25/11/2006 Show Review – Kompass, Kevelaer

Byaaaaaaaah!!!! On Saturday the 25^th of November, Kevlaer was the destination for our latest show. On the previous night we had been to Halle Lujah, as we had been put on the guest list by one of our bookers, namely Hermano Booking. Plus it was becks for a euro night so I had no excuse to avoid the place. I more or less commited suicide via alcohol. Apparently my evening came to a close with my trousers round my knees and puking out jägermeister in a bus entrance. We had planned to meet up at the rehearsal room at 1530 on Saturday but unfortunately, I woke up at 1520 and didn’t know who I was. Marius then turned up at 1530 to pick me up. I grabbed anything useful looking, stuffed it in a bag, snatched a buritto out of the fridge and got in the car. When we arrived at the rehearsal room it soon became obvious that I wasn’t the only one with a head the size of a prehistoric dinosaur. Lars looked rough as hell and didn’t join in with any of the conversations. We left the base at around 1615, lars driving with peeth and horti in the van and me hannes and claas from DC being chauferred by marius. I cheered up in the car and since hannes hadn’t been out the previous night, he was the perfect motivator. A few subjects we discussed on the journey:

1. any object that has 2 wheels is gay. Such as bikes. Bikes in bright colours are even gayer than usual.
2. the sunset is gay
3. jude law, hugh grant and Freddie prince junior are ambassadors of the gay movement
4. dave chappelle’s byaaaahhh! Sketch is currently the best piece of modern day tv comedy gold on the market (the video’s up on my myspace site. If you haven’t seen it before, watch it.)
5. I kept moaning and pestering everyone for a chewing gum cause all I could taste was vomit and onions.

After about a 40 min drive we found the venue and also a garage nearby. I rushed in to buy some airwaves then pulled them out of my pocket outside and found another packet that had been in there the entire time. I couldn’t believe it, but almost shat myself with laughter. Everyone seemed to be in a better mood by now and were regaining their sense of humour. The venue was called ‘Kompass’ I think and was basically a youth centre type thing with a decent sized room. Stairs led up to a balcony which was to be the backstage area, which was pretty cool as you could look down onto the stage, spit on bandmates or compare your newest dance moves with Johannes. we didn’t have a soundcheck that evening which was nice for a change so for roughly an hour we just rolled around on the floor, threw random objects at each other, had sofa cushon fights, defined gayness, drank this weird watered down beer called simon gold or summat, breakdanced, took stupid ass photos, invented the emo-roll (check the video on our blog) and got emotional about some of the paintings in the foyer. Don’t ask, just check all the crappy pictures on our websites blog. A few people became hungry (not me, I’d have blown chunks) and we searched out a local grill. After 5 minutes we were warned to keep the noise down as me and Johannes were already in freak-out-super-weird-crazy-hyper-active mode and that’s always difficult for any law-abiding civilians to handle. On our way back we were surprised to find the yard in front of the entrance packed out with people. Mostly around 17-18 years of age I guess and plenty of boys wearing make up. We could see that we’d have a full crowd so we excitedly moved up to the backstage/balcony and relaxed for a while. We were the second of 4 bands that evening, I forget the 1^st and 3^rd bands names but the last band were called one bullet left. No dawson’s crack that night. Don’t know why, there just wasn’t. before the first band started I got myself into a fairly hilarious situation when a guy from another band asked me what kind of music we play. I replied: „Emo. Hahahahahaha!!! No, only joking, punk rock.“ Hannes then asked him what their style was to which he replied: „emo“. I could see Johannes biting his lip with laughter and brought the converstion to a halt as soon as poss. Funny shit. The first band started soon after and I don’t really know what to say. They just didn’t seem to enjoy themselves very much at all. The drummer looked like he just wanted to go home and whenever the bassist wasn’t playing, he just walked over to the corner of the stage and crossed his arms. It still made me laugh though. The crowd looked like they may have enjoyed it more had the band shown a bit more enthusiasm. We were up next and it was hellafun but hellahardwork aswell. The room was packed and the kids were flying all over the place.At one point, Peeth ran over to me mid-performance and shouted: „Ah!i can’t move my fingers anymore! But it’s still good!“. I threw my sticks away twice, on purpose of course, but the crowd were amazing. Klug joined in with the moshing for about 5 seconds but he immediately got a smack in the chin. Arfarf. After an encore of a song we had already played as we ran out of songs, we were well and truly shattered. In truth, we all wanted to just go home there and then, but as usual, I was the mug whose drum kit everyone was using. I missed the 3^rd band but caught the last 2 songs of one bullet left, who were bloody cool but looked like they were in their mid 20’s and not fresh faced pop-icons like ourselves, so we win. We then packed up as fast as we could and got the hell out of Kevelaer. It was probably one of the funniest nights I’ve had at a show in aaaaages and can’t have gone 30 seconds without something funny happening. Thanks to everybody for coming down, it was a fucking privilege, to westend booking, hannes and claas for keeping everyone smiling, and sorry to the bands who arrived late and after we had drank all of the free beer.

Next show is in lars’ hometown, Haltern, at some xmas bash of sorts. I will get drunk.

Laters, Byaaaaaaaahhh!