Sunday, 2/23/14 – Eibergen, De Stier – This bar (De Stier
is I believe “The Steer” or “The Bull”) is nestled in a very small town,
actually rather charming and quiet. It’s a very high-ceilinged oblong-shaped
place as so many seem to be, medium sized, with curtained street windows and
unfinished floors, polished by many years of foot traffic. A surprisingly high
stage was a bit challenging with several of our crew down with what appears to
be the second half of a monumental cold…that we thought we’d shaken off in
England, but now has resurfaced and seems to want to kill us all. Still, we got
set up and soundchecked, and talked to the owner (a very pleasant guy) for a
while over coffee…then he walked us down the street to our rooms.
Understand
that last night, we’d been staying again at Henny’s, and Mike was not looking
too well at all. And usually he has the constitution of a rhinoceros, so I
could tell this wasn’t great. Today he was pretty quiet, and I sensed that he
was just holding it together as well as he could. The bar owner got us to the
B&B, and talked with the elderly proprietor, who only spoke Dutch. She
directed Mike and Johnny to somewhere upstairs and away they limped into the
darkness. Tanya and I were taken to a cinder-block building behind the house,
which I guess was for overflow traffic. Where this traffic would come from, and
why it would come into this obscure town, remains a mystery. But this rather
strange woman (who was prone to speaking to us as though we could speak the
language, and then bursting out into rather loud creepy laughter) left us to
our rather strange home away from home, which I documented on a short film.
After
cleaning up as best we could (I was not brave enough to use the shower), we
returned to the club and went into the upstairs for dinner. This had been
cooked by the owner…when we mentioned that some of us had difficulty with red
meat, he assured us there would be none in the dish that he was making. What it
actually was, though, was a very strange casserole, made with mashed potatoes,
sauerkraut, onions and…ham and hamburger. That was the entirety of the meal. I
was too tired and ill to argue, just smiled and after he left picked as much of
the meat out as I could. I actually really have trouble digesting red meat, but
I also hadn’t eaten much that day.
It’s
important to remember that we are on a really rigorous tour…we have 30 shows in
35 days! Our schedule has been so hectic, and we’ve been so focused on just
getting the next gig, that most of our meals have been either at the hotels or
clubs we’ve worked, or bought at gas stations on the highway. These highways
snacks and sandwiches all seem to be made by the same company, all across
Europe, and they all seem to be both expensive and either disgusting or flavor-free,
sometimes both. So like many bands, we keep a box with the leftover stuff from
the occasional backstage hospitality trays…usually we have some apples, or
tangerines, and maybe some crackers or bread, as well as bottled water and
sometimes beer. Often rather than spending $10 for a lousy sandwich, I’ll opt
for a few bites of stale bread and an apple. Better and cheaper. Ah, the
romance of the road.
Poster from Skegness. We're in there somewhere.
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