The Devil

The weather here in Belgium is perfect.  Can’t say, exactly, the temperature in degrees centigrade or fahrenheit, necessarily… ‘cuz you know it just doesn’t matter when you’re walking the streets with the perfect amount of sun on your face and wind at your back, and a smiling face on nearly every corner.  I’d guess it’s somewhere around 70-75F during the day, and high 50s at night.  Just enough to soak a t-shirt during a gig in an open-air pub, and then walk out and get instant goose-bumps, as the cool evening air soothes your salty, moistened skin.

Where I left you last, we were tired, hungry, dazed and confused.  So, we all took to the bunks with hurricane blinds (which lock out every ounce of daylight) and settled down for a 4 hour nap.  Needless to say, we woke up feeling like a million bucks, set out to have some dinner… and ended up drinking it.

Duval means “devil” in Dutch, and there’s no question where it got its name.  8.5% Belgian brew and we nearly sold our souls.  We set out to have some local cuisine, after a beer or two… but 7 or 8 Duvals later, a traditional meal was no longer necessary.

We spent some time at Cafe Den Eik, meeting some of the locals, as well as the crew from Surfing Airlines.. which, in a roundabout way, brings me to Stijn (Stan) our sound engineer/housemate.  Imagine River Phoenix, if he did not overdose on speedball, and lived another decade to roll his own cigarettes (constantly) and drink alot of serious Belgian beer.   He schooled us, effortlessly in fooseball… but we were redeemed on the pool table.

In Belgian, mostly, they play billiards.  But it’s not the billiards that you and I grew up playing… It’s three balls on a table with no pockets.  Luckily, there was a regulation 9-ball table, where we played 8-ball. With pockets.

I won’t tell you how many Duvals, each, we consumed on Thursday night.. because I really don’t remember.  But sleep came easily.  And quickly came the sun.

Church in the square, just outside our front door (Gierle, BE)

We played our first show, last night, in Lommel, BE @ The Kings Cafe.  It went really well, but I’m running out of time before our show tonight.  I’ll post pictures for both gigs sometime tomorrow…  and hopefully a story or two worth telling.  Teruggekomen!