Bring It On!

Well, so even if I haven’t SEEN everything, now I’ve HEARD everything for sure! Sunday night, we played at one of our favorite bars in Belgium, Cooperville in Turnhout, to a fully packed house. The Palladins were playing later that same night at another venue nearby, so a whole bevy of folks attending that show came to our show first. It was a hoot and a half, let me say! From my new-found ‘beau’ who busted all kinds of drunk moves in front of the stage before he took out his upper teeth, then dropped them on the floor, broke them, picked them up and shoved them back into his mouth, to his sister (?) who got up on stage right behind me and mimicked everything I did, pretending to sing all my songs while I was, ahem, actually singing.

And that’s just for starters. After we ate a delicious meal of fried EVERYTHING from down the street (no seriously, we loved it) with old pals Miranda, Simone and Dave (Karin- where were you?!), Jorge and I headed back to the house for some much needed R&R, while the rhythm section went with the crowd over to the Palladins show. Local boys The Baboons opened up- we played with them a few years ago and really enjoyed them, so that must have been good times. But here’s where it gets wild.

After the show, the gents wandered back to Cooperville- which had closed for the show and was reopening after- and they got separated. Adam walked around for close to an hour and a half before finding a taxi who could take him there! Meanwhile, Kevin was in the thick of it at Cooperville- most of the men there had their shirts off, and everyone was breaking glasses and plates on the floor. By the time Adam arrived, you could hardly open the door due to all the broken glass everywhere. Someone told Kevin it was a topless bar now. He told them that means something else back home. Other than that, he had no idea what was going on, hardly anyone spoke English. I guess headbanging translates easily though…

The cops showed up, told them all to keep it down due to the condos across the street getting ticked off. The owner actually trailed the cops out and argued with them! Hey, in the States, that would land him a nice night in jail. In Belgium, no such thing. Cops left and the party continued. Finally the gents made it back to the house around 3 or so. We had played from 4 to 7:30, so that was a late, long day.

And last night, we got to visit with our old friend Philip, who used to own De Blauwe Volk, a place we’d played a few years ago. There’s a great photo of our old buddy Kipp playing that bar in the photo album we have dedicated to him on our Facebook page. Philip now owns another bar, De Platte Batterie, where we played for his birthday last night. The place was packed, and I mean sardines packed! Elvis showed up, we sang a few songs for him, rocked the house, inhaled about 10 packs worth of cigarette smoke (hack!), the cops came (yup, again), and we all generally had a great time. And Philip is a superb host! He cooked for us at his home, gave us a lovely box of Belgian chocolates (you know the way to a gal’s heart), and set us up with Belgian beer all night long, of course.

Ok then, we have another 7 shows in Belgium and Holland, then on to Germany for a week. We hope to see you somewhere soon down the road, bring it on!