Day 24: Amsterdam
Welcome
Yesterday we found ourselves in the lowlands headed north to play a show at Paradiso, in Amsterdam.
Breakfast was the standard European 3-star hotel fare - cured meats, bread, an egg, pickled cucumber, pickled radish, pickled gherkin, olives, tinned mandarin, and berry yoghurt.
Jonathan was in control of our vehicle and took us out of Brussels on European route 19 which heads north and skirts around Antwerp before continuing northeast to the border. Then we were in the Netherlands on the A27 heading north across the province of Brabant with its many farms and waterways, then up past Utrecht and onto the A2 which approaches Amsterdam from the southeast.
Driving is in Amsterdam is challenging. With a population of nearly 5,000 people per square kilometre the city is designed to facilitate the movement of thousands of bicycles and pedestrians with a network of trams, cycleways, and bustling footpaths. For us New Zealanders with our car dominated streets the Dutch urban experience is a sensory overload requiring all hands on deck for navigation and safety protocols. Despite the many dangers Jonathan was calm and collected and drove our 6 metre van with the courage and attitude of a cyclist taking us along cobbled narrow streets right next to the canals and playing chicken with trams, all the time faithfully trusting that Google Maps had us on the fastest and easiest route to our destination.
We were an hour ahead of schedule when we pulled up outside the famous Paradiso Theatre, an iconic venue housed in a former church in the neighbourhood of Leidseplein in the centre of Amsterdam. It was then that disaster struck and we realised we were at the wrong venue and the Paradiso Noord where we were supposed to be was across the IJ, the large body of water that separates Amsterdam North from the main part of the city. And just like that Jonathan was back in the hot seat weaving through groups of school children and charging up cycle lanes to get us to the other side of the river in time for load-in.
Sixty minutes and zero casualties later we arrived to meet some very pleasant and helpful members of the Paradiso Noord team waiting to help us unload and get setup. Everyone there was a dream to work with and we completed a relaxed soundcheck well ahead of schedule enabling us to take a couple of hours r&r, in this case spent watching the Formula 1 endurance race and catching up with our European booking agent, the very charming and talented Joren Heuvels.
The Paradiso Noord is a very fine performance space. The building used to be a Shell Petroleum research facility, but the conversion has left it with a lavishly equipped hall with an expansive lighting grid, a broad stage, and a mezzanine floor for a better view of the performers. The crowd were an enthusiastic bunch and danced and bounced aroudn all night.
Performing our song ‘Uptown Girl’.
Towards the end of the show when we took an audience survey on transit methods, we found that a sizeable majority had arrived by boat. We also discovered that a sizeable majority had travelled on a bicycle. Conducting some more thorough interviews after our set we discovered that there are free ferries across the IJ that operate every 4-6 minutes, take 5 minutes to cross the river, and operate 24 hours a day.
Feeling thoroughly inspired by this powerful display of efficient and successful public transport we packed out and left the venue to get some sleep and prepare for our final European show of the tour.
It is with a heavy heart that we bid farewell to Box 2 and Box 3, both no longer required since we are almost out of merch.