04.08.14 — 16:11 — Wednesday — Hotel Mercure, Tilburg, the Netherlands

If and when human beings ever decide it’s time to colonize the moon, we should probably send the Icelanders first, since judging by what I saw of the landscape flying into Reykjavik this morning, they can hang with the inhospitable. All of Icelandair’s planes are named after volcanoes. I wasn’t on Eyjafjallajökull — that villainous volcano that erupted in 2010 causing such chaos at Roadburn and elsewhere — but I saw it at the terminal when I switched flights. I was on Eldborg, which I immediately decided was the name of my new black metal band that doesn’t actually exist. Switched flights but not planes between Boston-to-Reykjavik and Reykjavik-to-Amsterdam. When I got back to seat 17C, it still had my rather considerable ass impression on it.

The flight delays were because of a workers’ strike. Whatever they want, I’m for it. Give it to them. Quickly. Please by Monday.

It felt so, so, so good to get off the plane in Amsterdam. The flight from Iceland was only about two and a half hours, but it was a painful lot of half-dozing, being bumped into by flight attendants — hazards of the aisle — and dealing with the dude next to me who went fascist on the armrests. The first flight, once I got on the plane, was much easier. Still, no real sleep on either and thus no real sleep at all. At the airport, I followed the handy map I was given to get to where a car was coming to pick me up — I carpooled with Arik Roper, whom it was cool to finally meet after admiring his work for so long — we were both very tired — and when we got dropped off, it was at the 013 backstage entrance. A couple quick hellos, my face soon to be edited out of a documentary being filmed about Walter, and then I got to the point where I felt like I was going to fall asleep standing up, so I said I was going to check in at the hotel.

That whole no sleep thing puts me in a bit of a pickle heading into the official pre-Roadburn show tonight, the Hard Rock Hideout at the Cul de Sac. I’ll try to crash out now — shouldn’t be a problem — and set my alarm in time to get up and shower and head over to the venue, which is right in Weirdo Canyon. Don’t want to miss Death Alley after digging their single. No real time to eat, but screw it. Roadburn comes but once a year. I’m so glad to be back.

 

Tags: Roadburn 2014, Roadburn 2014 trip, The Netherlands, Tilburg

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2014 at 9:27 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.