Hello from Holland!

A fan shot this photo of me and Adrian Belew in the audience enjoying the music of the other bands playing at Zappanale on Saturday night.

So greetings from Holland! I have to say that our set last night at Boerderij - Zoetermeer was our best yet on the European leg of our tour. Why? Well, for the first time since we arrived overseas on Saturday morning, we finally had all of our equipment. I didn't want to bum anyone out but we were really missing everything in Italy...Adrian had no effects pedals, loops...nothing. At first we thought the airlines had even lost Julie's bass (again) but at least that didn't happen. So we were kind of happy to put that show behind us and hope for the best.

And yep, last night was incredible. The venue was small in comparison to the outdoor festivals we've played so far -- I'd say it was about the size of the The Troc in Philadelphia, but it was packed with enthusiastic fans. They were really into the music and we were finally so relaxed and happy that we could actually do our whole, rehearsed set that we were all pretty much smiling ear to ear all night.

Today we actually have a day off to sightsee! Our flight to Germany isn't until 9:00 p.m. tonight, and tomorrow, oh my god, we are going to play in front of more people than either Julie and I have ever played in front of our lives at the Herzberg Festival. I honestly hear that this is like Woodstock and there will be thousands and thousands of people in attendance. Ha ha - if you look at their webpage and the photos from last year, it even looks like Woodstock and, um, 1969. It should be extremely cool but I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't anxiety ridden over the possibility that our equipment might get lost again on the flight tonight. But I'm keeping calm by telling myself that if that's the case, at least it's a Friday and there are music stores open and many other musicians playing so we should at least be able to beg, borrow and steal (just kidding) in order to properly do our show!

And now at this time, I wish to interrupt this broadcast to bring you a blogpost from my sister, Julie, and here she is backstage at Zappanale last week with former Rock School All-Star and now Penn State University pre-med student Madison Flego, who now works part-time for Rock School as an assistant:


Hello, Julie here!

We are having the most incredible time ever, but it's not without problems. I want to write about all that's happened but I don't want you to think I'm not having one of the best experiences of my life; it's just that we've had some really strange things occur which I'm sure I will laugh about someday and maybe I can make you laugh today.

In just three days we have gone through a rollercoaster of emotions. First, right off the bat we had problems just getting to Germany. Our plane from Nashville was 10 minutes late in take-off and we got stuck in a 15-minute holding pattern in Newark – so we only had five minutes to switch planes. Nobody had eaten all day so we bum rushed a nasty Chinese stand, ordered some vegetables and rice and ran onto our plane – where we waited for 40 minutes because so many people were late. I was still excited though, as the row in front of Eric and me was still unoccupied. I made plans for Eric to move up, so that we’d each have a row of three seats to sleep on. These visions were soon dashed – and in such a fashion as they were filled up by a mother and her two young children. Right off the bat, the screams came from this little Spanish girl, which of course set off the high spirits of a little German boy.
These two then worked together, despite the language barrier, to omit primal screams throughout the flight. One would yelp, the other cried in response. It was some sort of warped dialogue. Anyway, I prefer not to relive that nightmare. So finally I managed to get some sleep in and arrived at the airport still exhausted and gross.

Of course everything came right away, except for the odd and vitally important items – Adrian’s oversized equipment (his amp and all of his effects) and my bass. We went over the overweight section and waited… and waited… and waited. The gear never showed up. We went over to the lost baggage claim and were told that that there was just one more flight from Newark and that it would be same time as the flight we had just taken. Adrian is the nicest guy ever and for the first time I saw that he was going ballistic – he couldn’t have fun and relax until he knew his set-up was coming and understandably so. Ken-gineer made fun of him to try and break the tension and it worked but let me tell you, we were all pretty panic-stricken, especially after the flight from hell. All day we stressed about it – I practiced on Andy’s (Andy Zimmerman, a Rock School All-Star) bass just in case. The next morning, we woke up to find out that my bass did indeed come – but that was all. Adrian was pretty freaked out about his messing gear but he is the consummate pro and regardless of all that happened, the show started and we pulled it off by cutting four songs and doing extended jams. I don’t really remember it at all, just that I was happy with my parts.

That night nobody got any sleep and we had to take two planes – one to Munich and one to Rome. We left at 6 AM and waited at the Munich airport for two and a half hours just to check in. The flights were so nice on DBA – the Europeans really know how to make a plane comfortable – I don’t know what it was about it, softer seats or something.

Our first flight was a little late so we only had a half an hour before our other plane was to take off. I bit my lip running to the next flight, not wanting to express my anxiety that we may lose our gear again. Our flight was again beautiful – I still did not sleep, but at least relaxed the whole way. We arrived in Rome and man; their language is so lovely and easy on the ears.

So this you can't believe. We waited 20 minutes at baggage claim for our flight’s luggage to come out. One by one, the personal luggage streamed out: Eric’s bag, Adrian’s two bags… but that was all. Adrian went over to oversized luggage and came back with the biggest smile as he carted over his two flight cases of gear. But my bass was still not there. He went back and returned to us again ecstatic as he hoisted up my bass. We looked over the gear happily until Ken, Adrian's long-time engineer, murmured, “I still need my bags.”

“That’s fine,” Adrian said, “what are you missing?”

“My personal belongings and my gear… which has all the power adaptors inside of it.” Apparently Adrian had forgotten that in Nashville, we had to shift all of his adaptors into Ken’s bag to more evenly distribute the weight.

“That’s OK,” he said “Bags are still coming out.”

But again we waited…and waited. Finally we walked over to the lost baggage claim again, this time not feeling as dismayed as we saw lots of flights coming in from Munich. Our hopes fell as we saw the long line and one man working the counter. After one and a half hours of waiting (and circling the complex for more baggage claim), we finally made it to the front – only Adrian had to fight with an old guy who tried to cut ahead of us. I thought the usual kind and patient Adrian was going to punch the old man in the face. Either way, Adrian managed to make him get in line behind us and explained our situation to the powers that be.

The man behind the counter pointed to the office next door, and Adrian and Ken quickly ran in. Horror and anger soon consumed me as I looked beside the office door – displayed were tiny signs for several airlines, including DBA. We had been waiting in the wrong line. After ten minutes Adrian resurfaced more dismal than ever: “The bags are in Munich and we can only hope to get them tonight after the show.”

Imagine for a moment our dismay in reliving this nightmare. Not only did we have to rough it again, but we also missed two precious hours in Bella Roma FOR NOTHING. We had to go straight to the gig and figure out what to use now during sound check.

After two more hours of excruciating traffic from the airport, we made it to the venue. As we pulled up, we saw a beautiful park. We didn’t realize that we’d be playing an outside gig. We walked up to the stage and saw folded chairs, a dance floor, and some food stands surrounded by a lake, which was surrounded by beautiful trees. Then we looked in the program for our show, which also comprised of all of the acts that had played and will be playing there this summer. On July 3, the Flaming Lips played there. Next month, Stewart Copeland will be playing there. It was really cool to think we’d be on the same stage. Anyway, this time Adrian didn’t even have his loop pedal, I didn’t have my pedal, and Eric was without his double kick pedal. AND instead of a Marshall, there was a Fender Twin, and Adrian had no distortion. We somehow figured out how to get a halfway decent sound, and retired to the backstage where we ate delicious little sandwiches and good espresso – which I desperately needed at that point. Eric even had one for the first time. The coffee went straight to work, and we came back to our hotel which is when I started writing this blog entry.

Anyway at 10:00 p.m. we went back to the venue and went right to the stage. And if things weren't crazy enough, Eric had a rare, minor asthma attack on stage. He quickly overcame it, but after the show he could not catch his breath. Believe me, I was worried about him and tried to comfort him. Then an Italian woman came in and started massaging him and tried to calm him down. Of course we had called for the van to go back to the hotel, but Eric didn’t want to leave. After about a half an hour, he finally started to get the feeling back in his hands and face (which were numb).

We got back to our hotel at 1:30. I was so afraid I’d miss sleep again. After about ten minutes I finally fell asleep. I somehow woke up naturally at 8:30 and decided to wash my hair – in my shower, which was also my bathroom with a showerhead and a curtain over the toilet. It was really cool in a bizarre sort of way! So that brings me to now, and I’m outside at the hotel writing this next to Adrian and Ken, drinking cappuccinos. They are discussing stories of tours in Italy and hopefully we can come back. If we do, we are doing a more extended tour and that is REALLY something to look forward to.

UPDATE: Holland is insane so far! We are miles outside of any major city -- we're surrounded by cows and people who don't speak English. Eric and I were going to get on a train to go to the Escher Museum in Den Haag. We even walked to the train right next to our hotel. We tried to buy tickets with euros, but the sole cash only machine was in Dutch. We went downstairs to check out the right track for a train. A sign read: Den Haag 12:51. It was 12:50. The train approached and Eric and I looked at each other. Should we get on? We didn't have tickets. Nothing was in English. The sign on the train said nothing of Den Haag, but we knew it was the right track - like going to Malvern on the Thorndale train. Eric hopped on. I hesitated and then I screamed for him to ask someone on the train. The alarm rang, the doors were shutting...

"NO NO NO!" I yelled. Eric jumped off in time. I was freaking out too badly. I looked at the schedule upstairs; the next train was in 8 minutes. I decided not to mess around in a random town in a foreign country, where we had to no contact information. I didn't want to mess up the show. Eric and I went back and forth about what to do on our way back to the hotel. I was starving my face off, and had boullion soup with delicious mushrooms alone at the brasserie in the hotel (only
restaurant for kilometers). I apologized to Eric for freaking out at the train, and we took a picture for the ad for our show outside the hotel. How surreal to see us listed on a big poster!

So I have a bunch of fun things lined up for us to do on our day off in Holland today; tonight is our flight to Germany, and if any of you out there do such things, please light a candle for us now or pray to whatever higher power in whom you believe...and see that the four of us and ALL OF OUR GEAR arrive safely in Germany so that we can put on the show of our lives tomorrow night in Herzberg.

Love,
Julie