Nefarious EU Tour Wrapup
Alright, I’ve been home for almost two weeks and I guess it’s about time to get to my Nefarious tour wrap up blog. I’ve been really enjoying my down time…like REALLY!!
Let’s see, we left off at Nefarious playing our first gig at The Jack in Eindhoven. From there we headed back to Belgium for a last minute gig addition to the tour and from what I can remember it was a pretty rad headlining show. After that we headed to Spain for what seemed like an eternity.
Before I get into that though I want to talk about the shift from touring in a bus with Death Angel to touring in a Sprinter van with Nefarious. That was the number 1 question I was asked at a party I went to shortly after I returned.
To be completely honest, it was the easiest thing about the Nefarious tour. I didn’t mind being in the van at all. I mean, I’m not saying I prefer it to touring on a bus or anything, let’s not get crazy here. But I’ve done my fair share of van tours so I knew what to expect. Plus most of our drives were 3 to 5 hours. Piece of cake. Air pods are a Godsend.
In Spain we started off playing a fest called Sun And Thunder. Twisted Sister were supposed to headline but after the vocalist shift from Dee Snider to Sebastian Bach they were no longer on the bill. I think the headliner ended up being Avantasia.
We were the very first band of our day and we started off playing to a handful of people. People were still trickling in. But by the end we played to a pretty decent sized crowd though. It was a very well run festival with great staff and gear but unfortunately, after 3 years (I believe) it will be no more. It’s the Nefarious curse!!
We played some headliners in Spain that varied in quality but overall were a success. We had a ton of time off while there and spent a lot of it on the beach. Aye, I ain’t complaining. There’s certainly a lot of worse places to be with a bunch of days off but by the end I was ready to play some gigs in other parts of Europe. Enough with the downtime already.
The rest of the tour had some really rad shows and a few clunkers. One of the really cool ones was in Den Hague, The Netherlands. The Dutch Party Squad came out in full force! It was almost like playing a small Death Angel gig. All the same people were there.
I’ve gotta talk about one of the clunkers completely for comedic value, although I didn’t think it was all that funny at the time. We played this thing called Metal Yard Fest in Emmen, NL. This “fest” was held in the rec-room of an apartment complex.
But the icing on the cake was the fact that this apartment complex catered to the elderly. The average age in the crowd, and I use the word “crowd” lightly, was maybe 70. We literally played at an old folks home. Not even Spinal Tap can claim that. It was a sad scene. But we played our best for those Metal geezers. Whether they liked it or not was hard to tell. James Rivera’s (Helstar) Judas Priest/Dio era Sabbath tribute band played after us.
We ended the tour in the Czech Republic at the Nuclear Intervention Festival. Onslaught played as well. We were the last band of the fest but the crowd stuck around for the most part and it was a fitting way to end the tour.
One of the highlights was record shopping with our driver/tm Henri who’s a Metal vinyl nut just like me. He took me to some KILLER spots which the videos show below. He’s also a bootlegger who specializes in Mercyful Fate boots. I actually own a few. We hit it off smashingly.
Overall it was a successful first trip across Europe for Nefarious. Definitely not enough gigs but we made due. It was an interesting trek for a number of reasons. One being that it was the first tour for one member and other members were learning how to tour again.
It was also the first time I ever did back to back tours. Would I do it again? Probably not. Maybe in the U.S., but even that’s doubtful. The second tour would have to be pretty sweet, like opening for Kreator or the like. I’m not ruling anything out but…
–Bleeding Priest
