The Kortemark-gig was just in the middle of (the first part of) The Dirty Scene Tour: 7 gigs done and after this one 7 more to go in the next 8 weeks (there's one "break" for our 21st Anniversary Gig). The day before we had visited a hiphop-evenin' which wasn't absolutely our thing, so we were ready to kick some ass in Kortemark. On the way to the youth club we visited some pubs in order to hang out some posters announcin' our 21st Anniversary Gig. Remarkable is that the pub "Da Vinci" in Lichtervelde still exists since the start of The Dirty Scums (and even before that) and that it still has the same owners (and of course the same good beer too). When we arrived at De Kanapee, we were the first persons to enter the pub, and we even had it difficult to find someone else in the buildin'). The first thing that attracted our attention whas that this was a rather small pub and that the place to play was in a bizarre corner of it, with not much room to place the equipment, even the fuckin' toilets were bigger.

Anyway, we unloaded the van and while we were busy, Mise*en*Scene arrived there too. It wasn't easy to put all the stuff in the small pub, and the place to play quickly changed in one clew of cables and other things. While we were doin' this, there was metal on the stereo, apparently the DJ wasn't well informed about the punkevenin' to start. It was difficult to handle our P.A. 'cause we had to put it behind the drums and there was also no room to place Zjantie's monitor. And talkin' 'bout monitors: no sound came out of them, they were as dead as a dead chicken (or how do they say this again in English), 'till we discovered that one of the cable-connectors to the ampli was defect, a problem which we quickly could arrange. The place was so small that a clever guy stepped on a box-cable with as a result another defect connector, then we decided to tape the most important cables to the floor. While we were settin' up things, we were also eatin' some French fries (man I hate these words for what is one of the most typical things of our Belgian food), so the soundcheck ended a bit after 8 pm. We then had the chance to have a chat with the organisor who is a contributor to the RifRaf magazine, in whose December-issue some wanker is reviewin' our latest CD. The reviewer starts tellin' we had some real punkclassix in the eighties but that at this day we still can't play or sing and other stuff like that (which are all compliments of course, haha). He finishes by bein' really pissed on the CD and by askin' if someone will tell us that punk is dead. If this album is botherin' him so much, isn't that a small proof that punk is not dead ? And is there not somethin' wrong with a journalist in music when he's declarin' that a certain musical style should be dead ? Anyway, our previous albums were always reviewed very well in RifRaf. The magazine is composed of different people who contribute CD-critix to it, but there's no man behind the whole with a vision. Sad to say, workin' this way never gives a magazine a recognizable face (one album of a band is reviewed very good, another one very bad) and it's this what makes them different from the professional magazines in which you immediately recognize an overall vision. Some years ago, we had the same thing with Maximum Rock'n'Roll: our Ramones-medley was reviewed excellent on our Really High-7", but when the same song appeared on our followin' album, it had a bad review. 

But let's go back to De Kanapee. At about 9 pm, Mise*en*Scene started to gig. By that time the pub was as full of a tin of sardines: much young people (but no punk-outfits), many pretty girls, few people we knew, amongst them however some friendly guys of Nahende Vernichtung. There were also a lot of people who drunk their beers in halflitre-pints and I always have the tendency to find such people sympathetic. The Sham 69-cover of M*e*S sounded again very well to kick off the concert. As singer Bjorn didn't have much place for himself or even to hold his mike, often he couldn't but stand in the line of the boxes, which made they had some troubles with the sound. I did what I could to make it alright, but then there was also a problem with the basscable or -guitar. Anyway, in spite of the technical problems, in the pub they sounded pretty good and I found the gig was quickly finished but that must have been because everybody was amusin' himself. I believe they also changed a bit the order of their songs.

As M*e*S had used nearly all our equipment, the only thing that had to change was the guitar-ampli. When I connected everythin', a hell of a sound came out of my ampli. After checkin' everythin' I discovered I had switched 2 cables. When we hit the stage, the crowd stood just in front of our nose and there were even people who stood nearly behind us on the way to the aforementioned fuckin' toilets. There really was no much space left on stage and when I moved I regularly felt Keez' bassguitar piercin' in my back. There was no other way than to place the mikestandards in the crowd which wasn't very comfortable, so I lost from time to time contact with my mike. The sound on stage wasn't also very good as the amplis were packed too much together. However I believe it was a fine concert and people were amusin' themselves. Near the end of the gig Qrizz brought to my attention that the volume of my vocals was too low, which I suspected already all of the time, but by then it was too late to change or control somethin'. In the last song I still broke a guitar-string. It seems proven that girls and women who are together for some time spontaneously  have their monthly periods together. Well, Qrizz had broken the same guitarstring durin' their gig, he even never had broken this one before. Do bands who play regularly together brake the same guitarstrings: the subject of a new research ? After the gig, people asked for more but I preferred to wait 15 minutes and to start then immediately with The Thirsty Scums. When I controlled the vocals I noticed I had switched the cable of my mike with the one of Zjantie's mike. No wonder that my vocals were too low ! You should know that the volume of Zjantie's vocals officially are as follow: just hearable. Fuck !

We started The Thirsty Scums and thanx to the correxion on the mikes I felt quite more comfortable on stage than before as I now could hear myself singin'. The crowd recognized the Ramones-songs and the fun kept goin' on. Zjantie screwed up an intro, started playin' too slow near the end, Keez fucked up two times some piece of a song (I really don't know why they both do these things) but it all didn't matter, everybody was havin' fun. After the gig, people asked again for more and we gave it to them, we played 5 encores amongst which the Sham 69-cover "Questions and Anwers".

There was no place in the pub to set up our stand, however afterwards we sold 10 CD's, and we had to sign about half of them. It was a hell of a job to pack everythin' in again, but in the mean time I could taste also halflitre-pints. It appeared the club only had one Ramones-song on some sampler, but nevertheless most of the time they played good music. When everythin' was loaded in the van, I again asked a big pint of beer, but this time they gave me a litre-glass ! Halfway this pint I seriously began to feel the weight of the glass in my arms, and I really can't advise someone to drink beer in these standards. When I finished I asked a Leffe, but when I drank it, it didn't taste like a Leffe should taste. I told the barkeeper this wasn't Leffe and he denied it, till another guy said they had given me a Grimbergen instead. Well Grimbergen is not bad too of course but when even the barkeeper doesn't know what he's servin' ... Anyway, I switched over to Hapkin which is a good alternative for Duvel (remember this was also the name of the deceased original singer of The Dirty Scums) and which even is brewed in Kortemark itself ! Kortemark, you should be proud of this. Furthermore I remember havin' talked to a guy who was more than two metres tall and who was recently been beaten up in some Russian town by Russian skinheads. I'm sure of his length and I swear he told it to me like this: I wasn't this drunk !