Its been a few days since I last wrote, and for a very good reason.. I Cant remember exactly, but i’m pretty sure the last entry was about leaving Nottingham and going back into London, for our big London show, where a few key people were going to be seeing us… The night was an absolute success, we played well, had a great time, and impressed some key people who were there to see us. However, our bad luck streak in the city continued ….. just when we thought everything was going to be ok, it got worse.. We were going through our pre show sound check with the sound engineer at the Monto Water Rats venue in London, when a police officer came into the bar looking for us… Our van had been broken into just over 1 block away from the venue… Just our luck, the back window was smashed, and Jesse’s bag was taken out of the back.
Luckily, his passport wasn’t inside, however, he did loose a bunch of stuff including a lot of clothes, an ipod, a watch, his wallet, his birth certificate, and some other random items… Jesse just about had it. He was very close to throwing in the towel and going home the next day, but luckily, he decided to stick it out and come to Amsterdam with us for our last show.
Amsterdam was amazing. Right when we got off the plane, we all started feeling much better, mostly becuase of the sincere kindness that we were experiencing… A complete polar opposite from our entire UK experience (this time). Our first night in amsterdam was basically spent having a bit of food, then heading to bed, we were all beat from the day, and the flight over (we hadn’t slept the night before).
In Amsterdam, we played at a venue called Paradiso. The venue was beautiful. It was an old church, converted into a live music venue/dance club. There are 2 music rooms in the Paradiso, one was a 2000 capacity venue, where Kate Nash was playing the same night (Sold out) we were, our room was considerably smaller at 200 capacity, but equally as impressive… High ceilings, and beautiful decor.. We all agree that it is probably the most beautiful venue any of us had played at. The show was not our best, as we had numerous technical problems on stage: 1 broken snare drum half way through the set, and I broke a guitar string closer to the end of the set, which is very rare for me, as i’ve only ever broken 2 guitar strings on stage with Birds of Wales.
All in all, Amsterdam was a blessing, refreshing, and very enjoyable.. we even had time to drink a few Heineken’s to taste what its really supposto be like… I dont normally like Heinekin, but I guess something about the freshness of it when its served from the same city its brewed in, makes it more enjoyable.. fruity actually.
Stay tuned for my full tour overview in a day or two.