It’s been a while, but here’s another gigography.

10 October: our first gig in Noord-Holland, far up in the Northwest of the Netherlands. We were going to perform with our friends of  A New Dawn (NL) and Seraphim (TW).

At around 14:30, I picked up Melaina, our new vocalist, from the station. She wasn’t going to sing but we all agreed it would be a good idea to have her watch the show – get a feeling for the music and the way we move around on stage.

We drove “all the way” to Hoorn through Friday-afternoon traffic and we made it in about 2 hours. We were slightly early.  In my mind, I was already expecting Seraphim jokes and confusion, given my (good) Asian looks. Effectively, upon entering the premises of Manifesto, I was greeted by a host, welcoming who she thought to be Seraphim to their venue upon which I greeted her back in Dutch. She stammered “You … you speak fluent Dutch! I’m amazed”. I explained the situation and she flushed completely.

After the usual hanging-around we checked the sound and were back off-stage in maybe 20 minutes. Getting my gear on stage proved to be a little bit difficult. I was wearing snakeskin boots with leather soles. The entrance to the stage consisted of a rather long ramp and pushing a cart with about 25 kilo’s of material on top of it proved to be rather difficult with the leather soles :) Two steps ahead, one step back.

After a very very nice meal we got ready and climbed the stage. The stagehands forgot to reconnect our in-ear monitors so I spent the better part of the first song gesturing the sound engineer to reconnect our monitors, adjust the pan again and then adjust the volume on the transmitter because it was flashing red all the time. Apparently, they had also changed the volume while we were having dinner.

After that, things were a breeze. Joyce did a good job as a guest singer and the whole band felt solid enough after months of not gigging. By the end, we were all rolling and having fun as usual. By the end, I had distributed guitar picks, signed a few items and gotten several thumbs up, nods and handshakes. Even our guest singer was surprised at how positive the audience reacted.

Next gig: Plug-Unit, Reeuwijk, Friday 19 October. With our very very special guest: our new vocalist Melaina! I’m all excited and I can’t wait.

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17 March 2007
Rocken aan het IJ, Gothic Edition
JC de Valk
Amsterdam, NL

The Amersfoort crew was early, as usual, We were the opening act so we had to soundcheck. The other members were fashionably late, which resulted in pre-gig stress.

The soundcheck went well enough although there were problems, as usual, getting the soound on stage just right. And the sound in my in-ears.

I was ill. I had a fever and an hour before leaving for the gig, I sat on the couch, shaking with a fever. Still, the show must go on. This show was being videotaped so it was important to be there.

We played a good set and, unfortunately, I had to leave right after the show because I was still feeling ill. The adrenaline helped shake the sick feeling, but I decided on using that to drive home safely. I packed and went home. Nothing much to report otherwise, unfortunately.

I don’t have the gig list and I don’t remember any of it. I do know that we played all of our songs, including lieland which went considerably smoother than last time.

Next gig: Rijnhal, Arnhem. Hopefully a seriously lot less ill.

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2007-03-10
ODD’s Female Fronted Metal Night
DB’s studio
Utrecht, NL

My wife and I met Joop at the studio to load things in the Volvo. As incredible as it may sound, we managed to load the Volvo with the following things: 19″ Flightcase 4U, Flightcase Pod & Wireless, 1 Midi keyboard – 88 keys, 1 Korg Triton,1 Jackson USA SL1CS, 1 Jackson Professional EX, 1 Hartke 4×10 combo, 1 EON G-15 G2 Active Speaker, Various stands, Joop’s suitcase ‘o gear, Clothing, Boots, Joop, Wife, me. I love my Volvo.

We didn’t arrive particularly early. We arrived at about 18:15 and unloaded our stuff. When we checked out the venue, I called Kace to tell him to leave the drumkit behind. There was barely enough room to fit a 5-piece drumkit on the drumriser. A few minutes later, the sound engineer entered. We talked to him and we immediately got a feeling of impending doom. (Pronounce: DOOM). He only had 1 monitor group and what I would get on my in-ear would be the same everybody else heard. He immediately threw his hands in the air and said “I only have 16 channels”. Me and Joop looked at the man and said “So?”.

- I only have 10 channels
- So?
- I’ll never be able to fit two stereo instruments on there!
- Whaddayamean? You’ve got 6 mics for the drumkit. That leaves you with 10 channels for 1 bass, 1 keyboard, 1 guitar and 1 vocalist.
- Eh …
- That’s only 10 channels in all
- Well …
- It’ll be allright.
- I DON’T THINK SO

And then he stomped off. We shrugged it off and went to hang out until it was time for us to perform. We did take the time to watch the bands that came before us and I have to admit that they all really did rock!

We had a lot of trouble setting up. The sound engineer just threw a bunch of cables at us and told us that those were the cables we needed. It took another 10 minutes for him to figure out that it would be nice to know which cables were meant for which instrument, then another 10 minutes to figure out which cable was what.

I fiddled around a bit and played a song from Final Fantasy VI on my guitar which got some cheers in the audience! After that, we started the intro which, as usual, progressed into For Hope is Still There. The sound on stage was bad. The sound on my in-ear monitors sucked. After the first song, Carmen asked for more vocals on the monitor and I asked for slightly more guitar on my in-ears. During the second song, I got a distorted guitar on my monitor and I had trouble making out the rest of the band. Apparently though, Carmen had good enough sound on stage to be able to sing.

Halfway through the set, people were chanting our band name. I didn’t notice (sorry guys and girls) because I was too busy not fuming too much over the sound in my ears.

I have no idea how the music came across. People in the audience told us we were great and then we tore down.

Someone I didn’t know was fooling around in the backstage room with a girl on his back. They were constantly standing in front of the door so, after asking nicely for a few times, I sort of flung them over and they eventually got the message. I talked to Willem of A New Dawn and he was just as pissed off about the sound on-stage as I was. At least I knew then that it wasn’t my gear, but the sound engineer that didn’t do a proper job. We’re not playing at DB’s again. Ever. I think …

Setlist:
Intro
For Hope is Still There
Little Girl
Calling out the Gods
Calico Jack
Lieland
After the Storm
Jane Doe
Paradox
Endgame

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After performing at the preliminaries, we went through to the finals of “De Grote Prijs van Leusden”.

Of course, we were early. Well, not really. Me and Carmen were early, but the rest of the band actually was nicely on time about half an hour later. We settled, chatted with the people that work at the venue and we were our usual relaxed selves. All, except Kace who admitted that this was the first time he had ever been nervous for a gig.

As usual, we had to rush like crazy to set our gear up. Luckily, the stage hands remembered most of our set-up from the last time and they got us set up faster than usual.

Because we had 30 minutes playtime instead of 20, we decided to do our long intro. Apparently, it had been too long since we did the intro. Rene actually went on stage before Kace – which is not the right order. I’m a bit neurotic at times, and I almost went overboard with fright and panic as Rene went on stage first. Then Kace went on. The moment Kace went on, Joop extended a hand and Kace, being his usual joking self, grabs that hand and starts shaking it. Out goes the dramatic effect :) I of course went on stage about 2 bars too early (those are musical bars, I didn’t mean that I wasn’t drunk enough to get on stage), played the intro rather nicely and then we started For Hope is Still There.

We learned not to change the start of a song about one hour before going on stage. We tried a new beginning for Calling out the Gods and failed miserably. We got back on our feet and continued to play.

The rest of the set was rather uneventful except for me missing the first part of my Little Girl solo, simply because my right hand was picking the wrong string. *cough cough cough*.

In the end, we came in third which isn’t too bad out of 16 bands and us being the only metal band in the competition which was otherwise filled with alternative, britpop and wave/gothic bands and even a country-rock band.

We landed some money to spend at a local guitarshop so I paid the other band members their parts and went ahead and bought myself … A V-Wah (Boss PW10). I’ll have a review up shortly. By shortly, I mean: as soon as I get around to playing it.

Setlist:

Introduction
For Hope is Still There
Calling out the Gods
Paradox
Little Girl
Endgame

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By the end of December, Joop (keyboard player of Transentience) coined the idea of starting a Stream of Passion tribute band. He approached me and a number of other regulars on the Stream of Passion Forum.

Two weeks later, we were rolling. While Stream of Passion wouldn’t officially be involved (this is the short version), some members did get involved behind the scenes, either organising or helping us figure out little bits of the songs.

During the Christmas holidays, I spent almost every day with my headphones on, figuring out chords and Lori Linstruth’s solo parts. During the rehearsals, we decided to skip “Castle Hall” (my fault, I couldn’t nail the chords) but we added Pain (less chords for me, teehee). That still left us with 6 songs. All in all, I spent about 40 hours working on these songs.

Sunday came rather easily. I must admit not having listened to the SoP songs the week before the performance because I noticed that the more I listened, the more I started doubting my ability to actually play my parts. And the more I listened, the more I altered my lead parts and the more I became confused. Instead, I took a good long hard look at the scales involved and played them on my guitar – either improvising on a self-recorded backing track or just exercising the scales.

Sunday came and, of course, I was early, but only by 15 minutes. I unloaded and slowly set up. We had a nice lunch with soup and bread and then we checked the sound. A little while after the end of the soundcheck, Dave and Alejandro showed up.

By half past two, the show finally got on the road and Dave showed us a “behind the scenes” and “previously unreleased footage” of Stream of Passion’s life on the road. After that, we retreated to change and we came out, guns blazing. Oh, wait, that isn’t true. Somewhere in between, Johan and Marcela finally found the venue and made their entrance.

Dave announced us on stage and Laura opened with a truly hauntingly beautiful rendition of Nostalgia. She did a really good job, seeing as how she opened the set with just a frail piano to support her. The minute the first words left her mouth, I was moved and impressed as I had been before during the rehearsals. She has an incredibly clear and beautiful voice. Marjan joined in for some backing vocals and they both moved and surprised the venue. By the end, we kicked into Passion and the crowd went, well, wild. By the end of Passion, people were even wilder.

Haunted, if I remember right, got us our first clapping from the audience. The raw power on stage was simply mind-blowing. I was sort of stuck behind Joop’s and Laura’s keyboard but I hope I at least banged my head enough so that the audience noticed something was moving in the back of the stage. Out in the real World and Deceiver only got the crowd going even more and when we morphed Deceiver into Songs of the Ocean, just like SoP does during their live shows, the crowd sang along. Pain was an extremely well chosen end of the show. Rik tore into an incredible drum solo during which we all worshiped the God of Drums. The crowd yelled for more. But we didn’t have any more.

In the end, we played Pain once more and then finally left the stage.

I played in a very mediocre way. While I didn’t exactly make a lot of really terrible mistakes, I missed a lot of cues, managed my solos just barely and could hardly move around behind the keyboards. I’m the smallest guy in the band at 1.70m and sticking me behind a keyboard that I could hardly look over didn’t exactly do much for my ego. Then again, this was really Joop’s day so I let it slide and I was very, very happy for Joop instead to see him surrounded by people and being generally important. He more than deserved that for all the effort he put in. And he’s in the back more than enough during the Transentience gigs.

But the gig was totally kick-ass, the atmosphere was simply envigorating and there’s a lot more interesting words I could coin. It was a real blast to play with Laura and Marjan, both of whom are exceptionally good vocalists AND very nice people. And of course, Joop and Joop (no mistake there) Rik and Bram and Jelger are outstanding musicians and people as well. We could not have pulled it off without them. In the end, it seems as if I was the only one that wasn’t asked to sign Alejandro’s own Stream of Passion CD …

Today, the day after, I’m feeling a bit low, remembering how full of energy we were yesterday. I feel that the atmosphere was too good not to do anything else together again. I do hope we’ll be standing on stage together again, sometime.

Thanks to Davy, Alejandro, Marcela and Johan for showing up. Thanks to ToP for being a wonderful band (pun intended) of people. Thanks to Dave and Joop in particular for making all of this possible.

Oh, and a final note: it’s not a very good idea to wear high-heeled boots all day if you’re not used to it. The muscles in my legs and even in my butt hurt, today.

Project Members:
- Laura: vocals, backing vocals;
- Marjan: vocals, backing vocals;
- Joop B: vocals, backing vocals;
- Kristof: lead guitar;
- Bram: Rhythm guitar.
- Joop: keyboards;
- Rik: drums;
- Jelger: bass;

Setlist:

- Nostalgia;
- Passion;
- Haunted;
- Out in the Real World;
- Deceiver/Songs of the Ocean;
- Pain

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Where do I start…

Photo courtesy of Erik Schepers.

I was feeling a bit (slight understatement) under the weather, most of the week. Yesterday, I took a day off to recover fully. I was playing Wii Pinball when I suddenly noticed the clock and the hands on it which indicated it was way past time to get ready. I hopped in the shower, hopped out again and ran around trying to find various items of my stage gear. I doublechecked everything twice (wouldn’t want to forget something) and left to pick up my girlfriend wife from work.

My wife bought special pants and a few tops (She calls it Emo-pants :D) to wear to our performances. She changed into her emo-clothes and we left to pick up Carmen, our singer. From there, we went to pick up more stage-gear at our studio and then left for the venue.

You’ll never guess this, but we were early. Again. Ah well, consistency is a good thing.

We hauled everything inside and had a light dinner with bread and cheese. We relaxed, tensed and laughed a lot until time had come to draw the order in which the bands would appear. We drew number 4. Nicely in the middle and scheduled to play at 23:15.

The order of play was:

Wool
Crayven
Blueshaker
Transentience
Mattock
Bend 66

Now, the backstage room is upstairs. So all of our gear was upstairs. To get ready for play, we moved all our stuff downstairs while Blueshaker was playing. Anne was our roadie for the evening and she got comments from the security guys: one hot female roadie, she was called. And she was! When blueshaker was ready, they tore down and we set-up. We had the usual difficulties with my set-up.

“Eh, you don’t need a DI box? Can’t we just loop it this way? Oh, you have a loop in your PA box. Oh, that one is a line-out”. Anyway, it got figured out pretty quickly by the stage hands. Carmen was a but worried since we didn’t get to have a soundcheck and so we had no idea how we would sound on-stage. I, of course, was supermetal and embraced the darkness and braced myself for impact!

Joop and Kace started “Calling out the Gods” and we were off! People reacted well, I tried to remember how not to fall wearing my boots. I missed a few chords but everything went well. Next up was Paradox. This is the one in which Carmen tears loose and shows everyone the inside of her lungs. People were blown away. Paradox has a few stops and after the first one, the crowd cheered and cheered Carmen on! They went crazy. After the second part, they cheered again! And at the end of the song, they cheered again! I didn’t know what was happening. This never happened to us, before. Sure, people cheered us on, but they never cheered in between songs. It only got better from there. We played little girl and all the evening and all through the set, I’d been telling myself “Don’t do the solo, just play the chords, don’t do the solo, just play the chords”. I had been telling myself that, right up to the part where my solo was. Now, I missed this solo about three times the past rehearsals! But I just bit my lip mentally, switched patches and played the solo. Flawless. In one go. And no missing the right patch when going back to the chorus. Endgame of course is still a great ending. We were cheered on, people asked for more, they wanted us to play more songs but our time was really limited to 20 minutes.

We tore down, moved everything back up and crashed. Another notch on my guitar, another job well done. Thanks to all our fans who showed up and to those who thought of us but couldn’t make it.

Setlist:
Calling out the Gods
Paradox
Little Girl
Endgame

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On the 22nd of December, we had the opportunity to be the support act for Delain, one of the rising stars on the horizon of (Gothic) Metal in the Netherlands. Delain is formed by former Within Temptation member Martijn Westerholt.

We were expected at around 18:00 but we arrived … early … 16:00 sharp, we presented ourselved at the back entrance of the Venue. We unloaded everything and met the very amiable people of Delain and their crew.

Delain’s set-up didn’t leave much room for us to play around with. We had to fit Kace’s drumset in between the keyboards of Martijn and the drums of Sander. To the right, you can see Sander’s drumkit, to the left, you can see some stands of Kace’s drumkit. We were standing up front and had very little space to move around in.

Delain’s sound check took more time than scheduled, but that’s only to be expected. When it was time for us to set-up, we moved Kace’s drumkit in. We had assembled it in the dressing room and took it on stage in three parts. Then we waited for the sound engineers to get the cables plugged which actually took a while because either the DI boxes were mislabeled or the stage hand could only count to ten and had trouble reading the numbers above 10. Anyway, after some delay, we got started and we soundchecked. It took a while to get a comfortable monitor mix but after almost an hour, we were done. Time to grab some food and prepare.

We got Chinese take-away which was actually very very good. We had these chinese cardboard cups you always see in American movies but this was the first time I’ve ever seen those on European soil. Anyway, enough talk about food.

We went on stage with our usual presentation act. Joop starts the intro, then Kace walks on stage followed a short while later by Rene and they start the groove. I had to come on early since I forgot to set my Pod to the right patch and had the volume pedal down. I came on, hit the patch, hit the volume and ripped into the melody. Carmen came on stage at the right time and we tore into “For hope is Still There”. I can’t really remember the rest of the set. The crowd was very good – people actually clapped the rhythm voluntarily during “Calling out the Gods” and they cheered during “Endgame”.

On-stage, we were plagued by a thundering hum through the monitors which, as we learned later, could be heard throughout the venue. Other than that, the gig was uneventful meaning that we’re becoming die-hard musicians :)

My wife was there to see us, and that made the show all the more special. A lot of familiar faces in the crowd too. A number of people actually showed up just to have a look at us.

After our gig, we tore the set down as fast as possible and made room for Delain. We hung around and loaded the cars around 23:00.

Another notch on my guitar!

And a really big hand for Carmen! She set a really good performance despite throat problems, the flue and an uncooperative digestive system (I’ll spare you the details). No whining but performing. What a lady!

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Despite the disappointing experience at Metalbash, we were headed for the Midwinter fair after only 3 hours of sleep. 1000 Rockstar bonus points!

We arrived timely and hauled our stuff upstairs where we would perform. We were just a few minutes too late to wake up all the bands that were sleeping in front of the stage. Some bands played Saturday and Sunday and they slept in front of the stage. I guess that’s a 1000 Rockstar bonus points for them.

There’s actually very little to write about this gig. We played very relaxed and very well. The crowd was very very very good, despite the early hour. There were actually people waiting for us to get started! The sound on stage was terrific. I’ve never had such good sound on stage. This is definitely one of the gigs I will always remember.

Also: I had fans on stage! Not the human type, but the windy blowing refreshing ones. It made my hair all swirly and wooshy and it looks great on the pictures.

After we hauled all the stuff back in, I was exhausted. I drove back home and fell asleep.

Still, this must have been my best experience with Transentience to date. After the disappointment of Saturday, the euphoria of Sunday. Oh yeah.

Setlist:
Intro
For Hope is Still There
Calling out the Gods
After the Storm
Calico Jack
Paradox
Endgame

(I think)

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I have been ill all of last week. I had a rather serious case of influenza that didn’t seem to want to let up. It wasn’t until Friday evening that my legs stopped feeling like rubber bands. This may be due to the intake of Oscilloccinum. It’s a homeopathic and it has never been proven to work. Still, the placebo effect cures about 40% of all people including curable Alzheimer patients and people who suffer from heart diseases.

Anyway, I couldn’t sleep Friday night. I had slept too much during the week and the added thought of performing at the Great Metalbash caused me to toss and turn until I decided to go downstairs and play another hour of Final Fantasy XII. It must’ve been about 3:30 in the morning when I finally fell asleep.

I was up and running the next morning at 09:00. I wasn’t feeling healthy but I wasn’t feeling sick either. The adrenaling cured most of what was left of the influenza and I methodically kept taking the Oscillococcinum.

By 14:30, I left for Mac Donalds to get a quick lunch (Yay! Rockstar food!) and a full tank of gas. I was at our rehearsal space by early 15:00 and started loading everything up. Joop arrived about 10 minutes later. Me and Joop were gonna haul a lot of stuff in the back of my nice and big Volvo while Kace and Rene would drive together, leaving from a different town. We’d pick up Carmen somewhere on the way.

And so it was done. We picked up Carmen along the way and were way too early at the venue. By way too early, I actually mean waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy too early as in 2 hours early. “Band Arrival” was scheduled for 19:00 and the clock displayed a merry 17:00. Kace and Rene were already having an early dinner at a local cafetaria so we decided to join them. Of course, being the Rhythm Section, they did not choose the obvious and blatantly in-your-face cafetaria nextdoor to the venue but chose one that was a 5 minute walk away. I whined something about ringing my limo but continued on foot anyway.

We had a very uneventful and tasteless serving of cafetaria food. By tasteless I do mean “lacking taste” as in “could’ve been chewing a piece of paper which would ultimately have been healthier and at least as nutritious”. We got back to the venue and to our luck, they were opening the venue up for sound engineers to come in. We managed to slide in and haul all of our stuff out. It’s 18:30 and we play at 20:50. Did I mention we were early? We were actually so early people started joking around. The last thing I heard our early arrival mentioned, the story had it that we arrived about 12 hours early.

We would be sharing “our” dressing room with the guys from Fuelblooded (NL) while Diggeth (NL) and Herfst (BE) would be sharing the dressing room opposite ours. Halfway the evening, I shouted something in Flemish to a girl wearing a very obvious Herfst t-shirt who looked as I was speaking in tongues and stammered “B-b-ut I’m from Holland”. Yes, people, Dutch and Flemish are supposed to be the same language but we sometimes have trouble understanding each other.

Anyway, we got to play, eventually. But not after I found out I had everything with me, literally everything including stickers and peppermints, but I left my Pod XT Live at home. Cue panic and a nicely churned stomach. I managed to fix a Koch Powertone Amp but, still, that left me with a different amp, a different sound and most importantly: a different footboard with substantially less features than I’m used to. Still, I tweaked it right rather quickly and then went to play. Everything sucked. I mean: sucked balls. I mean: sucked such big balls that Saturn now has under 40 moons instead of the usual 56.

I’ve played a lot of different venues (okay, a few tens) and the monitormix was the worst ever. Most of the time, we had no monitormix at all. Or one instrument would drop from the monitormix and be added later on but twice as loud, thus replacing all the other instruments. Carmen’s microphone cable just dropped from her microphone while she was singing. I got unplugged in the middle of a song because I did another powermetal powermove with my guitar and the wireless set attached to the strap decided that move was most definitely too Eighties and it unplugged me. The sound off-stage got slightly better near the end, but most people complained about bad sound and an omnipresent unbalance between the instruments. And I believe the audience was made out of cardboard and Eunuchs. I mean, NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can just stand still and occasionally yawn when Carmen is crawling all over the stage in a tight dress and wearing stockings.

Anyway, needless to say we didn’t really perform well – or at least my performance was sub-par. We came in last of the four bands of that evening but we must remind ourselves that we were one of the 16 chosen out of 180 entries.

After the show, me and Joop left Carmen in the good care of Kace and Rene and went for a midnight snack after which I dropped Joop at his place and parked my car in my garage and stumbled to bed. But not before I placed my Pod XT in the middle of my living room, ready to go the next morning. THE NEXT MORNING? Yes, the next morning.

In the meantime, Kace and Carmen were spoken to by the representative of the Metal Magazine that organises the Metalbash event. Apparently, he was impressed with what we did that night. He gave us a few pointers and repeated that he was impressed and that he would very happily see us again next year. According to him, we have great promise. Great minds think alike. We also got a mention of being very out of place. While we’re definitely playing Metal, Metalbash is not exactly the type of Band Battle that’s easy on Symphonic, Prog or Powermetal. The bands that won the previous editions were Death/Trash metalbands with a possible exception that doesn’t come to mind right now and may very well never do so.

I’ll write about today’s gig later when my eyes stop trying to close.

Anyway … you lose some.

Setlist:

Calling out the Gods
Little Girl
After the Storm
Paradox
Endgame

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We interrupt our Final Fantasy XII session for really big news!

We’ve been selected to support Delain” on their show in Lelystad (NL) on 22 December. Delain is a project centered around Martijn Westerholt, ex-Within Temptation member. He left Within Temptation just before they broke through with “Ice Queen” as a result of a malady. There’s lots of gossip, hearsay and speculation on that around the internet, so I won’t be adding to that.

Anyway, we’re real proud to have made it this far. This will be our fourth show (maybe the fifth if we win Metalbash). I must say, I find it rather overwhelming to get such a lot of support from the scene in the Netherlands, and abroad.

Stay tuned for the autogigography and, by all means, do visit our shows!

We even have STICKERS which we hand out at shows! So, if you want our sticker, come to our show. Or buy a CD. If you buy a CD now, we’ll send you a complimentary sticker. Only valid while supplies last.

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