The 5th gig already of this month was in Jabbeke. Back in September 2002 we visited a (newschool-)punkfestival called Broekrock in Hertsberge. There I received a phone number from someone who advised me to call this person in case we were interested in a gig in the youth club of Jabbeke. Independently from this, I received in October a mail from these guys in which they asked if we were interested in playin' on their summerfestival in July (of course we were), but we didn't receive an answer back. In November I passed this phone number to Qrizz, and in December JH Utopia proposed us to play in the youth club or on the festival in July (of course we answered that we were interested in both). Finally in December we got a contract to play in the youth club. The festival, "Rock over Jabbeke", had their first issue in 2002 with a.o. Red Zebra, Belgian Asociality, Flatcat (whose hometown is Jabbeke, by the way), ..., sadly they had only about 150 visitors in a tent with a capacity for 1500 people. This resulted in a financial debacle and there will be no second issue anymore, as they told us later this evenin'.

The youth club is located in an industrial zone, which we found after havin' asked the way to a pretty lady in the centre of Jabbeke (I indeed had a very good excuse to have a chat with this beauty). The pub of the youth club is rather big but this wasn't the place to play, they showed us a concertroom behind the pub, a venue which was rather mega and with a capacity for about 350 persons. They expected a minimum of 150 people this evenin', they told us. However we first proposed to play in the pub and as this wasn't possible we then proposed to move the stage to the middle of the venue, but this wasn't possible either. I feared for our P.A. bein' too small: our contract indicates that in case of a pubconcert we can take our own P.A. with us, but the dimensions of this venue were far from what a pub normally looks like. Anyway, some sympathetic people helped us unloadin' the van and we received a crate of cooled Maes-beer. The stage itself was very large and there was also a big lightsystem. We were there pretty early, at about 6.30 pm, but we needed a lot of time to search for a good sound in this big hall. Most of the things went well, but the drums sounded awful, it was already after 8.30 pm when we had found a more or less decent sound with help from Guido, drummer of Mise*en*Scene. Then Qrizz tried to test his wireless guitarsystem for the fourth time already, but for the fourth time in a row again in vain.

We received some delicious sandwiches from the youth club and after havin' eatin' these, we took a closer look at the venue to search for the announced 150 people. Well, this was a bit of a disappointment as I noticed only about 30 of them. Amongst them we recognized some guys of the B52 where we have a concert the 10th of May, some members of Crapulius Ceasar (who have done some recordings recently), and Geert, great organizer of the yearly free VeloRock-festival in Oostende, where we played in 2001 with also the Marky Ramone Group on the bill but sadly Marky was ill this day and preferred to stay in the fuckin' US of A ...

It was about 9.30 pm when Mise*en*Scene started to play. The sound was very decent and I was proud on our small P.A. that it could stand in a hall of these dimensions. M*e*S played - as usual - very well, there were some mistakes included but the origin of this could be found in the grass that was consumed backstage. They also tributed our Keez from whom it happened to be his birthday and they served him a small tartlet. Well done guys. Worth to say is that the lightshow done by someone of the youth club was excellent.

In these times of this illegal war against Iraq, it's clear that nearly every Belgian is against this crime and that few people understand the foolish American patriotism. However, I couldn't believe my ears when somebody succeeded in puttin' Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" on the stereo, an American patriot anthem that can count (although denied by some Sprinsteen-fans). Shame, shame, shame, but let's suppose it wasn't voluntary. In order to move the people who stayed in the pub to the venue, I asked if they would be so kind to shut down the music in the pub. When we started to play we had the chance that everybody present stood in front of the stage, otherwise it would have been a pretty weird sight with tens of metres of free space before the stage. We played very good, decent sound, few mistakes, no technical problems, some people dancin', yeah it was good. As usual we played "No more war", a song I wrote after havin' seen another thrillin' documentary on WWII done by the late Maurice De Wilde. And while we're talkin' about the war: after havin' seen a documentary on the impact on the soldiers' health of usin' uranium durin' the first war against Iraq I wrote "American Boy", figurin' on our "Proud to be punk"-CD. But let's not mention the war anymore and let's go back to some fun. I had noticed this beautiful girl wearin' a T-shirt sayin' in big "Use your brain". Durin' our gig I asked the public if they had seen this girl and she was behind the bar. She gently came forward to the stage and I told her nicely that usin' my brain would be the last thing on my mind when bein' with her ... I dedicated the next song to her and this was "Show me your tits", I saw she surely had a sense for humour. And while we were busy on the sexist way I also dedicated the "Givin' good head"-song to another beautiful lady with a lovely pair of lips. And for not excludin' any girl, the French can-can was meant for every girl in the place !

The gig of The Thirsty Scums started good, but in the second song I broke a guitarstring, after which I quickly switched from guitar. While doin' this, I noticed that the battery of my wireless guitarsystem was runnin' out. Damned. I asked Qrizz if I could use one of his batteries and he had to search for one in his car. We were then ready again for song number three, but in this song Keez broke a string from his bassguitar ! We could use the bass from M*e*S but it first had to be tuned, time Zjantie and I filled up with some of Led Zeppelin's "Whole lotta love". So we had again some wasted time after which we started song number four. I couldn't believe myself when I broke on my turn again a string ! I had to put a new string on my first guitar but after this we finally could start for real. The people loved the Ramones-songs and everybody  was dancin' to it. It was fun and after havin' done all our Ramones-songs, we could still do some encores. For the third time already this evenin', the lightshow was done very well.

After the gigs we sold 8 CD's while - same as in Koersel - nobody had come to take a look at our stand. It was a lot of work to load the van again but let's not bother you with this. There were almost no special beers in the pub, so I drank some Duvel, sadly for one or another reason it was impossible to drink Duvel there in a glass which is not funny for an old beer-lover like I am. The youth club receives its place freely from the town and if I understood well, the bartenders are no volunteers but are paid from the town, I never heard before of such arrangements. Sadly they have a closin' hour, 2 am, and these paid bartenders can't but follow this order. Anyway, JH Utopia has a nice pub with a lot of jokes on the walls, I surely have to return here again to read them all.