Up and out in the morning, and fuelled by coffee, we rolled forward for a rare on-time arrival in the port of Dover. This leg of the last trip had featured some utterly appalling accidents in the botty department from one Speed Harris. The air turned brown, faces turned green and the dead of Kent turned in their graves. Thankfully all was quite from that thunderous anus, and for the first time in recent years we actually made it onto the ferry we’d booked. Reeling from the shock of this we joined the queue for P&O's huge, ludicrously expensive, full English breakfast. Adrian 'clotted cream disaster' Swift and I wandered off for a well deserved pint since Speed had agreed to do the driving on the other side of the channel. Top man! Ten minutes later we arrived in Eindhoven. The Rambler is a fine looking venue on the corner of the high street opposite Eindhoven railway station. Typical, I thought to myself – my journey to a gig often involves a long train ride and a long walk – this would have been a (very) long train ride but hardly any walk at all! While Nicko “Stumpy Joe” McBrain Jnr and Speed loitered at the front of the venue for a while, the rest of us sauntered over the road for a sneaky stein of ale. Yours truly is not a lager drinker, but on the continent somehow the beer tastes purer. It’s a good job too, as we were there for quite some time waiting for signs of life at the venue. We were three or four pints to the good by the time we saw movement over the road.
After loading in and soundchecking, it appeared there were some problems with the power stage left. This could have made for an interesting night for Mr Swift, whose bells and whistles would reset every time the power fluctuated! Thankfully this was speedily resolved, although we were then informed of a 11:00pm curfew. 11:00pm! The support band didn’t finish soundchecking until 9:30pm, so this curfew was immediately discredited. Said support band, 'Bulldozer Breed', were quite something. Somewhere between Manowar and L. Ron Hubbard. After the support band were done we came downstairs to find that a horde of friends from Nijmegen had made the journey to come and see us!!! We were all utterly over the moon to see all our pals from Rockcafé Backstage, and we instantly knew this show was going to be a killer. Onstage at last, the tiredness got the better of me on a couple of occasions (fingers not responding to solo requests, feet not hitting the right pedals etc.) but by and large we played a blinder. The folks from Nijmegen got right up the front and really gave us some much needed energy, which was amazing – it simply wouldn't have been the same without them. Despite my best efforts at saving his life, Eddie 'sorry lads, I’ve got to do a runner' the 'Ead went after Sooty with his knife once again. Poor sod.
We were very kindly kept in booze by the venue for the evening, and it wasn't until 4:00am that the Jägermeister came out. Hic. There was some other concoction, the name of which has been stolen away from my memory, but whatever it was it wasn't good! We eventually set off for the hotel with our friend Melvin in hot pursuit. Melvin has a tendency to catch up with our Mr Swift on these European trips and causes all sorts of trouble. Thankfully he was left somewhere over the border and we arrived at the hotel intact. There was some argument over who got to sleep with the snorers (Eddie and myself), and I seem to recall there was already someone in one of the rooms we were allocated. Hilarious. I coughed up some funds which allowed us to stay in the hotel until much later than checkout time, which allowed us some precious hours of sleep not usually afforded to us on these trips.
|
