Going Up North

It appears we have hit the middle to last few weeks of the Eastpak Antidote tour. We have almost covered half of Europes landscape so far and I can honestly say it is nothing short of beautiful. Minus the lack of sun light, occasional dirty rest area, and cold, stormy/overcast weather. So maybe it doesn't sound that beautiful, but throw some sun light on the situation and you have some beautiful scenery. We drove through a good portion of the Alps which is some of the most amazing mountain sides and tops you will ever see.

I'm not quite sure where we left off from last time, so I'll start off with Vienna, Austria. This city and country has tons of history. So much that it was nearly impossible for me to wrap my head around. We met a great guy the night before that our friends Kalle and Laura hooked us up with, named Phillip, who was from the city of Vienna. He let us crash at his place which has only happened literally 3 times previously on this tour, so it was fantastic to get to sleep under the roof of an apartment instead of the roof of our spilter van. Him and I sat up for a few minutes that night talking about music and what not, and he helped me come to the realization that people in Europe who are into "punk rock" have a wider perception of the genre than people back home. Any band that is somewhat involved with the huge world of the punk rock genre and sub genres is for the most part excepted and ok to call a "punk band". Anywho, it was a cool conversation and interesting to think about.

The next day Phillip took us around the city and was a great tour guide for us around the city of Vienna. He showed us everything from some of the oldest chapels in the city to their Parliament and some Christmas time market places. He knew such much about his city, country, and culture and it was so interesting to hear what he had to say. It was also really cool how much he appreciated and how proud he was to be from his country. Don't see that in everyday life.

We just got finished doing a few German shows which had been fun. We had a day off in Munster the day before we played at their venue, Skaters Palace. We walked around with our friend Larry who techs for Sum 41 and some of the guys and crew from The Black Pacific. We did a little walking around the city, which was a very industrial place. Hit up a few Kebab shops, thought about going to a movie then backed down on the thought of, "we might not understand anything they are saying". So we ended up where anyone on tour would end up on a day off... a bar. But not just any bar, a pub in fact that was built in the 1640's! We all fell in a found ourselves with a big beer (a cheap beer at that) in our hands and some drinks. We all had a great time recapping the tour and talking about what we are doing when we get back home. That night our friend Kalle let us crash in his hotel room which was another first and very awesome.

Now that we are winding down to the last few days we are about to head up north. We hit a ferry this morning and are now in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are traveling through Sweden tonight to leave for a ferry tomorrow to head to Helsinki! This will be the farthest up north we have ever played! Its going to be an adventure and a challenge but we are ready to take it on!

We that's that. We will hit you with another blog by the time we get home or right before we head back. Thanks for checking in!

Brad

So we are coming up on the half way point of The Eastpak Antidote tour and things have been awesome. I’ve attempted to write this blog several times in the past couple of days and update you guys on how things are but honestly there isn’t too much to update you on. We have been playing awesome shows, meeting awesome people and seeing a lot of sites. SO, that being said I’m going to try something out of the box a little bit and blog about some things that are on my mind and update you at the same time. Like I said earlier we’ve been seeing a lot of very beautiful sites in mainland Europe and the more places we play the more I am starting to realize that America is a really young country. There are so many buildings in all of the cities that are centuries old, epic churches, massive squares, endless libraries, cobblestone roads, and even some of the venues we have been playing have so much history in them.



The common phrase I’ve noticed coming out of all of our mouths is "Wow we don’t have things like this in the states". I feel like America is so concentrated on moving forward that we sometimes forget to look back on our past. We bulldoze landmarks and move cemeteries to put shopping malls and fast food restaurants in their place. No wonder Europeans have a bad taste in their mouths for us sometimes. When they look at us all they see is people waiting for the next bigger better thing. Never stopping to "stop and smell the roses". We have been seeing all the traditional tourist sites and trying some traditional food here and there, I’m not too big on trying stuff but I’ve been attempting to broaden my horizons. Outside of that in the past 24 hours of writing this blog we have been pulled over twice by German border control, crossed the Swiss border and seen more snowin 20 minutes than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Things are starting to pick up event wise in the Veara camp so expect a hopefully more entertaining blog next week!

Bryan

It's been an adventurous couple of weeks over here in Europe on the Eastpak Antidote tour. As you read in the last blog, we were in the United Kingdom and we had a blast over there! We also got our first house stay over in the UK in Glasgow. It was great to be sleeping on a floor and couches rather than the small space in our van. Joy and her friends and family allowed us in their home on the night of the Glasgow show. They were very kind and even made us some toast with peanut butter and jam for breakfast. It was fantastic! Also they shared with us the magical soda of Scotland, Iron Bru. We haven't had any yet I dont believe, but we heard it was awful for your teeth haha. Thank you guys so much and hope to hang out again in Glasgow soon!

Since the last post we finished up the UK with three great shows in Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol. All of you were fantastic and we had a great time playing for you guys. Cheers, mates!

So after our adventures in the UK and a 5 hour drive after Bristol, we hit up a ferry on the way to the mainland. We've never taken a ferry before and if you've never been on one, it's basically a mini cruise ship and you take your vehical on it with you. This boat had a movie theatre, resteraunt, shops, bars, and plenty of lounging areas, including cabins and rooms to stay in. Now if you know the Veara crew, we don't really do many hotels and such (if you haven't noticed with the camping in the van pictures) so we just crashed out all around in the lounge areas. It felt weird just passing out in the middle of this giant living room/ waiting room area at first, but when I woke up to check out the boat some, I noticed we weren't the only ones to sleep in random places on the boat. Seeing that didn't make me feel as strange haha.

6 hours later from a nice rest and boat cruise, we land in the mainland, in Netherlands or Holland to be exact. This was pretty interesting at first because 1) we we're back to the right side of the road and our vehical has the steering wheel on the right, so it was a little half backwards 2) none of us have any idea what the signs say because they are all in dutch. Luckily the Tom Tom was good to us and showed us the way through the beautiful streets of Holland. Also led us to our first meal in Europe, McDonalds. Pretty American of us but we had to get some type of close-to-home fix. That night, we made our way to Tilburg, which was a really nice city and where we would be playing the next night at O13. The venue was actually right around the corner from the pubs and such we were hanging at. When we showed up in the city we went to meet up with The Black Pacific guys and explored the town and bars. We got our beers and such and then headed back to our van for a good nights rest to get ready for the show the next day.

The first night in Europe was great! Holland was full of greatful and polite people and we were so happy to play for the great people of that country. Same to everyone in Luxembourg at the Rockhal, who we played for the next day. We also had a place to stay after the show in Luxembourg thanks to our good friend Kalle who is on the Eastpak tour with us. We rolled out to Belgium to stay with Laura, who was very helpful and gave us a cozy place to stay! Thank you! We are only 3 days deep into Europe and everyone has been fantastic and the shows have been great! Tonight was our first night in Paris and it was sold out! It was very exciting to come out to a full room and to see everyone with estatic looks on their faces. Merci Beaucoup to all of you fine people in France!

Next stop is Brussels, Belgium. Keep checking in on the Veara blog to keep up with us.

- Bradley