Brussels

We also had a hard time filling out this date, as our Belgium and Netherlands contacts didn't pan out. So, the week prior the tour, we were just looking for a place to stay between Ghent and Luxembourg. We made it to Brussels; obligatory frites & such - here's a couple of shots of La Grande Place:

A friend of mine from Montreal, renowned tattoo artist Yann Black called in a favor to his friend Kostek from La Boucherie Moderne, a fellow tattoo artist and musician, for us to stay over at his place. Turns out, Kostek was into having a gig in his home at the last-minute. He lives in this large three-story warehouse, which he also uses as his private tattoo parlor and a jam space (basement).

Aidan & I put the word out about this "secret private home gig" through our social networks, and I took care of taking reservations by email. We got around 20 RSVPs, while Kostek invited his friends to the event. Not bad, all things considered.

We decided to use the tattoo parlor as the stage, and went to get a bass and guitar amp stacked on top of each other as our sound system... I didn't want to run any beats through those amps, nor did I want to use much distortion for a home gig.

Also, there was a guy who brought his two kids, age 6-8 maybe... and they were standing in front of the stage the whole time, chattering, making noise & being hyper! (I learned from their dad that they were wearing earplugs). It was a weird gig... But the people seemed to have appreciated. The hat was passed around, and we got a decent amount for gas - not bad considering it was supposed to be another day off. Everything went better than planned... that is, until the after-party started and it all became spiraling-ly weird from that point on.

After the show, the host decided to go to bed early while "our guests" left the premises to go home. However, our host's guests somehow decided to stay over to party... And it went on for a while. On top of that, the kids that were at the show were asleep in one of the bed's where Aidan & I were supposed to sleep in. We didn't know how to kick them out, as the guy in charge basically told us that they wouldn't leave.

Our host finally came back downstairs to kick everyone out, except of course, the kids... So he threw a couple of those self-inflatable tents in the living room. Aidan & I flipped for it and I got the bed, while he took the tent on the stage and slept in there, while the guests were slowly leaving.

But the kids woke up in the middle of the night, panicked as they didn't know where they were. They were running around, bumping into things, screaming their lungs out trying to find their dad in the dark... Aidan had to deal with all that and had tried to calm them down as they were looking on the stage into his tent to see who was up there. When the kids found their dad, passed out on the couch and unable to wake him up, they were completely traumatized and just sat at his feet, scared and quiet... I actually did not hear any of it as I was pretty passed out myself due to a Jupiler, Leffe & Chimay beers w/ a smoke-filled house intoxication... on this bed in a closed corner: