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THE SOUP, BIFI™ & A WHIRPOOL OF SHIT TOUR 2003

Prologue Gone Bald being a band consisting of three guys all without a driver’s license, the fact that we are due to go on a tour in France got us close to a heartattack at some points. We managed to find someone (who will probably want to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, but for the sake of writing a story about the tour and his contribution to will be referred to as Larz) to be prepared to do the driving some time ago and thought that this was going to work out very smoothly. Obviously, about a week in advance, some problem emerged in relation to the first dates of the tour and we had to find ourselves a driver for the first days. This meant calling people and start begging, in most cases start explaining who you are and then continue with the begging part, and in some cases, start with referring to the fact that you did them a favour in a long and forgotten point in the past followed by the announcement that there would be a day that you asked them for a favour in return, that day being today, and then continue to explain who you are, beg and eventually start crying. This worked out great in the end a guy called Sam, agreed to drive us to Dijon and to Nantes. A return bus ticket to Nantes was to be the key element in the driver’s exchange plan. This plan was genius and world domination was now just a few blocks around the corner…

France: Dijon, Les Tanneries Our arrival at Dijon and the place to be wasn’t all glamourous as we hoped it would be, but considering the fact that we had been on the road for about eight hours and got lost a couple of times after we missed just about every possible exit from the highway past Dijon (causing some frustation at Sam, who problably just found out that Gone Bald is anything but a well organised travel agency) this was the least that could bother us. Les Tanneries was also the first confrontation with the cold, veganistic rice meals that seemed to be the normal routine for nutrition among places like this. We didn’t know this at this point and, as I mentioned previously, couldn’t really be bothered by subtle matters of taste at the moment anyway. Later in the evening we did a nice first gig of the tour. Razorblade broke a string and Disko took the opportunity to do a stand-up comedy act in french, the fact that he was talking french probably being the main and maybe even the only joke, but the crowd loved it and laughed their asses off. But then again, these people were just as easily amused by a puppet show, performed halfway during a gig by The Soophie Nun Squad, the last band of the evening. I guess it just wasn’t a very hard to please crowd. Neither were we for that matter. Some beers and a book on medieval torture methods is all that it really takes.

France: Nantes, Le Blockhaus Waking up by the sound of a horse, coming from Disko’s mobile phone, somewhere around nine o’clock in the morning is actually not really as glamourous as most people say it is, especially when one has been drinking the night before. I reckoned this was supposed to be the hard side of touring: desperate attempts to get your mind at work in a close to basic kind of way, get all your limbs in motion to walk a few necessary steps and throw coffee in the mouth (so far, not really that different from an ordinary day) and then, deal with the fact that you can not just give it up for the day and return to bed and regain unconsciousness, but accept that you will be on the road for most of the day and have to be able to read and interpret french road signs to get to the next destination on the other side of the country. The fact that we didn’t have a gig in Nantes on this day, but the day after that, provided some relaxation, but we had to get there anyway. A French guy named Guillaume came along as a passenger and turned out to be very useful as a translator (Disko’s french might be very useful for stand-up comedy, it probably won’t be very helpful in a normal conversation, especially when the outcome of a conversation is of major importance in finding your way on the road and the last thing you need is someone who will only laugh at every word you are trying to say in french) and as a driver (no explanation needed). Eventually we found Nantes, Larz, who had been waiting for us there throughout the day and met Emerick (phonetically spelled, I guess, and if so, sorry) and Julie, who provided sleeping places for us. The food was carnivore-friendly and, most importantly, great this time. The place where we played the next day was another squat, this one existing in long and narrow rooms, poorly lit and inevitably causing a whirpool of reverb as soon as we would start playing. After saying goodbye to Sam, who had to take the bus back to Holland, Disko and me waited for a while in a line of people hoping to get a glimpse of the catapulting of a piano (this is problably best left unexplained) somewhere in the neighbourhood, but this effort proved to be fruitless. The gig was surprisingly good. The sound was not as bad as I expected (and as it was for me sitting behind a drumkit anyway). The crowd was silent and sticked to a strict clapping-only routine, but I guess this is just the way things go in France and we would just have to get used to it. They seemed to like it anyway. In front of Le Blockhaus with Emerick and some quatr'-quatr' gangsta's.

France: Rennes, Mondo Bizarro Toppertje: a nice bar, a nice stage, good sound, nice backstage room, great food, wine, all typical circumstances which (if all experienced in just the right proportions) produce good conditions for a great gig. Indeed, in my opinion, a great gig followed that evening, including broken strings from both guitar and bass, an encore and people buying merchandise. Little did we know that the real madness was just about to begin. People invited us to someone’s housewarming party in some house across the street. Rumours that some girl was going to get her head shaved at this party made us decide to confirm acte de presence. Before we went there, the bartender provided us with samples of some B-52-like alcoholic substance called Bizarro, which turns a human brain into pulp within a matter of seconds. As I recall the recipe had something to do with tequila, which, at least for me, usually means lobotomy somewhere during the next twenty-four hours. I will probably never now what really did and did not happen at the party, but some powerful memories still haunt my mind, including big bowls of some strangely tasting yellow punch, an old fat woman laughing like a pig, more Bizarro’s, a huge ass hanging over the balcony, allowing its owner to let go of some superfluous not entirely digested food, a girl walking around in her underwear, all this accompanied by the unmistakenly dutch sounds of De Kift, who for some reason have build up a fan base in the middle of fucking (excusez le mot) France. All this could only result in a terrible hangover in the morning, and it did.

France: Caen, Bar La Place In all previous gigs of the tour we had gotten used to warm welcomes in all the places where we played, but this time we were not so lucky. The owner of the bar obviously wasn’t remotely interested in any of the bands playing there and thought that making as much money as possible was the only way to go. Luckily, first of all, he was in a relatively good mood and decided that we could get two drinks for free (which we had somewhere in the first half hour after our arrival) and second, the guys from Loisirs and Myra Lee, the bands we would play with for three gigs to come, were in a much better mood and provided us with some emergency beers. Later that evening, both bands played great shows and broke a lot of strings. The Gone Bald show started with a complete shutting down of electricity, leaving us and the audience standing in complete darkness and confusion. After some failed attempts to fix the problem, electricity returned and we were able to do the show, which was good enough, considering the fact that we were already very happy to be able to produce any sound at all.

Belgium: Athus, Le Marignan We had some luck having to drive relatively short distances the days before, but this day would for the most part consist of driving (well, not me obviously) and watching the road. We had to go through Paris, which, according to everyone who got out alive, is terrible when you’re more concerned with getting through traffic as fast as possible than with killing time being a tourist, staggering around with a videocamera in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. In the last couple of days we became hardcore experts in on the road survival techniques, and succeeded in passing Paris much faster than we expected. Basically all we needed was some random turns on the steering wheel, some pointing with fingers, meanwhile mumbling something totally incomprehensible and throwing in a Goofylaugh right after every smart remark and shouting ‘autres directions’ every once in a while (timing is everything) and making some stops at gas stations for the usual amount of soup, Bifi and a whirlpool of shit. Gas stations have become our second home. As they all look pretty much the same, most of the times I enter one, I will have a distinct feeling that I’ve been here before (things like logical thought are among the first things to rapidly disappear when I am on a tour) and start to feel right at home. I can find my basic needs (Coffee, Red Bull, bacon or tuna sandwich, toilet) blindfolded in any gas station. If someone would place a comfortable couch, a television and a book on medieval torture methods somewhere in the corner of every gas station, I could spend days at these places. Eventually we found the place, a pretty big bar with a really nice stage. The usual bowls of cold vegetarian food were soon brought in. Great gig, drank beer, the usual.

France: Strasbourg, Le Molodoi After seven days of being on tour, I had learned to give up on the idea that it’s easy to combine playing gigs on a daily basis and extensive tourism. As I have been told, Strasbourg is a nice city to hang out for a while when you have the time. All we got to see eventually were some streets around the centre when we were on our way getting lost and eventually found the place. This had been the same thing with previous gigs on this tour and has become routine. After arrival, I usually realise that there’s still some time left to check out some of the city, but then have a beer and decide that’s it’s also a good idea to just hang around at the place, doing just about nothing but waiting and enjoying more beers. Today was no different, especially considering the fact that they had big bottles of beer and warm food. We played a good last show of the tour. It was especially amazing to notice that people even remained totally silent until a looped guitarsound on delay had completely faded out. After an experience like this, I would probably never get used again to people talking out loud during an entire concert, which seems to be the normal routine in Holland.

Epilogue: lessons learned Gone Bald does not have a driver’s license. Gone Bald are carnivores. Gas stations rule. I know I probably shouldn’t judge people by the average number of times they use the word ‘like’ in one sentence, but I do it anyway, proudly, I might add. No matter where you sleep, there’s always a cat around. Bifi may be a internationally acclaimed symbol for the glitter and glamour of being on the road, in reality Bifi-sausages remain untouched and will probably never leave a gas station before the expiration date (and in most cases, way beyond that point). Balki Bartokoumos came from an island named Mypos. It would be nice if there was something like world peace, wouldn’t it?

Some more photo's from France are here

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