Hertals Rocks!

Herentals town centre - Parking at a Premium.....

Just back from a festival in Herentals, Belgium, a lovely little town with a Fairy-tale feel about 40k east of Antwerp. The festival drops a syllable from the town’s name for some reason. Go figure. Probably influenced by ‘textspeak’. Because we were taking quite a bit of kit, we opted to approach this as a ‘road trip’, and so I flew over to the UK to join the rest of the lads from BC Sweet and we took Marc’s van and drove down through the Channel tunnel.

Coffee break and van re-pack after selling the bricks of Heroin (kidding)

We had a bit of fun on the way, just like the old days, with an exhaust splitting in two courtesy of an unmarked speed bump near Tunbridge Wells (thank you, local council) and had a couple of stops en route, deciding to risk getting to our destination and getting it repaired there, which proved to be the best solution. When we arrived in Herentals, we found the whole town in the grip of a local fair, and access to the Hotel was nigh on impossible, so we parked as near as we could and lugged everything by hand over there between the fairground rides and beignet stands, before collapsing into bed to grab a few hours kip before the show.

We were due onstage at 1 a.m. , directly after The Boomtown Rats, who, even without the presence of a certain Mr. Geldof, played a great set, and a particularly interesting version of “I don’t like Mondays”. As it happened the show was running late and we were still belting it out as 3 a.m. was fast approaching!  I think it’s the latest I’ve been on a stage since I ‘earned my spurs’ playing in clubs in Denmark back in the 70’s!

As we were preparing to go on, the sky was treating us to a spectacular light show – forked lighting ripping across a thunder-laden backdrop. The vicious tail-end of Hurricane Katia was caressing the city of Antwerp, and looked or all the world as if it was going to rain on our parade, but mercifully, she grumbled her way Northwards, shaking her bad-tempered petticoats elsewhere.

These kind of shows are our bread and butter, and if they are successful, it’s usually in spite of themselves. By that I mean, all possible obstacles are stacked against you – the lateness of the hour, the lack of sleep, the long hours of travel, the unfamiliarity of the crew and the equipment. This makes it all the sweeter when you get out there and rock, and we did.  I was very happy with the show, and we even managed about four hours sleep and a (relatively) leisurely breakfast before hitting the road and heading back to the tunnel.

band meeting

A big thanks to the people of Herentals for making us feel so welcome – it was a great weekend!

L-R: Kev, Mike, Marc, Pete

Onstage photos by

Sascha Staginski

Kev Moore