GIG REPORT

The Dirty Scene Tour - 10/11/2002 - JH Tydeeh - Mol: Mise*en*Scene - The Dirty Scums - The Thirsty Scums

OWN REPORT - 11/11/2002

Well, this story starts on the mornin' of Saturday 9th November when we unloaded our van from our Friday night gig in home brewery "De Brugse Bierkaai" in Bruges. We discovered there were 2 cases missin' containin' all our cables for our equipment. As the contents of these cases is essential to do a gig, Keez proposed in these early hours to go to search the cases himself later this same day in the pub where we had played. So when we met each other on Sunday before the departure to our gig in Mol, our first question to Keez was how things had been goin' with our cases in "De Brugse Bierkaai" ? At first, Keez didn't understand what we were talkin' about, but then his face became off colour. Holy shit, he was completely forgotten the case about the 2 cases (and that with his name, Keez, case, got him ?). That meant we now first had to drive to Bruges, which is quite the opposite direction of the way to Mol. Also, we had to contact Mise*en*Scene to change the appointment we had with them along the highway. Anyway, much sooner than expected we had the occasion to taste once again the beers of "De Brugse Bierkaai", and then we drove full speed ahead to our appointment with Mise*en*Scene, after which we had to drive about 180 more kilometers to Mol.

We arrived a small hour after the scheduled time in Mol and although they had neglected to send us a roadmap, we quickly found the place to be. Although the gig was announced in the pub with several posters on the walls, there were but a few people in the youth centre. Afterwards we heard the posters were just hung out the evening before ... It was quite a big youth centre, equipped with several rooms, in a recently built construxion it seemed. Many youth centres would be jealous of such an infrastructure, although the place was too high to get a decent sound. We heard the youth centre only moved two months ago to this place, formerly they were located in a much older building. We suppose this was a subsidized youth centre and we can of course only agree with towns that subsidize their youth centres. We started unloading the van and by 9 pm we were ready with everythin'.

In the mean time we had renewed contact with the friendly people of youth centre "De Boogaard" from Geel, a village next to Mol, who where present in Tydeeh. They had already fixed 2 times a gig for us at their place. The last time we played there was in September 2001, together with several other bands, amongst which Spades, a band from the Netherlands. Durin' their gig they had used a piece of our drumset, but afterwards had "forgotten" to give it back to us. They never answered our mails or the mails from "De Boogaard" whose people really felt sorry for us and did all they could to contact the guys from Spades. It was only in March 2002 they finally could pick up this piece at a Belgian gig of Spades, who appear to be real assholes. Several efforts to meet the people of "De Boogaard" again and deliver the equipment failed, but this location now was only 10 minutes away from Geel. In order to please us they had proposed to offer us a crate of beer together with the missin' drumpiece. Well, if you propose us things like this of course ... You should know Mol is only 30 kilometers away from Achel. And what is there to find in Achel ? Well, let's have some beer history too. There are only 6 breweries in the whole world that may brew beer titled Trappist, from which five used to be located in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. In 1999 the last one however could no longer held the name Trappist for its beer. In that same year, the brewery of Achel started the produxion of a new Trappist. However, it's only since last year that you can buy it in bottles (before it was only on draught). So worldwide there are still 6 breweries that produce Trappist beer and since 1999 all 6 are now located in Belgium ! The brewery of Achel however doesn't export their beer to other provinces of Belgium, so this beer is hard or even not to be found in our region. We think by now you can easily guess which beer we had asked at the people from "De Boogaard" to bring along ! And even they had problems gettin' the beer 'cause although Geel is only 30 kilometers away from Achel, it's in another province. Anyway, they delivered us very kindly the Trappist beers, thank you so much, mates ! Most surprisingly, at home we discovered these trappists were dark ones, while to our knowledge, Achel only brewed a light trappist. A small investigation however learned us that Achel since this year also produces a dark beer. There is no difference on the label or on the bottle, just as with the trappists from Westvleteren, only the colour of the capsules is different.

But let's get back to the concert, because that's a bit of the intention of this report, no ? At approximately 9.30 pm Mise*en*Scene started their gig. They started very strong with the Sham 69-cover "Borstal Breakout", after a few moments however, they broke a guitarstring. After a short delay they could restart their gig. The love for Sham 69 is at least one thing we've got in common. People who regularly visit our gigs know that we always include a Sham 69-cover in our encores (next to a cover of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols). Even more, in 1992 we released the tape "If the Barkeepers are united, the Scums will never be divided", which included 11 Sham 69-covers, live recorded. Anyway, M*e*S sounded very solid, and the singer even reminded us in his best moments at the singer of Circle, which is quite a compliment, believe us. The people of M*e*S appear to be a bit of ska-lovers and there's this one song in which they play an almost perfect combination of punk and ska. That's even the musical direxion in which they want to continue, as they told us afterwards. As already said, Geel is just next to Mol, and Geel is worldwide an unique city in the treatment of psychiatric patients. The patients are namely livin' together with non-related families in the town. We can be wrong, but we strongly believe that some of these patients were present at this gig, and gave a great show durin' the gig of M*e*S, a performance in which M*e*S from time to time handy participated. In any way, the crowd really had a lot of fun. Furthermore noticeable is that when we ordered ourselves a Kriek (a fruit beer) at the bar durin' their gig, we received a Lindemans Kriek, which is definetely one of the best Krieks around in Belgium.

It must have been about 10.30 pm when we started to play. Although people confirmed us the sound was OK in the pub, it wasn't really OK on stage. We had several technical problems: the monitors didn't sound as they should, the guitar didn't sound as it should, one of the batteries I used ran out, we replaced it by a battery of M*e*S, which was however in the same condition, a broken guitarstring, ... All these things made we didn't feel on our ease on scene, but obviously people didn't bother. Thanx to the guys of M*e*S, there was also a lot of fun goin' on in front of the stage. So, we believe the gig wasn't really so bad. Around midnight, we were ready to perform The Thirsty Scums, but the technical problems continued. Now there were problems again with Keez' bassguitar, the vocals of Keez and Zjantie were far too loud, and as this wasn't all yet, Keez screwed up the first songs too by playin' other songs than the ones the rest of the band was playin'. Anyway, after some songs, things began to go better and the rest of the set was played decently, although people didn't ask for encores when the set was finished (this was also not really possible as the pub immediately turned on their music after our concert).

Time to get some booze ! Zjantie who is normally our driver (and by doin' so doomed to drink less beer than the others) had asked Keez if he was willin' to drive the way back home. No problem for Keez, so Keez tried to stay off the booze for the rest of the evenin'. And talkin' about booze, there was also this little problem. We always ask a 125 consumptions, for which we normally receive the necessary tickets. This time we received a stamp on our hand, and with this stamp we were allowed to get free booze. Only, after one of the rounds, the bartender asked us to pay for the drinx. It seemed the budget for the free drinx was passed. Only, he wasn't aware that the limit was at 125. It wasn't his fault, as he had been so friendly to open the bar this evenin', while the organizer himself was busy playin' bowlin' at another place ! They just had forgotten to  inform the voluntary bartender about us ... Qrizz from M*e*S, who was the only person who had been in contact with the organisation, had warned us before that the organizer wasn't really a model of a friendly guy. Sadly, in order to check this we didn't had the chance to meet the organizer of this evenin', as he didn't show up at all (must be a real bowlin' addict).  Anyway, the beerproblem got quickly solved after consumin' another pint. There was also this guy celebratin' his 25th anniversary (born in '77 !). In order to do this, he had hired the place but the organizers had double booked the evenin' (The Dirty Scene Tour and the Anniversary Party). The guy wasn't really happy because all of his family was there (o.a. parents and grandparents) and to offer your family three punkgigs on your birthday is a bit too much of a good thing, even when you're born in the holy year of punk itself. The more there was this guy who would do the partymusic, but had to listen to our live-stuff instead. Hey guys of Tydeeh, just make you don't lose subsidies from your town by neglecting too much things. So in the future then there's maybe a chance we once can return to Mol to play an announced gig.

Keez had really done his best stayin' off the booze, only at the end Zjantie preferred now to drive himself the 180 kilometers back home. If only Keez had known ! A stop along the highway however admitted us to buy some drinx and some French pornographic literature in order to fill the rest of the time on the road and to keep our knowledge of the French language up to date. Au revoir !

Dirty Pik