The Gig That Actually Brought Us Back Over Here
We were originally scheduled to play at Roots aan de Zaan in June 2020. 5-6 reschedules and 4 years later, we finally played the gig. It was our last COVID-era reschedule, and we had a running joke with promoter Koen Hottentot that instead of making t-shirts with all the tour dates on it (like some bands who are on the “never-ending tour”), we should make t-shirts with all the dates we booked, canceled, and rescheduled, and call it the “never-beginning tour”. Koen has his own incredibly intense COVID story, which he has written about in Dutch (not sure about an English translation) - he caught it fairly early on and it involved being in a coma for some time. Now he is back to health, traveling a whole bunch, hosting and promoting concerts again, and starting a record label. It was good for many reasons to be back and to see him again, and also fantastic to have some of Renate’s famous chicken peanut soup before the show. (I’ve got to remember to ask for that recipe.) Other Roots aan de Zaan stalwarts Dick and Edvard were back as well, so we had a lovely reunion. The show was at a venue called FLUXUS, which is a music school with a nice little theater in the city of Zaandam, just outside Amsterdam. The audience was very engaged in the songs (Dutch audiences can seem almost shockingly attentive to those used to playing for rowdier - or ruder - American audiences), and fortunately for us, they liked to buy CDs too. So we ended our tour with two very good nights playing for intense listening audiences, and got to reunite with some old friends after the previous evening where we made new ones. One of the best parts of this tour business is the connections you make and the people you meet. Nice to finish off on that note, and to play this gig, which finally brought some closure to our pandemic-upended tour schedule. After 4 roller coaster years, we’re finally able to bring things full circle and say we’ve played all the gigs we had booked. And it was very satisfying to have done it with a lovely gig like this one. Now to say a goodbye to our friends in Europe, and head on home to see what the future back in the States looks like.
