05.27.09: Amsterdam @ Melkweg

It’s the 3 in the morning. There’s crust in our eyes and whiskey in our blood. We stumble out of the van towards the service station paninis. Merch and backline are sprawled out over the parking lot, and I'm not sure if we should perk up, or continue in our half-dazed states.

Up until this point, we'd been anticipating this very moment: the tour bus. Mouths drop like white gifts from a seagull-filled sky. The shuttle door opens and shit, it’s Mr. Steve (along with our new Sound Guy Dominic). Mr. Steve keeps a tight ship, and for two weeks, we’re going to be his sailor bitches. He’s been doing this 17+ years, although that’s just some number I made up. We spend an hour arranging, and rearranging the gear. Somewhere in there Jared realizes it's cold, and realizes he can't find his jacket. The theory: it went missing at The Great Escape. Unfortunately, in addition to an almost-empty pack of cigs, and maybe a wallet, he also left his passport in his blazer. Hopefully it's not an omen.

We have to truck on. After checking out our spacious tour-mobile, we pass out in our individual bunks. I made sure I had a top bunk. I’m a topper.

It's bright out and there's a mist in our lungs. We wake up in Amsterdam and a parked cop car is blocking the bus. Cursing, spitting, none of these happen as we make it to the front of the venue. Laundry. We need to do laundry. Caféshop. Me and Jared need to do caféshop.

Our search for hashy mind expansion finds us in a bar, complete with laughing sycophants. There are numerous vaporizers there; 8 of them in fact. So we read the instructions, which are just pictures that explain why we can’t work the vaporizers. Ten minutes later and we realize we need a pipe from the bar. The bartender calls us dumb American motherfuckers under her breath. But coming from a Dutch-Jamaican woman, it sounds arousingly charming.

Screw it. We roll a spliff downstairs and walk back. All Jared wants to do is not puke. All I want to do is shrooms, which are impossible to obtain these days. What the hell am I doing walking around Amsterdam then?

While my threads soak in the venue's laundry room, Cole and Jared leave to chill with Deerhunter. The venue Paradiso is just up the road, so me and Martin take off not long after. Moses and Lockett greet us at the cathedral entrance, and we follow a red line on the floor towards the backstage. Bradford and Josh are smoking mid-grade Euro cigs, while laughs and half-filled glasses of Maker’s Mark light up the room. We leave Deerhunter to their vocal exercises, which always end in a big group hug.

About an hour later, Bradford comes by our venue to enjoy some entrecote, merlot, and a much-deserved helping of merch. That’s when I hear the first band play Dead Moon/The Lollipop Shoppe’s ‘You Must Be a Witch’, which is now part of the BL’s setlist. And of course, the Black Lips had to play it. Again, I couldn't check out the show since merch was outside. At least I had cups of Jameson lined up.

With handfuls of burning hash and cigs, we head to Paradiso to meet back up with Deerhunter. It takes us twenty minutes to check out the discotheque; it was covered in suck. And of course, they split early.

Back on the bus, we enjoy competitive Tetris when I need a toke break. I stumble through a gauntlet of Caucasian-American legs, and stumble out of the bus. Outside, I run into the band that played on the other side of the venue; it’s New Found Glory. New Found Fucking Glory. Yea, I knew they were playing. I could even hear them playing from merch. But to actually see these dudes at 4AM, outside our bus, asking me if I wanna smoke? No way could I say no.

And I gotta say, they’re pretty nice guys.