Picture by
Cristel Brouwer

And.... we're on tour again!
It's great to be one more time with the whole band! =D
This first show was soooo exciting for everyone! The magic is definitely there! We had such a good time (well at least I did hehe =P)

The show was very special for me. I was relaxed and played better than in the first tour. I really enjoy being on stage with this band; there's no such thing as a bad gig. We've been having a good time working hard and getting prepared for the concerts ...and then we have such a great start. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the tour.

It was great as well, to see people who went to some concerts during last tour. Thank you for supporting the band! We love to see you guys enjoying our music! That's the best present a musician can get =)

Well, here's some useless information about the backstage haha Before the concert I got a pizza with jalapeño. Yeah! Mexican power! ...oh man, it was HOT!!!! I really didn't expect that. I was all sweaty and my tongue was burning. But I'll get my comeback on the name of my mexican friends!!!! \m/

See you on the next shows! =)

Pictures by
Cristel Brouwer
&
'Visuels'

Don’t really know where to start…. IT WAS SO GREAT!!! After our show in “Het Paard” in Den Haag we were all enthousiastic again about playing live, it’s really the best thing you can do as a musician. I mean, rehearsals are fun too, but giving it all on stage is just priceless!

After Muddy (our driver) picked us up, Dessel in Belgium was the next stop. When we got there, the real feeling came to us, this was it, this is where you dream of as a musician. A big festival (40.000) people, all there to watch bands and have just a lot of fun! We entered the backstage area with our Graspop wristbands (feels soooo good haha) and got in our dressing room. Next to us were the dressing rooms of bands like Y&T, Lacuna Coil, The Gathering, so we really felt special being amongst them. Offcourse Juicy (After Forever) was there too as our bandmascotte ;) We had a very nice lunch there, all the people from the organisation were very friendly, thanks for that again! It takes a lot to organise a festival as big as Graspop, but they did a really good job!

Naomi (our tourmanager) walked us to the stage, which was the biggest we had played so far with SoP, truly amazing. We looked into the tent without the audience and for a moment I thought: “there’s no way it’s gonna be filled with people withing 1,5 hours!!” That’s where my nerves came in!

While our amazing crew was preparing the stage for us, we put on our stageclothes and the closer the gig came, the less words were being said in the dressing room. At 18:00 Muddy drove us from the dressing room to the stage (we felt like real rockstars there for a moment haha) and we had to linecheck. The first steps on stage during the linecheck my knees were trembling, I think they must have felt that at the mainstage…

Then the time was there, we did a grouphug and the intro started… time to rock!! I just can’t describe the feeling of getting on stage and see all those people filling up the tent while you’re playing, it was truly amazing and I will never ever forget that feeling, muchos gracias for that!

We only had 45 minutes to play, so we adjusted the setlist, which we had to get used to. But is was fun, boy was it fun! The audience was great, lots of familiar faces in the front (gracias again!) and faces we hadn’t seen before, which is good!

The whole gig went by in a second for my feeling, but it was the best second of my life so far.

After the gig we changed clothes quickly and went on the festival terrain to watch the other bands who were playing there. Some of us (including me ;) ) stayed the whole weekend and had a really great time. For some Mexicans amongst us it was the first festival they’d been to in their whole lives. And since they fell asleep on the way back on Sunday, the must have enjoyed it hehe!

Next stop: Waldrock! We got the hang of it, so you’d better be there!! J

Stream on!

Pictures by
Cristel Brouwer

Last Saturday July 1st we had our second festival experience at Waldrock, and once again it was a blast!

We started by getting up at silly o clock in the morning because we were playing quite early and it was a long 3 hour drive to the festival area. Still, it was great to once again travel altogether as a band; brings us back wonderful memories from our previous tour! We get to the backstage area, once again surrounded by great bands. The weather was nice and warm, maybe a little too much for our European friends hehe, but us the Mexicans were feeling right at home!

One of the things that made us a bit nervous about playing festivals (besides being watched by thousands hehe) was having to go on stage and perform without a proper soundcheck. But our crew is so incredibly amazing that we haven't felt anxious about that at all! Everything is taken care of so that things go as smoothly as possible for us on stage; and as for the PA sound we have our amazing sound engineer Pieter who using Spellbound as a secret weapon gets a great mix out for the show.

I had the privilege of using a wireless microphone so I had a lot of freedom to move around on stage, it was really cool! Our set was only 40 minutes long but we enjoyed every second of it; we're very thankful to have the opportunity to perform in front of so many people. Especially to always count with our all of you fans and friends who are always there to encourage us and make us want to give our absolute best. Thank you soooo much!!!!

After the show we had a nice dinner, sneaked some backstage beer into the festival area and watched Alice in Chains and After Forever perform; there's no better way to relax and have some fun after a performance! Now we get to rest a few days before going back on stage at De Kade, with our full length set and with totally recharged batteries. I can't wait!!

Ontzettend bedankt en tot ziens ;-)

Pictures by
Stream of Passion

It was a HOT one, but it it was also a really fun gig at De Kade on Thursday!

Our driver Muddy (which they tell me is actually "Modderig" in Dutch) picked us up at Arjen's in the mighty orange Koosbus , and it was a long, sweaty ride to the venue. The ride was made even more arduous because if you don't constantly badger Muddy about the music, he insists on playing mainstream pop radio or CDs of "shitty Muddy metal." Actually, some of the Muddy metal is not that bad, but I made a mental note to make sure to bring at least one RAMMSTEIN CD with us for the rides to and from next two gigs ;-) It should also be mentioned that when we arrived at the destination of our first show this tour, Muddy informed us that drivers require APPLAUSE and CHEERS upon safely reaching the destination. I tell ya, these drivers are getting harder and harder to please... ;-) Seriously though, both Muddy and Tjerk (our other driver) earned their applause in abundance. They remained good-natured despite our constant whining "Are we theeeere yeeeet?", the high-volume RAMMSTEIN (complete with us scraming along), the cacophony of operatic METAAAAALLLL screaming at every pause in the conversation, and the abundant requests for pitstops. The frequent pitstopswere a direct result of the copious amounts of liquids that were consumed as we tried to rehydrate ourselves after that sauna of a gig.

Moving on to the show, De Kade was one of those really special gigs for many reasons. First of all, the support from the audience was fantastic – thanks very much for making it so enjoyable to play for you all. There were many familiar faces in the crowd, including several friends from the forum(s). Some of the forum regulars and other fans had traveled great distances to be with us that night; I know there were people there who had traveled from England, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Italy. Nick from England was there for his 10th (!) SoP show. When he informed me that the next night he'd "go to 11," I realized that it needed to be commemorated (see next tour diary entry!).

Macophie, the unquenchable Queen of the Ayreon message board, had toted gifts with her all the way from England. I am not sure what the others received, but after the show each of the SoP ladies were presented with banana** socks (complete with a delicate banana scent). All three of us wore them for the next show, and I can confirm that they were anything but banana scented when we were finished ;-) While on the topic of bananas, I can reveal that two other forum regulars were proudly sporting the most magnificent banana hats, one of which they convinced Arjen to model (to the delight of the crowd). Apparently, procuring those hats was quite an ordeal involving top-secret collaboration with Chiquita. All I can say is that it was well worth the effort, guys!

It was Davy's favorite show ever, largely due to the fact that he noticed a really pretty girl in the audience singing along with all the songs -- she knew ALL the words! (That would give any of us a big kick!) Apparently there was an entire family there who wanted to have their photo taken with Davy, something he thought was really fun.

We enjoyed some impromptu silliness in the beginning of "When the Levee Breaks." Arjen starts Levee, and normally there are a few seconds of silence between the end of the previous song and the beginning of Levee. But this time Arjen was going for the high-energy, take-no-prisoners approach and went right into the Levee riff in at end of the previous song. I couldn't hear where the heck he was because I hadn't heard the beginning of the riff; his guitar sounded like a blur to me on my side of the stage. So I was standing there thinking: just follow Davy, just follow Davy. (We can always depend on Davy -- he's generally solid as a rock.) But even Davy had been taken by surprise and was unable to pick out the count in what our fearless leader was playing. He had to tell Arjen, "Boss, we have to start over 'çause you screwed it up" or something like that. Naturally Arjen was infuriated by this insult to his riffing prowess, and responded by telling Davy to play the guitar part himself, and that he'd take over on drums ;-) They actually did trade places: Davy took the guitar and Arjen planted himself behind Davy's drums and started playing his best Bonham licks. It was all in fun of course; they went back to their normal instruments and we went on to play Levee as usual.

When I asked our bass player Johan about his highlight of the night, his spontaneous response was that the highlight was his high-five with me after getting through Embrace the Storm with no mishaps. ETS has lots of chords and modulations, and let's just say that it's always been an "eventful" piece to play during rehearsals. Both Johan and I have our worrying bits in that song, and we're both really glad every time we get through it in one piece. I liked the high-five too! :-)

We also had a really silly-but-fun moment during the song Love. Readers of last winter's tour diary might remember that when it comes to the "Even More" line, Arjen always tries to say something that will make us all laugh.Diana and I probably managed to top all his efforts that night, because we spontaneously decided to do our John Travolta impersonations during the "and we danced, and we daaaanced..." line. This made Johan laugh so hard that he, and I quote , "peed in my skirt." Needless to say, we were all laughing so hard that we made a mess of the song at that point, but it didn't matter because we were having so much fun. I had started doing the John Travolta thing during rehearsals, mainly just to amuse myself, but Diana really got a kick out of it. Must be her dance background... ;-)

Thanks again to everyone who shared that hot, sweaty, METAL evening with us! I really wish that this was just the beginning of a much longer tour (it feels like I'm just now getting warmed up -- no pun intended -- and our little summer tour is almost over!).

Pinkie Respect, m/
Lori

**
If you are wondering "WTF is up with the whole banana thing?" here is the explanation. The dancing banana icon is very popular on the Ayreon and SoP forums, usually used as a symbol of glee, merriment or delight. When we see banana hats, inflatable bananas or any other banana item in the crowd, we know that there are friends from forums in the audience. The same goes for "Pinkie Respect" gestures (or screams of "pinkie respect" during the quiet ending of Calliopeia -- I am so naughty for ecouraging you guys to do that!). Anyway, when we see bananas in the crowd and see people exuberantly executing the Pinkie Respect gesture, we know we have a fun and friendly crowd to play for! :-)

Pictures by
MaxxiveMedia
&
Al Rockhaven

What's.o.p. everybody !

To sum up the memories of the gig at Podium, Hardenberg: It was a very special evening. I had a great time playing, just like the rest of the band.

The venue reminded me a bit of Lucky&co in Rijssen where we recorded the live dvd. It had the same shape and interior, but a bit smaller. In the hall it was quite warm, but upstairs (backstage) it was way too hot. That's why I went outside before the show. That's when I met a girl that wanted to be in a picture with me. I ended up getting a picture taken with two girls (don't worry M&J, I still remember your names ;-) A few friends of mine came to the show, which was a nice surprise. One of them brought me a big inflatable banana that said:"Davy rocks" as a present. Of course the rest of the band was jealous about me being the only one to get a banana of that size ;-) It was a nice surprise to me that the friend of mine brought along a S.o.P. fan that he only knew from the message board (and it was nice meeting her in real life).

When I got backstage I found out that there was a family in our dressing room chatting with Arjen. They took a few pictures and left the room. What was so special about this family ? The youngest son of the family was actually named Ayreon !!!

The show was one big pleasure. When I got on stage for the intro of Spellbound I already got an heartwarming welcome. That doesn't always happen, but when it does, it always gives me a good feeling to start the show with. During Arjen's speech he thanked all the people who were there. Especially the people that traveled all the way from Belgium, Germany, but also even Italy and the Zech Republic. He invited one of the fans to get on stage as a very special thanks. One guy from England has seen 11 S.o.P. shows this year, which definitely sets a record. And it's even more special because we only did two shows in England, so all the other shows were in foreign countries for him (Thanx again, Nick !).Eventually Arjen invited Ayreon on stage. People started clapping, but I'm pretty sure that it was a big surprise for most people that Ayreon was actually a person. It was so cute to see 'the mastermind of the rock operas' on stage with a young kid that was named after his projects.

When we started playing again I personally gave everything. I knew this was going to be the last venue gig of the tour, so I was fully enjoying every moment of it. As we came closer to the end of the show I just wanted to give the best I could. The improvised drums solo at the end of the last song was a bit longer this time and somehow I was just full of energy. I had a lot of positive reactions about that drum solo. First from Arjen, but afterwards also from several fans who were quite overwhelmed by it. I was really flattered by all the compliments.

During the meet & greet we got to the hall with a few security guys. I always think it's really not necessary, but the personnel of the venue really insisted. We signed a lot of booklets, but also a banana hat, a T-shirt, a few arms and I remember Johan signing a shoe. Some fans brought us some presents too. I got a T-shirt, a large bottle of beer (although I don't drink) and a home made banana that looked exactly like the banana emoticon on the message board (Thanx again !). It was so much fun to meet so many people that I recognized from the message board.

I'd like to thank the personnel for taking such good care of us and everyone in the audience for giving us such a warm welcome. I had a great time !!!

Grtz, Davy

Pictures by
Cristel Brouwer
&
Stream of Passion

When I first saw the Bospop programming, I was a bit hesitant. No metal and no prog acts. Why did they ask us, would people like us? I warned the band that we might be having a hard time there; the tent might be empty and the few people there might be walking out on our gig. Johan didn't believe this for a second, so we made a bet for a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Before we started I was really happy seeing our loyal fans in the front row. Basically that would have been enough for me to have a good time, you rule! But imagine my suprise...when we started, the tent was actually pretty full. And every time we finished a song, many hands (and bananas) were going up all the way to the back! Instead of people walking out, people kept coming in to check us out -- and stayed! Suffice to say, the magic was there. Both amongst ourselves on stage, as well as between the band and the crowd. When we walked off stage I was pretty arrogant thinking that whoever would write a negative review about this gig would need to have his eyes and ears checked :-) But luckily I've read (important) reviews calling us 'the revelation of the day', yay!

Personally SoP has been the revelation of the year for me. I say it again, what a joy to play with these excellent musicians, who are great people to be around with on top of that. This little tour (three festivals and three clubshows) has been way too short. Luckily we had an unforgettable farewell party (also for Alejandro's birthday) here in my brand new house. Some were fishing in my stream (I believe Joost caught the most fishes) and others were chasing each other through the garden with futuristic water pistols while Rammstein was blasting out (yes, the neighbours already love me).

Needless to say that Johan enjoyed the booze he had proudly won, and I gladly helped him to kill it :-) Furthermore I vaguely remember stuff about 40 naked elves climbing a mountain and Charlie's angels both male and female... hmm...please guys, don't ever show me the pictures of that night...heavy blackmail material!

~ Arjen