Behind the scenes @ beatkitchen.de: August 2006

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Psapp Interview & live performance

...this was taken at the Spitz show a while ago...

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Systems down

PLEASE NOTE

If you are trying to get a hold of me via email or iChat... my system is all messed up due to the past few mac updates... in the process I lost all of my emails and some other important infos... so if you have emailed me and haven't had a reply, feel free to drop me another line... I hope to rectify these problems within the next few weeks...

Monday, August 21, 2006

Write up of Lowlands show

Just came across this write up of our show at Lowlands.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Lowlands - Holland

It was an early start for Lowlands this morning...

Around 8:30am it was back on the road. We were all pretty smashed I think. But it was a fairly easy drive up there.

Gal continued to make her new sock puppets... at least I think they are new... I first saw them yesterday... but knowing her she has been making them for ages...

When we got to the festival there was some weird political discussion going on in the Lima tent where we were to play.... so Carim, Jim and I took ourselves off for a little walk around the festival grounds...

It turned out to be a lot bigger than I had expected. When we arrived I had the feeling that it was going to be a small festival but it was not to be so... there were some really great features, like this giant space-carrot for instance....

Before I knew it, it was time to do the show... we were first on again and to my surprise the tent was PACKED again...

The show was great because the crowd were great... different from the Belgium crowd though... in Belgium the crowd would clap throughout the songs so you had a good idea if they were into it or not... but here for the most part I found the crowd really quiet during the songs and only by there applause after we had finished each track did I see that they were into it... Each country has their own way of showing their appreciation I guess...

Once we were done we had some time to hang out with our friends...

Anja and her friend came all the way from Cologne to see the show which was lovely.... it had been ages since I last saw her....

An hour or so after the show Carim, Gal & I did a special acoustic performance for '3 voor 12'. As usual we played 'Tricycle' and 'Needle & Thread'...

Gal and Carim then did an interview for the show....

The crew were all really cool and we had a very fun time hanging out and just being silly...

At a certain point the alcohol levels in Gals bloodstream reached the "it's-time-to-go-now" point, if you know what I mean...

Just before the rest of them left for London again we bumped into this guy, who I lovingly refer to as the purple freak... he just goes around hugging people and doing freaky things... but he was a very sweet freak, don't get me wrong... and he was in good company hanging with us!

At the end of the festival I got to hang out with my good friends Stephie and Arthur who came all the way here to give me a ride home... very sweet of them... we didn't really hang about for too long as we were all pretty wrecked... the drive home was about 3 hours which wasn't too bad... now it's time too enjoy the weekend a little!

Friday, August 18, 2006

Pukkelpop - Belgium

Off on the road again... at least for a few days....

My friends Damian, Mirko and Chri picked me up early this morning and we drove to Pukkelpop together...

It isn't too far from where I live - which makes a BIG change! So we got there within about 90 minutes...

Once we arrived I was amazed at how well this festival is organized... there wasn't just a little backstage area where the bands could hang out... there was what was called the 'Artists Village'... and it was huge...

To top it all of, every band had one of a handful of hostesses to look after them... if I remember correctly our hostess was called Betty... and they were all very helpful...

Our show was in the Club tent and we were first on... I thought there might be 20 - 30 people there as the gates had only opened about an hour or so before we were on and people were still arriving...

... but to all our great surprise the tent was completely full by the time we got on stage... not exactly sure how many people were in there but I guess it was between 800 -1000 which was amazing... and the crowd were absolutely fantastic.... and there were quite a few Psapp fans singing along with Gal which was cool....

After the show we packed up and just decided to enjoy the rest of the day at the festival...

Gal and Carim had a few interviews to do afterwards... one of the lucky interviewers even got to keep one of the new sock puppets Gal made... lucky guy!

Gal, Gwen, Gordon & Rich left for the hotel once all the gear was packed up as they had hardly slept the previous night... I think they left for the festival around 1:30am this morning... which couldn't have been much fun...

I managed to exchange some of Gals pusspusses for some festival t-shirts... the lady on the left is Betty - our hostess I mentioned earlier....

This has to be one of my favorite festivals... it wasn't too big - like Glastonbury for instance - and there were so many different styles of music represented...

And the crew who worked there really made us feel welcome...

They had some great areas for the visitors like here... you could just lounge about and recharge the battery with some fresh mint tea and a water pipe!

Food was lovely as well even thought they could have had bigger portions.... but that's just me being greedy again :OP

The rest of the band had decided to go back to the hotel hours ago but when I went backstage they were still just sitting there doing their thang... whatever....

Up until the afternoon the weathergods had been on our side... but that was to change... it started raining as we were watching The Frames - who were brilliant - and continued to do so whilst we were watching The Raconteurs... who I also thought were great.... but considering I thought it was going to rain all day - that was pretty good going...

...and when I went backstage to hang out for a while I bumped into Finn and Jasper... I used to play with them in a band called 'Arturo' almost 10 years ago in London... now they have formed another band together called 'White Rose Movement' and are doing pretty well for themselves... what a small world!

The highlight of the whole day for me though was seeing 'Massive Attack' headline the festival... I wasn't too sure if I was going to enjoy it because I had seen them about 10 years ago playing at a festival in the middle of the day - not really the perfect atmosphere for a band like this... but I was blown away... they played most of my favorite tracks and (apart from the first few tracks) the sound was so good...

At the end of the night this lovely gentleman dropped me back off to my hotel... and now I better get some sleep because it is a VERY early start for Lowlands tomorrow!!!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Airport madness

Made my way back home today...

... I was flying from Gatwick and it was just crazy there... with all the security measures because of the potential terrorist attacks....

...we were not allowed to take on ANY hand luggage apart from absolute essentials eg: passport, travel documents etc...

... I ended up waiting in line to check in for over an hour and a half... and there were 10 queues! And if I had of been 5 minutes later, I would have missed my flight... madness!