Tour Diary - Netherlands Day 9

Day 9 – Hold the Plane (08.11.15)

I awoke on Sunday to the smell of sausages, Scotty doing what he does best (after drumming and driving), and decided to go for a walk in the fresh air. Squirrels ran amongst the falling leaves as I discovered all the great features of our holiday park (swimming pool, sports courts, crazy golf) which we wouldn’t have chance to utilize. We set off for Omman at around 1pm, this time only a forty-five minute drive and in daylight too, the weather was finally letting up.

We arrived at a cool biker bar in the middle of a forest, the venue known as Café Calluna. Whereas ‘Café’ in English usually refers to a small restaurant, Jordy informed me in Dutch it means bar or club – just in case you’ve been picturing us playing tiny eateries across the orange country. At Calluna there was a farm and all kinds of interesting structures, like giant motorcycles made of wood and makeshift stages. Inside we greeted the locals and set-up on a nice stage at the end of a cosy bar. It turns out we were crashing a jam session, which they wanted us to open before locals took turns in playing woeful renditions of classic songs.

Feyenoord versus Ajax was on the big flat screen which I enjoyed by an open fire. At full–time we took to the stage a blasted out a five/six song set, not wanting to intrude on the day’s proceedings too much. The set was nicely received and served as a bit of a comedown gig from the highs of the previous four days. Kal did his rounds and peddled some records, reporting back that one good woman had stated that my voice had touched her soul. Johnny quickly commented “are you sure she didn’t say ass-oul?”.

We all ate, except Scotty who ordered a burger three times and they only brought him chips – he was going mental, fully freaking out when it finally arrived, we all did our best to make matters worse. If you’ve ever seen a Mason meltdown you will know it’s a thing of beauty. We chilled and listened to the horrendous jam session, some good musicians but they were throwing the groups together and there was little coherence. Jordy and the guys were pressing me to get involved but I never cave. The highlight was easily a five-year old Dutch girl singing George Ezra in broken English.

We packed up and headed back to our house in the evening. I got the knock-back at the swimming pool so settled for the couch as Scotty grilled more burgers and we chuckled at more Family Guy then brokered some interesting conversation over a 'Discovery' show about Red Dwarf planets.

Up at 5am we had the house tidied, our gear packed and hit the road bang on time. Jordy was impressed and remarked that this was a rarity amongst his touring bands. Unfortunately the one-hour plus journey transformed into a four and half hour nightmare of traffic jams, mainly stemming from some large accident in Amsterdam. Our heads dropped as the realisation sunk in - we had missed our flight!

Eventually arriving at Schiphol we hit the Easy Jet desk and quickly re-booked. Missing our 10am flight meant either a 1.15pm to Liverpool at the cost of 1000 Euros or another Manchester flight at 5:15pm for half the price. All our merch money subsidised the cost as we began the task of killing seven airport hours. We were briefly re-united with Sit Kitty Sit who were flying out to Gatwick to continue their tour in the UK, it seemed almost an age since we’d hammered the Reeperbahn with them and drunk until dawn on that first night in Germany.

The day proved what good friends we all are – everyone got on, laughed and didn’t do any complaining. We accepted our fate and went about making the most, the time passed quickly. I scored my ladies some matching Miffy clog slippers and a giant Toblerone (naturally). The flight was swift, Mason, Kal and myself sharing one final victory beer as we rode the turbulence. We got home around 8pm and the welcome I got melted my heart, making everything worthwhile. Our nine dates in Europe were over, taking our grand total overseas to fourteen with a taste for much more. However, there are some big irons in the fire before we can contemplate embarking on another such adventure. So, blacksmithing under way, the Senton story continues...
 

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