Alright the Captain’s Euro Tour Diary – Day 1: Leiden, NL

Posted on 17th Apr 11 by Drop-d Collective | 0

UK/Northy math-rockers Alright the Captain have deigned to let us in on their European tour this and next week. In this instalment, our heroes set off for Leiden, but not without the odd obstacle.

So we set off last night from Nottingham and loaded into our new home for the next 10 days with the Wickets and crew to head to Dover for our ferry, a quick pitstop in London later to pick up the Wickets‘ new double A side vinyls for the tour, and we realised we were having van problems already, so we called the RAC and got given a tour of the record factory while we waited for them to arrive and heard exclusive clips of the upcoming Moby and Unkle records…an hour or so later and and we were back on the road to try catch our ferry (which we just missed by 5 mins and had to get the next one). We arrived in Calais and after a lot of van sleep, and a long drive later we finally arrived at sub071 in Leiden at around lunchtime and loaded in to what can only be described as one of the smallest venues we’ve ever played, we were greeted by our buddy Floh and went to explore the city and flyer round its record shops as it was Record Store Day. As there was no local support, it meant there was time for Knifecutter (Dan and James from the Wickets’ side project) to play a short set to kick things off, think Illness meets Lightning Bolt and your pretty close. By the time The Wickets started their set to a great little enthusiastic crowd who had shown up in Saturday night mode. The Wickets are some of our oldest friends since we started ATC so its been really nice hitting the road with them as they’re completely different to us sounding a bit like The Stooges meets Joy Division. They had a great start to tour, and got us fired up to play. We played our set and we got made play all the songs we had or we weren’t allowed to leave so we were destroyed but it was worth it and we all had a lethal night.

After the show we partied and got treated to an impromptu set by the promoter Floh on her accordian as she sang some beautiful songs in French to an intimate little crowd of hangers on which was an awesome end to the first night.

Next stop Antwerp….