WAY, WAY, WAY OUT WEST EUROPEAN TOUR - 2011: Gig 7: Sat arvo 3rd Sep

Traveling the autobahn once again, we quickly make our way towards the border but before entering Belgium we cross the border into The Nederlands briefly then it's back to Belgium.

The old GPS has lead us up a little farm road with only a sports centre and plenty of vacant land surrounding us.......oops, have we been lead astray?
We decided to head to the nearest Service Station first and it so happens that the guy behind the counter picked us straight away as potential patrons of this festival and so gave us the exact directions to get there, seems Tyne GPS was just a little off......it was kind of across a big paddock that you couldn't see or get to by car. So we eventually found the entry and the fantastic surroundings they had established this festival in, beautiful tall forests with a small lake and plenty of camp grounds around it. An extremely professional setup for such a big outdoor event. Officials everywhere, artist entry points with our own shower and toilet demountable and parking right behind the main performance tent, which allowed us to park our 'Winnebago' right near the backstage/greenroom area.....we felt like real rockstars....hahahaha. Huge spread of food for all the performers and an endless supply of beverages......it was the 'never empty' fridge ;)

We made ourselves familiar with the surroundings then caught some of the first act that afternoon which was the Big Bayou Bandits from Belgium. Nice mix of Cajun, Hillbilly and Rockabilly with squeezebox, washboard, etc. Then it was our turn, man....was it hot and humid....was like a summers day back on the Gold Coast, before we even hit the stage sweat was dripping of us. We kicked off with our regular Hillbilly set which seemed to go down well and it looked like we definitely grabbed there attention from the getgo which was nice to see. We got about 3 or 4 songs from the end of our set when the heat began to affect Leo's strings and one by one they busted and popped out leaving him with just 3 strings to finish off the show, so what else can you do but go a little crazy. He threw his guitar over his shoulder and we carried on with the last few rockin' tunes without acoustic guitar.....it was very Rock'n'Roll.....sweat, broken strings, wild vocals and cowboy boots kicked off (Leo got too hot with his new boots on) :D

All in all a good day for the sale of some CD's and T-Shirts and a few autographs thrown in. So we then hang backstage for a bit meeting some of the other performers from UK young band, 'Knoxville' and 'The Caesers' as well as '49 Special' (from Portugal). Met a couple of Burlesque performers from both France and the USA as well.

So back to our problem with no more strings for the acoustic guitar and it being a Sunday the following day......no Music shops open and we had a show todo in Hoorn, The Nederlands the next night. So after a quick chat to one of the sound technicians at Rockabilly Day, we discovered he had a full new set at his house, so the next morning before we left we headed back to the festival and bought them off him....all set now!

We hung around for some breakfast, we also met up with our friend Catherine who happened to be in Belgium too, so she hitched a ride to Hoorn with us the next day then she was heading back to France.

Back on the road for a 2 1/2 drive to Hoorn via Amsterdam.....the road trip continues.