Tuesday, 22. November 2005, 09:26:09
So on the 11th of November, as a yearly tradition, me and some friends drove to Beyers in Bochum (in the "Ruhrgebiet") for a day of guitar and amptesting, .... and Burger King.
Along came my mate Tom (guitarplayer band), Wim (bassplayer) and another mate of ours Tom.
It's quite a drive, Tom and i left at 9am in Mechelen, picked up the other Tom in Antwerp and picked up our last passenger Wim in Retie. When we finally arrived in Bochum we made a first obligatory stop at the Burger King restaurant in Bochum. Damn that tastes good, almost a reason to move to Germany or Holland. (We don't have Burger King in Belgium.)
Next it was on to the testing.
Tested a bunch of shit, a nice 5000 euro Taylor Koa acoustic guitar, a sweet Gibson ES137 Semi, Tokai Love Rock, Caparison guitars and even a Dean Dime-o-flame. Also some ltd's & ESPs and some Fenders.
I was really impressed by a simple Made in Mexico Telecaster standard with a hotrails at the bridge position. This one sounded awesome on a 3ch Mesa Dual Recto with Marshall 1960AV, but also on a Vox AC30CC, the new HiWatts and on a Marshall Bluesbreaker RI. Great stuff!
It was a cool day, didn't buy anything but had a lot of fun and went home GAS-less...
Tuesday, 22. November 2005, 09:16:39
Been a while since i posted so i'm gonne start updating some stuff.
On 12/10 Ann and i went to see Dream Theater.
I ordered my tickets more than a week before the show but they arrived very late. I even feared the tickets had gone lost in postage, but the day before the concert they finally arrived!
It was a great show, they played many great oldies and many songs from their last album Octavarium.
This was the setlist:
The Root Of All Evil (Octavarium)
Never Enough (Octavarium)
Song from the Majesty era
Afterlife (When Dream And Day Unite)
Under A Glass Moon (Images And Words)
Caught In A Web (Awake)
Peruvian Skies (Falling Into Infinity)
Through My Words / Fatal Tragedy (Scenes From A Memory)
About To Crash (Reprise) / Losing Time / Grand Finale (Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence)
15 mins break
As I Am (Train Of Thought)
These Walls (Octavarium)
I Walk Beside You (Octavarium)
Octavarium (Octavarium)
Encores:
The Spirit Carries On (Scenes From A Memory)
Learning To Live (Images And Words)Really had a good time, we where standing really close and the sound was awesome.
I had to opportunity to shoot some quick pics with my cellphone. Some of the Petrucci's stack, some of Portnoy's drum kit, some of the band, and a few of John's double necked 6/12 string guitar he used on the intro of Ocatavarium.
This was my 5th Dream Theater show and for me it was the best one ever...
Thursday, 29. September 2005, 09:32:23
I've been back a while now but haven't gotten back to the blog...
Holiday was great but as usual too short...
When we arrived at our hotel the first night we where told that they where overbooked and that we had to sleep in the (also nice) hotel across the street. That's not nice off course, but we could live with it since we got All Inclusive arrangement instead of half board.
The first 2 days the weather was a disaster. Rain everywhere, even too much for the sewers. We rented a car for 3 days and we drove all around the island, including the capital Palma.
The second part of the week we stayed at the hotel and took our deserved rest at the pool, enjoying 3 great buffet meals a day and unlimited Cuba Libre's at the pool.
Aaah greaaat!
Too bad we had to return that soon.
More pics in the photo album...
First weekend back in Belgium my 1 year old niece Marit came over to stay at our place for 2 days. I was really looking forward to it, and above all, as a surprise my sister and Marit came to pick us up at the Airport. Very cool, it touched me seeing the little rascal all of a sudden in the crowd. We rushed home and went for french fries...
Saturday evening Marit returned for the weekend!
A child her age really demands your attention all the time.
If i had to have a daughter once, i want her to be like Marit!
Thursday, 15. September 2005, 14:48:07
The final minutes at work, before my well deserved holiday, are passing.
We're flying to Mallorca tomorrow at noon.
Really looking forward to this. It's been a long time since we got some holiday. We're probably gonna get a lot of rest the first days, but i'm sure we'll do some decent exploring and sightseeing in the days after.
We're not heading to the over-touristical Palma de Mallorca, the capital, but we're staying in the much quiter north-east. We're no clubbers, we'll probably be in our bed at 9 pm each night because we're exhausted.
We enjoy making scooter trips, exploring little towns & wandering around.
Cya later!
Wednesday, 14. September 2005, 21:12:18
As written before, one of the 2x12 doesn't belong to me...
Wednesday, 14. September 2005, 10:13:46
The last leads weigh the heaviest over here... Really longing for that well deserved holiday...soon! Very soon...
In the meanwhile my new Engl 2x12 V30 cabinet arrived earlier than expected, so i'll be returning Youri's cab, that i had for loan for testing, in the next few days...
Tuesday, 13. September 2005, 06:36:45
Almost there, just hanging on for a few more days.
On friday Ann & i are leaving for Mallorca for a week of very well deserved holiday! No worries, relaxation & hopefully we'll do some nice excursions. We're not going to Palma ofc...
Going to the north east, the quiter and less clubby part of the island...
Did a lot of work on my LP Custom yesterday.
- Put the bridge pickup right (some moron put in in backwards)
- Fully cleaned the body and all hardware
- Fretboard maintenance
- New strings
- Trussrod adjustment & full setup
The result is a very well playing guitar. I stil have to crank it to my tube amps before i'm leaving on holiday, but what i've heard on low volumes is very promising.
The bridge pickup seems to be an old Dimarzio DP155 Tone Zone, excactly the pickup i have in my ESP Horizon, i'm curious how this one is gonna sound live in that LP. Neck pickup is another USA branded pickup, possibly Gibson or Dimarzio.
I also left the scratchplate of, what seems to be a nice improvement on the looks of this 14 year old...
So back to work it is eh...
Monday, 12. September 2005, 08:43:03
Damn mondays suck... Especially with a hangover.
Weekend was fun tho:
We had a BBQ with our neighbours yesterday.
It was really fun, nice to know the people you're on the block with.
It was late and we had too much beers (what sux now) but we'll definitely do it again.
Also traded my Dean Hardtail for a very nice Gibson Les Paul Custom yesterday! It was a 2 x 170 km drive but definitely worth it!
This is the guitar i wanted to play when i started, but is extremely expensive new.
It plays and sounds insane and looks sooo beautiful. I can stare for hours at this axe.
On saturday me and my band played some songs acoustic at a wedding of a friend.
Mostly some mellow stuff during the wedding but as a surprise,we played Nothing Else Matters in the end which totally rocked!
Again, after the service we went to a small dinner party with lot's of good Vietnamese food and booze! Awesome!
Thursday, 8. September 2005, 09:50:21
The spz-meister just showed me my.opera.com...
Why not register and try some stuff out, looks fun.
There will probably be much Guitar related stuff on my page...
For starters i ordered a extra guitar cabinet yesterday...
Engl 2x12 Pro with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers!
WIDGETIZE