I’m pretty sure I’ve played more times in De Gouden Leeuw in Dongen, Holland than any other club on the European mainland. There always seems to be something fun happening there so when they issue an invitation to be part of it how can I refuse!
This session was no exception. Again, it was led by my good buddy Walter Lavent, and they had a great line up of guests ready to rock on the night. It only started around 11pm and we finished up dead on 4am. The place was packed (and this was the first time they organised a blues night on the 29th of April) and everyone stayed right to the end. The 30th of April is a BIG day in Holland as they celebrate the Queen’s birthday on that day and as it’s a national holiday everyone is free to party the night before. There are lots of great activities planned for those two days.
I went on around 2am and played In The Dead of Night – It Takes Time – Fine, Fine, Fine – Lonely Road and Some Kind of Wonderful, so a mixture of new songs and old songs. The nice thing was the guys had downloaded the new songs and had actually written them out in notes, so they knew exactly where they were at all times and they give me great backing. As I don’t read or write music myself it was quite something to see my songs written out like that. I must say it looked good to me!
The finale was everyone on stage and in situations like that I like to stand a bit in the background and just listen to what everyone else is playing. Then I try to find little spots where I can add stuff that no one else is doing. It makes you look at the songs in a slightly different way (as you can’t do the usual stuff) and when there are two other guitarists on stage plus a harmonica player and a Hammond organ player then you’ve certainly got to put your brain to work. I’ll be hanging around for a day or two as I have to head to the Limburg Museum in Venlo on Thursday for the opening of the “Why Music” exhibition. Talk to you later.