back? We asked Christian for directions, clear and concise directions. He's one of the locals he laughed at us for taking 2 hours on a 30 minute drive. He proceeded to call over other people to tell them how dumb we were and so they can laugh at our expense i guess. We all had good laugh. Everyone there is so good natured, they didn't mean anything by it. So he gave us directions and said it should only take about a half an hour to get there with his directions. OK, we should be good. We hug around some more, checked out some of the other bands, talked to some more "new fans"(Rick gave away his drink tokens to some "new fans" that had run out of money while they were there.) We headed back to the hotel at about 10pm. We may have had the farting contest on this night instead of last, I'm not too sure. We tried to catch some shut eye. By the way, watching Rick contemplate getting on the ladder to get up to his bunk and actually doing it hile he's drunk is really funny. He likes to stare at it for a good long while.

3am, time to get up and get to the airport. Drew' flight is ass early, but for sake of getting to the airport with all of our stuff we all had to go back together. We bid farewell to Jon and his crew as they were to take a train to Paris that day. They were getting in as we were getting up. We bid farewell to the Kasteel and Baarlo as we packed the cars and headed out. Should be about a 30 minute drive to the airport. Wrong! Fuck, why are we having such a hard time getting around? We missed the exit for the hwy we need to take that would have taken us directly to the airport. We stopped at a gas station to aske directions from a German who's just not as nice as the Dutch. We had to loop back around and catch another hwy to the airport. It still took us over an hour to get there. Better than over 2 hours like the first time, but damn. By the time we got all the luggage to the actual terminal it was about 5:30am. Right on time. We knew if we got lost - i shouldn't say if, more like when - we needed to leave early. The plan was to hang out at the airport and grab some breakfast since all of our other flights weren't til about noon. Sounded like a good idea until I found out that my flight was out of another airport! An airport that was 80km away from where we were and maybe only 20km away from Baarlo. Shit! Good thing we got there early. We took a deathride at 170kmh in the dark and fog to get to the other airport. It was over. It was an incredible time, so many other stories and details I probably can't remember or wasn't a part of. Hopefully we'll get the other guys stories too. We hope they'll have us back to play again. Hope you enjoyed the stories.

- Ken

10/7/2007
Showtime! So we loaded all our gear into the venue, which was very, very nice. We had our own dressing room with a fridge full of beer and soda and even a private bathroom with a shower - yep, we've arrived, we're rockstars now. I had a Heineken from the fridge and was VERY surprised that it hardly tasted anything like American Heineken - it actually tasted really good! (American Heineken isn't that bad, really). Wow! And the locals say THIS is their watered-down crappy beer! (tears up) I love this place...

Anyhow, I start setting the keyboard up, which looked a little different from mine. Hmmm. Son of a bitch, the patches aren't loading. After struggling with it for a while, I managed to get all but two of the patches loaded - good enough! On to the show!

Since you've been so kind to read through SO MUCH so far, I'll just let the show speak for itself:

Not too bad, eh? I made full use of that shower afterwards (I sweat like a hooker in church) and went back to the castle to catch some sleep. When I returned, I was amazed at the response we had recieved - people were coming up to us and thanking us for coming all the way over from the states. We took a bunch of pictures and chatted with our fellow metalheads for a while. After that we left and I had my second meal of the trip next (some pizza - I lost 5 lbs. on this trip!) and went back to the castle to try and sleep, along with all the snorers. Guess how much sleep I got. Yep. Zero.

The plane ride back was great - Rick is right, the food on Air France is GREAT. I slept most of the way and arrived home with all my luggage. Success! The trip was fantastic and far exceeded my expectations. Thanks to Rene and Scott and everyone who made the trip possible!

- Drew

More Photos (from www.progmetal.org.uk and Håkan - thanks!!):