Summer Darkness After

I've just woken up an hour or so ago and I feel great (Except for my voice which has gone), so here i'd like to post the things that have come to pass this weekend, starting with the friday:



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Friday was the day we (Fertile Reality) had to play as a opener for the Summer Darkness CMI night.
First we had to pick up Pieter (Kratarknathrak) at his place so we wanted to leave at 13:00, well the very heavy rainfall stopped us from packing the car (2 seconds out in the rain rendered my umbrella useless, so I quickly forgot that idea. 30 minutes later the rainfall was at an acceptable level and I could finally start loading the car. so a lot later than planned we finally arrived at Pieters place and we were quickly under way to pick up the ordered t-shirts in amsterdam.

If we had a choice we had picked those up a day before but the shop was closed :S. So we got into a few traffic jams and arrived in amsterdam perhaps an hour or more later than scheduled. The shirts where nice and we quickly payed for them and were off again this time to the final destination, Utrecht. Again we came in a few traffic jams at both amsterdam as utrecht. So we arrived there one hour and fifteen minutes past our original planning and thus we had missed Estampie play, which we wanted to see before we got to do a sound check. Finding a spot near the ekko was easy, because we found a spot litteraly 15 feet from the entrance.

The soundcheck went fast and easy, so we could relax again. At 19:00 we had to play and so we did. The crowd was perhaps some 75 people, not too much but most certainly not disappointing, they were afraid of the stage though... dutch people always seem to be :S. I think the concert was great and the crowd even though a bit held back enjoyed it. We've got it all on audio and video so we will try to make a small SVCD from it and will put one song on the website.

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Saturday we first went to see Tantrum, nice music but not really my style. The Birthday Massacre was nice but also not really my cup of tea. After these two we went to the Tivoli (oudegracht) because the better acts were playing there.
First we got to see The Azoic, a fine band which I know quite some time already. but just before the show I saw Kristy at the door to the backstage which was locked (as had happened a few times when we played there with The Mission) so I told her to ask the guard and wished her good luck. (this actually happened twice that evening).

keyweed whom I bumped into there (didn't know he was comming to the festival :S) didn't know them (shame on you because when we dj't together I played them). Keyweed loved them as much as I already did and I danced my ass of :). I totally loved the show and the new songs were great. Especially Corruption was a great succes, the people here were cheering at the introduction, nice to hear!

After the show we went for a bite to eat. We went to a greek restaurant, nice food :) after we were just in time to see Flesh Field of which i had high hopes, but they were smashed because the vocals were really bad, so after a few songs I left to sit in the hall and talk to friends. After some while I bumped into Kristy again and thanked her for the show, she said to get back and talk some more in a few (which became more than a few minutes but that didn't matter). When she returned we talked a lot and had a few laughs, really great. When Diary of Dreams started I wanted to see it because I had seen only half a show a few months earlier. everyone joined me into the hall and I think we all agreed that their show lacked energy, probably due to the gig they gave at Mera Luna a day before. We talked to Kristy some more and after a while decided to go to the industrial dance night in the Helling together, so we went to Dance.

At the helling the music was loud, harsh and danceable, my feet were hurting but hey, that was to be expected.
after a while we said goodbye to our new found American friends and found ourselves going home not long after.

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The sunday started out with Syrian, an Italian (i believe) dance act, I must say that it was nice enough, sometimes perhaps a bit dodgy due to it sounding really trancy, but i didn't mind.

Unter Null was kinda harsh but the sound was totally screwed up, too much feedback from the vocoder and the beats/synths were not really defined. The act didn't lack energy though. After 30 minutes they got of stage, I still don't know why exactly but they cut their show short... perhaps their laptop broke or something.

Glis was okay and halfway through our American friends joined up with us again. Again we laughed, talked, enjoyed a dance and music. the Cruxshadows had started their show which remains quite impressive, the contact between audience and the singer is a thing which makes them loved all over the world, there is something to be learned there.

After the show we had a hard time deciding what to do, either walk 30-40 minutes to see a bit of Statik Sky or go to the oude gracht. We went for the latter, but when we got there we saw therion was still playing and most of us didn't want to go see a metal band and somewhere along the route to tivoli we heard about the urge to visit the red light district, and so we did, first visiting the Dom church and a greek take out since we all hadn;t eaten for a while.

The red light district itself was like sooo small, just one small street. Not that the A'dam one is very big but considderably bigger (Near Wood told us the a'dam one had about 500 windows, this one perhaps 20).

After this small excursion we went back to the tivoli for the dance night, which was okay and at some times we danced our asses off again :) a lot of talking having fun and laughter passed and then it got time to leave... so we said goodbye to our friends, but where then invited to tag along to another cafe of which I had forgotten the name again. So no goodbye after all, a few drinks and a few hours later it was time to say goodbye again, nobody liked to do so, but alas it had to be so, and as such we said goodbye and the evening got to an end and with that so did the festival.

When looking back I can only say that it was a crazy but memory filled weekend and I want to thank the Azoic for the wonderful times and off course not to forget our crazy scott with the running gag of us stalking him and vice versa.


this weekend was great, pictures are to follow.