JH 't Ipperste is since about 5 years located in a recently constructed buildin' and it has all a youth club should have, lucky youth of Oostrozebeke. A week ago we had already visited the place when there was a hiphop-evenin' goin' on. This is not exactly our cup of tea but we came to see our friends from Kut. Sadly, they just had finished when we entered the club. There were more than 200 people for the hiphop-thing, so we also expected a lot of people for our punknight. It's the gig of The Dirty Scene Tour which is the closest to our hometown, so we arrived pretty soon, at about 6.15 pm. People were still busy with settin' up the stage and cleanin' the place. That didn't keep them from askin' us first what we would like to drink. To ask people what they prefer to drink when they come to your place is a common politeness I learned from my parents, but it was nevertheless the first time in this tour that people asked us this when we entered. We made acquaintance with Fat Ugly Bastard who was our contactperson via mail but he wasn't as fat and ugly as I had imagined.

We began settin' up things on a rather big stage with help from the persons of the youth club and our new roadie Steven. The place to play is located at the first floor but there was a lift, so there were no special forced needed. I feared for our P.A. bein' a bit too small for this big place but thanx to the friendly guys of the pub we could connect it to a second ampli and two additional loudspeakers of the club. When we started the soundcheck, we discovered that the fuckin' loudspeaker of Keez' bassampli was broke ! Mise*en*Scene had already arrived but as they always use our bassampli we had no solution for this problem. One of the guys of the youth club told us that when he hired his new home some time ago, he had discovered in the summerhouse of it a bassampli, so he went after it. I found this a crazy story but when he returned we finally could soundcheck and we succeeded in findin' a good sound.

In the mean time people arrived, but not in the numbers we had seen the week before. A lot of people had told us to come, but none of them was actually there. Finally there must have been about 70 people - hiphop seems to be more popular than punk - but I don't complain: since I saw Dead Moon playin' one of the best gigs I ever saw in my life in front of about 20 people, I've become very modest for what concerns the number of people who come to watch our gigs. We noticed our former roadies Sacha (and his pregnant girlfriend, I didn't know he was capable of doin' other things than drinkin', haha) and Boone, but besides them we didn't know much people. We always had problems with our former roadies: mostly they effectively helped carryin' our stuff out of the van but at the end of the evenin' we not only had to put everythin' in the van again ourselves, but we also had to carry the (drunken) roadies in it.

Mise*en*Scene kicked off at about 9.30 pm, they started very good and played on the same high level for the rest of the set. The sound was excellent as well on stage as in the venue. They played on my guitar-ampli and it gave them a heavier sound than playin' with their own. Qrizz had afforded him a wireless thing for his guitar and he took advantage of it to jump regularly off stage, and there was quite some space there 'cause most of the people preferred to hang near the bar instead of near the stage. In the mean time, we had our stand open with all the stuff from our mailorder, but not much people paid us a visit. So we could easily watch and follow the gig of M*e*S for 100 % and again we could notice that singer Bjorn is really very good in the heavier songs or in the heavier parts of the songs. This was definitely one of the best gigs we had seen of M*e*S.

Before we started I succeeded in gettin' some more people comin' closer to the stage. I believe we played a very decent set with a good sound and with almost no technical problems. There should be more places like this. Also the Thirsty Scums' set was good, although Zjantie had again the tendency to play on a reduced tempo. Next to the stage were seats and a table for an improvisated backstage place and I noticed M*e*S usin' it durin' the Thirsty gig. Hey, this is not the place to be when we're playin', unless you're so drunk you can't stand on your feet anymore or when you're 80 years old, no ? We received a lot of compliments afterwards, however few people were interested in buyin' a CD, while you know they're not at all expensive ! Anyway we sold 7 of them.

When everythin' was back in the van I was very thirsty and there was a lot of beer. No doings with tickets or so, we just had to ask what we needed. People who like the Ramones and who like us will have noticed that last year the CD "Ramones Forever, an International Tribute" appeared, a CD on which we figure with our Ramones-medley. We also noticed a lot of reviews on this CD on the net. No one however had asked us our permission to use this song, no one had told us of its existence, and we even hadn't received a single free copy of it. Anyway, last year I ordered and paid a copy through eBay, but then I never received somethin'. Why am I tellin' all this ? Well, there was this guy who told us he had been on holidays in New York and he had bought this same CD in a local shop there. I told him our story about this CD and he went home to collect the CD and he gave it to me ! What a friendly guy, big kiss to you !

We stayed till we were about the last visitors in the pub of this very friendly youth club. Keez had a day off with his volleyball-team, so for one time he could sleep a bit after a gig. You should know that he usually has to be at 9 am Sunday mornin' on the field ! Few people will follow him, believe me. For what concerns me: a bit after noon I had to be in my native village to drink a lot of pints with former schoolmates for the yearly carnival. And for what concerns Zjantie: he had to take part in this carnival procession with the fanfare he plays in, I saw him and he looked pretty good, haha.