dubln here I come

I will be leaving on the 23rd from eindhoven flying straight to dublin, staying in teh ardmore hotel with 24 other dutch u2 nutters .,...
I will be attending the concerts on friday 24th, saturday 25th and monday the 27th ...... ready for a huge party, only thing is I can not sing along .......
I lost my voice in amsterdam ......

not very strange .....
when you look at the setlist on day 2

back next week ....

wide awake as never before ....
ciao ciao

more pictures ... 20th july

pictures 20th july

amsterdam arena 20th July what a night !!!

pico ... in green .... I can see ya !!!

unfuckingbelievable

lost in tears after this ....
gone ... totally gone ...

this one was for finnie !!!

we are wide awake !!!

going crazy in amsterdam

I was right in front of the three musketeers ..... at the good side, facing the boys .,.
what a song .... what a night ....
macphisto eat ya heart out ,,,,,

they caught me on u2.com

concert 21st July amsterdam
rail at the catwalk ..... during magnificent they filmed this for u2.com
and I was there ... as you can see ...
second face from the left ...... next to the guy in blue ....
and you can hear me too ...
go to u2.com
check the movie called, a note for bono
after the girl screams bonoooooo ... there is a loud whaaaaaaaa
comes from my throat .... from very deep .... as I had no voice left after day 1 in amsterdam .... I tried singing along .... but hey ....
sweet this souvenir !!!
ciao

U2 likes their discoballs toooo

This one is for Sanne ...
In their stage setup ... they had this amazing disco ball on top of this huge spike, with a minaret-like shape and a cross ... mixing the muslims with the christians ..... on top of a disco ball !!!

Also at the bottom, they had this disco ball hidden ... at the end of the concert it pops down, with spots on it, making the whole stadium twirl ..... yeah .....

I think its for finnie and michelle a little bit !

discotek

Nice very Nice

I knew they were gonna make and publish a poster in the Nicematin newspaper
so I put on my orange shirt, you can see me at the rail, against the sound desk in the back, right in the middle ...

Nice to leave Nice at 8am the day after the concert, with this amazing souvenir in the pocket ... a full size poster ....

Charles Ehrmann Stadium Nice

In Nice I was right at the sound desk ... in the middle ...
the sound system almost blew me away ... yeah ..
thats how I like it .... lost in the sound

The stadium was the smallest in the tour, only used as U2 has their holiday homes close to Nice ... it was amazing, the stage blew the stadium away ... as you can see ..

Nou Camp Stadium Barcelona

Nou Camp before the concert ....

On entering the stadium ... I was blown away, even knowing what it would look like !

And during the concert ... I was right in teh middle .... ha ha . goosebumbs all over !

san siro stadium Milan

back home for a wee moment

Hi there,
I got back from my first leg, on the road seeing U2 play and play and play ... saw them 5 times now .... I have finally slept very well for two nights after having been in strange beds for three weeks ....

In Barcelona the bed was fine, had a pretty good sleeping couch in the appartment that I had booked along with my parents, and after they went home, I went to this amazing hostel, called the in-out hostel in barcelona. Its right at the outskirts of the city and in the middle of a nature park .. its run by disabled people, making it a very special place ! The place is busy, but there is the option of sleeping outside if the room is too noisy .. the bunks are pretty well constructed, but in the weekdend most people go out, and get back, drunk and noisy ... so I decided to take my sleeping bag and go to the swimmingpoool area where they had some matrasses and I slept like never before ... although it was short as I simply went to bed late, and the sun woke me up ...

In Milan I thought I would treat myself to a one person bedroom in an appartment so that I could have some peace and rest before I was gonna see the boys play 2 days in a row .... guess not ....

Imagine a room with a bed on the right, some space in the middle, and on the left there was this cupboard, closet thing, with 4 doors, two of them I could open, and access the closet and place my things inside ... the other two were shut ... and could not be opened, I soon found out why ...

They were only to be accessed from the room next door ...

I knew I would share the floor and the bathroom with a double bedroom, but never in my life I realised that the two rooms would be divided by this closet ... they had constructed the wall around it and left gaps in between, not big enough to see trough, but all sound went trough without a problem ... 2 nights I was lucky to have a taiwanese girl as my neighbour who was quiet, but the first night and the last night there was this snoaring monster next to me ... the last night I actually decided to take my mattrass downstairs into the living room cause I could not get to sleep ....

For the rest the appartment was very nice ... a great kitchen and bathroom and close to the metro, a great pizza place close by, the size of the pizza blew me away, I had to get a so called doggy bag .... and in the train to Nice the leftovers went in very well ! Across the road there was a crazy cafe, with great cheap espressos .. only 1e and some cool locals, that would get more and more drunk as the day evolved ... yep ... they sold glasses of wine for 1 euro too ,. so they slowly got hammered, and started staggering around the place .... I soon found out the morning was the best place to be there .... Milan is a very warm and stuckup place ... loads of fashion victims, boys with louis vuiton bags and watches so big they can hardly carry them on their wrists ,... good to see the place, but it is too much for me ...
The Duomo is amazing, but again, way too big ... religion uses fear to persuade people to start believing and impresses them with too big buildings like these.... ah well .

On the 7th and 8th of July I got to see the boys play .... wow ..... nothing can prepare you for an Italian crowd .... First day I got there around 10am got in the back of the line, but then the shit started ,... italians jumping the line, and getting in from the sides .... when teh doors opened they all pushed their way in, leaving the centre of the line behind .... hell ..... I was not gonna let this ruin my concert ... I did make it into the inner circle, running like mad ... once inside most people had sat down, leaving space in between groups and individuals etc ... so I made my way to the front, with some sort of communication and some ignoring too ... I ended up right in front of Bono, with 4 small italians in front of me .... yeah ... that was gonna be amazing .... and it was .,... On day two I was not making the same mistake ... got at the stadium around 11am and joined the line at the side, where there was still some shadow ... this time I was with the first to enter ... and I got my desired spot ! Right at the front at the rail, in front of Mr Edge .... ha ha !
This was amazing .... I met some great peeps there, and also had this bloody woman behind me, that was very small, and way too fat .... she was all friendly before the concert, but she soon started pushing me with her fat tummy when the concert started, she wanted to get at the rail ... no way jose ....... fuck off .... I was not gonna give up my place, the rail is ideal to hold on to and it allowes you to jump without tumbling etc .... also you get some water from security and that was much needed !
I decided to land on her feet a few times, shake my ponytail ildly, so she soon backed up, allowing me to enjoy the concert in full !!! Man this was amazing ... so close up ! SO energetic with these mad Italians .... There are all sorts of different things that pop up, and I will add these here later ....
For now this has to do .... too much staring at the screen after three weeks on the road makes my head hurt .... so ... more words later ....

U2 360 Kicks off in Barcelona

Wow .... still I get a smile from ear to ear when I think back to the two nights that U2 rocked Nou Camp in Barcelona,the first night me and my parents were bang in the middle of the field, right on the kick off spot and what we saw and heard from there was truely mindblowing !
The boys have created this giant spaceship that has the most amazing screen you have ever seen !
then there is the innercircle, surrounded by a catwalk, that is connected to the mainstage via two moving bridges, yep, moving ..... and offcourse, as they are almost in the center of the field, there is people everywhere around them , and us .... which is unbelievable!
Nou Camp with 100.000 souls, all standing up, clapping, singing, jumping ...
I literally had several times where I watched the crowd, as opposed to the boys in action ....
so, first night I was further from the stage, which meant we got teh full effect of the audiovisual spectacle they had come up with ... and I mean full !!! I am used to quite some soundsystems, but this one .. it blows all of m away ! The second night I only had one person between me and the band ... yep, only one, and it happened to be the girl that got pulled up on stage ! I knew her as we had swapped tickets earlier that day, and met a few days before .. she was one of those in the line in fr4ont of the entrance 48 hours before the start .. yep ... 48 hours .... but as it was well organised, they had a list with names and numbers etc, so everyone could leave the line every now and then, for a meal, or a shower etc .. I actually had lined up around 13.00pm on teh day of teh concert ... very late I know .. but other things needed done first ... I was nr 926 in line, and that meant I would make it into the inner circle ! So in I went .. and as I entered the inner part, with the biggest smile ever on my face ,.. I saw empty places everywhere as people had started sitting down on the floor, and as most are in small groups, this means there is room for individuals ... and all I did was ask If it would be ok to move to the next empty spot .. and so I ended up all the way in front, right next to the peeps I met outside .. Ian and John from australia, and melissa from venezuela, and eduardo from spain etc etc .... you should have seen their faces when they saw me right behind them .. all they could do was congratulate me in full awe .... here we were ... nrś 6, 7 and 8 and 926 ...at the rail ... ready for some singing and jumping while having the boys at 2 meters from us ..

This position did mean we hardly got to see the screen .. but who cares when you get the energy of 100.000 people towards you .... I will never forget that ! The first night the band was struggling a bit with some aspects, logical as it had been 5 years since they played like this, the 2nd night they were tight as anything, the energy and joy was infecting everyone there, resulting in a crowd that at times, did not let bono make his speeches ...they were all singing olleee olleee ole oleeee at the top of their voices, and the boys enjoyed it bigtime ! We got the first ever performance live of electrical storm, we got partygirl, were melissa got pulled up, and desire ... as different songs from the first night .. also, they were shooting a video for the new single, Iĺl go crazy if I dont go crazy tonight, and the girl that got pulled up, is quite pleasing to the eye, so she surely got filmed, and if they filmed her, I am on it too .... ha ha ... watch me on MTV this summer .. or it might end up as a video for the new blackberry commercial, we dont know yet ....

It was midblowing, having been on the field in amsterdam with the vertigo tour for the first time, this ,was again, something else .. I heard they are even crazier in milan, starting the line 4 - even 5 days before hand .. I guess I will see soon enough, tomorrow I will go to milan, where I will stay till the 10th

And last thingie .. today I am in the in-out hostel in barcelona, right at the outskirts, in teh hills, in a nature park ! it is run by handicapped people, and it is a non profit organisation, so it feels great here .. free internet, great beds (dont need those as I will sleep outside again, right next to the swimming pools and soccer pitch, I now know where the sun comes up, so It wont wake me this time .. actually .. yep, u2 again ... but this morning the boy that made me my coffee (Ivan) turned out to have been to the actuial dress rehearsal that U2 gave in Nou camp the night before they opened the tour .. they invited 300 people, all connected to the special olympics ... and my waiter was one of them .. what are the chances .... ???

It all has to be like this ..... and it feels great !

Except for the sunburn and the blisters ..... but hey ....

ciao ciao

U2360 tour 2009 ... leg 1 ....

call me crazy, call me mad, but I'm gonna dream out loud this summer ... !!!
no more wondering what it will be like to be in one of those huge kickass stadiums myself ... come july, I will know what it's like ....

after months of anticipation for the new album No Line On The Horizon, it all of a sudden was there ... online .... yep ... online ... leaked, some say ... anyway ...
it now has been played by me many many times, and I like it ! a lot !

Then they announced the 360 tour ... At first I wanted to go only to the dutch shows, and one or two foreign concerts maybe .. then out of the blue, and sort of molded by coincidences, I developed this plan that has now resulted in a summer full of u2 concerts and nice breakaways .... thanx to people I dont know that seem to have their hearts at the right places ... selling tix for the face value as opposed to the money greedy scalpers ... also bought some tix online myself and traded the rest ... funny to know that a girl from mexico is coming to amsterdam where she will give me my dublin tickets in exchange for her amsterdam tix ... this is only the start of colourfull stories and meetups that will come out of this whole tour thing ....

6 nights from now ....
It all starts sunday the 28th june
I will fly off to Barcelona with my parents to go and see U2 start off their worldtour in Nou Camp stadium (I'm not yet gonna show pictures here of the amazing stage that they have designed for this tour, as my mum prefers it to be a surprise when she enters camp nou ... ha ha , what a surprize it will be ,.... I cant wait ...)

back on the tour .... they will start off 30th june and me and my parents will be on the field that day ! it's gonna be amazing for them to experience that, last time we were in dublin, in the stands, perfect seats, but ... seated ...

then U2 will do another concert in camp nou on the 2nd july for which I also have my ticket in hand .... and that time I will make sure to be among the first ones to enter, to be all the way up front, surrounded by so many other voices ... ha ha cant wait .... but actually ... seen the new set up of the stage etc, I am sure every place in the stadium is ok ! especially on the field ... my mum and dad will go back home on the 3rd and I will continue my little tour ...

on the 5th july I will fly to Milan, where they will play on the 7th and 8th and I'll be there both times .. then on the 10th july it's on to Nice for a nice break by the sea that gets broken up to go and see the boys play in Nice on the 15th july then on the 16th its homebound ...

where I will need to get ready for leg 2 ... this looks mad ....... it will be tooo !
They will play in Amsterdam on the 20th and 21st and then I will fly off to dublin on the 23rd july to see them play 3 times ! back home home on the 28th july

and then there is the final and 3rd leg where I'll be heading for the UK for my final 4

In short it looks like this ... (imagine me smiling when I type this up ...)

Barcelona 30th June
Barcelona 2nd July
Milan 7th July
Milan 8th July
Nice 15th July
Amsterdam 20th July
Amsterdam 21st july
Dublin 24th July
Dublin 25th July
Dublin 27th July
Wembley 14th Aug
Wembley 15th Aug
Glasgow 18th Aug
Cardiff 22nd Aug

Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales .....

guess what .....

they will be back in 2010 ...... see ya on the road !!!

lazerrrrrrrr

this was my view from where ~I was doing my set ... nice lazerrrrr

making noise in eindhoven

wow .... what a joy .... let me in the sound ....
u2 sings about it, I got to do it ... in full ...

they had arranged a place for me on the dance floor, and they hired extra speakers, making it an amazing wall of sound, for me to model and arrange ... haha! yes ... this is what playing livesets is all about .... standing in front of the sound, allowing you to feel every little tiny frequency shift, that when applied in the mix .. results in an interconnecting force that seems to speed things up .... this is why I bring all my gear, so I can truelly alter every little corner of sound that is there ... and the pleasure comes when you start mixing, and then the instinct takes over ... as your gut and your inner ear are being massaged, they also start to guide and control ...

ok, maybe you have to experience it for yourself to understand fully ..
but hey .... what a joy it was !

they also had arranged this amazing laser, that can shoot out every colour in the rgb spectrum, pretty special for a laser, even in this century yes ... they did have to pull a huge cooling unit up the stairs in order for teh laser to work, but they did not mind, they really made a huge effort to make the night a special one ...

Also I got to play later ... played from 1.30 till 3 ...
my set was a lot of work ... as the direct sound, even more so, points out all things that should sound a little tiuny different, not too much, but just a little bit .. making you work ... call it being a musician ...

it was great to experience that the plan of attack worked, as I got to practice the night before, I had decided to change my set completely ... this time slowly building up the sounds, then after 45 minutes, making a drop from 164 to 132 bpm ... making the synths scream for real with the kickdrum dropping holes in between ... ha ha what a joy ... then in the end I speeded things up again and then all envelopes were pushed, making use of the amazing headroom in my mackie mixer and I danced my own arse off the last 45 minutes of my set .. and thats when I am truelly enjoying myself ... loosing myself in the music ... the set has been recorded ...
thanx for the great welcome, and sound etc ! sound was extremely clear, thanx dieJ
thanx for the invite, lets do that again !!!
ciao

surprise gig

friday night 7 o'clock phone rings, ferdy asks if can come and bring my liveset to merlijn tonight in order to play a full liveset, surprise surprise ....
as filterfedde dropped out last minute, ferdy was looking for a replacement and as I was gonna go to nijmegen anyway, along with the RAF acid machinery .... also, I had to play the day after in eindhoven, so I actually had prepared a set for that night, and had started packing up my set earlier that day, I was eating my dinner when the phonecall came ... ha, it did not take long to decide ... that was that .... packed up my things, and filled up my car with gear .... not forgetting the piece of paper with all notes from the night before, when I made my selection of patterns that were ok, and some that were not to be used, I was almost ready for the saturday, but not totally ready ... the list of notes still left me with a big mess of possibilities, all sorts of rythms and sequences, all unarranged, leaving all of that for the onthespot turning and twisting of the knobs and sliders .... doing it all live ...

for me, a liveset is truelly a road full of evolving sounds, instead of loads of clean climaxes .. it must also be the way to the unexpected moment when you get a beautiful collision of sounds and then after that, also the path that takes you away from it ... to reach another hot spot .... its all part of the liveset 1,5 hrs of discoveries ...

ok, back to teh night ... first up it was Unit Moebius .... then me and then the Rythmic Alkaloid Factory

loads of slowmo acid, twwisted beats and effected sounds guaranteed ..... some bad cables here and there ... loads of machines on stage, and yes, it was there .. the laptop .... I had one too, but only to record my set ...

There was not a lot of people ... guess it was the first signs of a busy weekend, with monday being that traditional festivalday .... pinkpop and loads of other things were on that weekend ,... and we were in nijmegen ... on a friday .... hey hey ...
I had fun, learned a lot again ... and was happy to do the job ...
.... next time I will bring longer cables ...
thanx for the unexpected invite !

acid circus

i'll be playing live, around 12 o clock
there will be extra speakers, lasershow, dj's liveacts, surprise acts and more
bring your skateboard ....

this sleeve still amazes me ...