Utrecht & Wüerzburg

I got up early around 8:30am and hung around with Davy, took a walk with Mike, and the weather was beautiful.

Everyone else was up around noon. We had breakfast, which basically included whatever was left over from last nights food. We said our goodbyes and headed out on the road to Utrecht. 

--

The show in Utrecht was awesome. A great second show.

We're staying at a bed and breakfast, and I'm gonna get me a nice shower. On to Germany tomorrow. 

--

Woke up, had a nice sleep, and we get treated to a nice home cooked breakfast by our b&b host. 

Afterwards, we're back in the van, and on our way to Wüerzburg, Germany. 

On our way, we stopped off at GateToHell (the back line company) to drop off one amp we weren't going to use, and exchange another amp because it didn't work the first day in Belgium. Luckily, we're always prepared, and had a backup for those shows. While waiting, Joel professed his love to a rose bush. 

--

The venue felt like an underground bunker, or a weird tiny parking garage, but the show room was nice and intimate. The bartender gave us some club-mate. A drink we can only find in Germany, and it's delicious. 

Off to Bad Kötzting tomorrow. We're playing Void Fest. 

Belgium

Packed in the van like sardines, the initial pack of the gear is always sub-par. After tonight's show I'll have to remedy that. My goal in packing is almost always about maximizing the comfort in the main cab. 

On the drive to Belgium I'm drifting in and out of a haze between tiredness and hunger. The airplane food wasn't too filling, and I'm ready for dinner, even though, at the time of writing this, it's only 2:30 in the afternoon. Jet lag is a bummer. 

--

Got to Belgium, and our first show on this tour is our friend Davey's bands practice space. It's along side a school, and some of the children came up to us while loading out and asked about us. They were speaking Dutch though, so Davey had to translate. 

Since the space is small, I won't be using the rented drums (at least not the whole kit). I'll be using the kit that's in the practice space along with my own snare and cymbals. Before we left home, Matt was in touch with Mike (our tour manager/driver in Europe) and the rental company in Germany (gatetohell.net) and decided with Lufthansa's crazy new luggage overages, we'd rather not take Matt's guitar amp head, and just get a rental. 

Gatetohell actually let us have another amp for free, which was exciting. We joked that it would break the first day...and lo'and behold, the effects return that Matt need to use is busted. 

So for this show, Matt will use the backup head we have, and we'll figure out the rest as we go. However, even though I'm not playing the full rental kit tonight, I did take a look at it, and am completely stoked about the Ludwig kit I got. 

--

The show was a lot of fun. We're all really tired, so I'm hoping we actually played well. There were people from the UK and the U.S. There too, which is rad. 

After we said our goodbyes, we drove with Davey to his town, making a short stop off for some much needed delicious foods. 

--

Headed back to Davey's house afterwards. It's still under construction, so we're having to sleep on inflatable mattresses and couches, but I'm okay with that. Sleep time now, tomorrow, Utrecht. 

To Frankfurt and beyond...

One of our least favorite airports in the world, yet ironically, our most visited, we begin our European journey in Frankfurt, Germany. The travel experience, however, has been a thorough 11 out of 10, mostly because we arrived stupidly early, as well as evading Lifthansa's silly one checked bag restrictions and weight limits. The airplane food still sucked though. We're getting picked up at the airport, hopefully getting some food, and then heading to Knokke, Belgium. We'll assemble and test the gear, and then play a show tonight. Extremely tired, but excited. 

--

Long overdue.

A long overdue first post in...forever. Many apologies to anyone that actually reads this. There was an article about us (Rosetta) recording the new record on a website called HeavyBlogIsHeavy.com which featured my photographs taken whilst recording. I still have yet to write an update on our tour last year in China, but...I'll get to that eventually. Today Rosetta leaves for a three week European tour. Joel from the band Junius will be filling in on bass for Dave for the tour, but he'll be back with us in the fall. Stay tuned, because this time, I'm actually going to be posting tour updates in as much detail as possible.