Nijmegen, HOLLAND - Rockcafé Backstage - October 23rd, 2009
Published: November 13th, 2009

First off, apologies for the lack of a Stafford diary. Since then I've been phenomenally busy (I'm even writing this Nijmegen diary two weeks after the fact!) and simply can't remember half of what might have happened. I did get as far as nickname generation, the most notable of which were Speed 'cake sex!' Harris and Nicko 'she's got a flap out' McBrain Jnr. Draw your own conclusions as to what sort of a diary that one would have been! Moving on, then...

HI-ON NIJMEGEN 2009

The absolute highlight of the year for us Maiden tribute geeks is the now annual trip down to eastern Holland to play at the Rockcafé Backstage in Nijmegen. This is the third year on the bounce we've piled in the van and driven the long road out of Calais to get up there, and this year we had something a bit special in terms of setlist. But more on that later.

Thursday evening...

The weekend began for me when this weekend's van of choice, a Mercedes Sprinter kitted out inside with lovely comfy seats, DVD player and Playstation 2, rolled up outside Manic Towers. After marvelling at the interior and making all on board a cup of coffee, I sat down with Bruce "it was raining fanny" Dugginson to work on some arrangements for a short acoustic set that we planned to roll out just prior to the Maiden set on one or both nights. You may recall from the Harlow diary that, with Speed "Nijmegen to Calais in ten minutes" Harris arriving late, Duggers and I took it upon ourselves to entertain the crowd with a hastily thrown together acoustic set. While this was well received, we each knew we could do better with a bit of work. We came up with some cool arrangements, particularly 'Still Life', so look out for more potential acoustic sets in future!

After all this acoustic twiddling we wandered down into the town centre for a spot of grub. A nice cheap Chinese later we were in the pubs for a drink or two. Question Time was on, which I for one have never seen playing in the pub before but it seemed every pub in Dartford was hanging on Nick Griffin's every word. What a lovely town. Still, it didn't help that a couple of his opponents were equally blithering idiots. Back home for a nightcap then off to bed for an early start. I tried to get a bit of kip but knowing Mr Harris was arriving at 4:00am I just couldn't drift off. After letting him in I kipped down for what seemed like 5 minutes before it was time to leave.

DAY ONE - Friday...

Trying to get the rest of the Hi-on boys motivated to move in the morning is a mission. Amd, as such, we missed the ferry! En-route to Dover, Speed's botty was on fine form. The windows steamed up, the seats changed colour and many of us didn't dare breathe in for fear of toxic exposure. Such utter foulness I have not experienced for quite some time. Speed looked very pleased with himself, it has to be said. I've just looked at my Twitter feed from that morning and my one utterance read thus: "Oh God. Speed's arse is the devil. I WANT TO GET OUT."

Rude awakening

France is this way...

Speed 'French letter' Harris

The ferry ride went swimmingly, with that holiday feeling sinking in. (I've just noticed I used 'swimmingly' and 'sinking' in a sentence about a ferry trip - what?!). The non-drivers amongst us had a beer while Eddie 'an egg too far' the 'Ead enjoyed a full English and a massage. Luxury! Upon returning to the van we were slightly alarmed to find that the bugger wouldn't start. Some sort of collapse of the starter motor, apparently. A bump start proved successful, and the journey continued until Speed stalled it a little further up the road. Ace! Thankfully it started on it's own volition this time, and we were on the road again. Several driver changes, two countries and some questionable sat nav direction later we arrived at Rockcafé Backstage a bit later than we had intended.

Greeted by the ever bubbly Theo and the wonderful Astrid, it felt like coming home. Last year Mr Dugginson had some issues with the monitors, and the fact that he couldn't hear himself onstage at all over Nicko's noisy tubthumping and the guitar noise necessary to overcome this. This year, however, no problem. In fact, it was quite spooky. We plugged in, turned on and played - somehow it was absolutely perfect!! Duggers looked beside himself in happiness, so that was one worry over with!

After that it was back to the fantastic Carola's place to get some nosh before running back to the venue for the show! Bruce and I opened proceedings with the acoustic set, which I believe included 'Still Life', 'Jerusalem' and 'Journeyman'.

Hurry and Dugginson's Friday night acoustic set

Then it was off downstairs to wig up and get on with the Hi-on business. This Friday night in Nijmegen we were treating the punters to a performance of 'Somewhere in Time' from start to finish. This was an idea I was particularly excited about, though slightly daunted as certain songs had turned out to be a little more of a challenge than I thought, particularly 'Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'. Brown trousers time then!

The whole set went down an absolute storm, with the crowd going utterly mental throughout. I was moderately horrified to see Eddie come out brandishing my pal Sooty, but thankfully he remained unharmed and survived the ordeal. We all came off stage feeling that we'd just done something quite special, so that set list might find itself back on the stage some time soon.

Afterwards we retired to the dressing room to start making inroads into the fridge full of Dommelsch. I wasn't particularly in the party mood, it has to be said, though I did make the effort to get up there and have a word with some of the enraptured public.

Aftershow festivities

I do so love that bar - it always seems to be full of the most wonderfully kind and generous folk. Young Nicko 'Queen of Alpen' McBrain Jnr took a waspy or two after over-indulging in the fabulous cough syrup known as Jägermeister, while I seemed untouchable by booze. I think I was more tired than anything else, though not a patch on Adrian 'Grolsch written everywhere' Swift, who had done a hell of a lot of driving and fallen asleep at the wheel a number of times through Belgium. Whoopsie! Once Astrid had escorted the last of the revellers out of the bar we headed back to Carola's where I promptly headed for the loft (where us snorers are banished to) to get my head down.

DAY TWO - Saturday... »