After our show in Leeds we went back to a hotel around the corner. For me, it would be a very short night. We arrived at the hotel around 3 in the morning, my wake-up call was only two hours later. I enjoyed the sunrise over Leeds from the Taxi that brought me to the airport for a very early flight back to Amsterdam. This early wake-up call had a good reason: I’d been ask to come and join Kamelot on stage for a guest performance that very night. Not just a guest performance, a surprise guest performance! Nobody knew..

I arrived at Tilburg just before soundcheck to meet the guys of Kamelot and have a chat with our friends in Leaves Eyes. It was very nice seeing everyone again, It´s been a long time since we last met. Our European tour with Kamelot is almost a year ago already!

Since Kamelot had a very big show planned with lots of fireworks, dancers and extra´s everyone was very busy throughout the afternoon to make sure everything would go right. I prepared backstage together with the other girls in the show.

Preparing for the show (pic by Natascha, Studiomystica)


(pic by Natascha, Studiomystica)

The song I performed with Kamelot is called Season´s End, a lovely song which they played during the encore. We watched the whole show from the side of the stage, the show was awesome, Kamelot was obviously in great shape. At the second song of the encore it was my time to join the guys on stage. I was very touched by the reception of the audience, it turned out there were also quite some Delainers in the audience, I loved the look on their faces when I came out :) Thanks for your warm response everyone!

On stage with Kamelot (pic by Natascha, Studiomystica)


(pic by Natascha, Studiomystica)


 

Since we overslept in the haunted hotel there was no time for breakfast and we started our way back to Leeds first thing in the morning. It was quite a long drive so we were all very happy on arriving at the venue, where the first fans were already waiting.


Sleepy in the bus


Sander eating yoghurt with Linda's old public transport card... couldn't find no spoon


Meeting fans outside the venue

Today felt kind of funny because we knew this was gonna be our last day in the UK and the last week has been so amazing.. We could’ve easily enjoyed ourselves a lot longer here. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to do just that a lot of times in the future.


Eating papadums, yum :)

We had some very very hot food at an indian restaurant across the venue and enjoyed a very hot and steamy show afterwards. After the show we said goodbye to some fans, we took some pictures and some beers with our support band of the week Achilla, who have been really sweet and cool to work with.

Even though this is our first headine tour through the UK, today we found ourselves on familiar territory. It was only three months ago that we played in the very same venue we play today on our tour with Sonata Arctica. So there were a lot of good memories coming back as we entered the vene JB’s.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones with good memories from our gig in December. We met a lot of people tonight who’d been to our gig with Sonata and decided to come back to see us tonight. We enjoyed playing for them again and meeting them after the show.








picture credits ©2010 Tony Gaskin - Stagedive Photography

We spent the night in a hotel that has the reputation of being haunted. By the look of it it was obvious that more people visit it for it’s ghosthunts then for its’ comfy rooms. Comfy or not, we just ignored the waving curtains and flickering lights and enjoyed a couple hours of sleep before leaving to Leeds in the morning. 




Lovely Linda tired after selling all that merch.

Good morning! Breakfast in Nottingham

It was a late night yesterday in Nottingham, and we had a very early wake up call this morning because we had to travel all the way to Schotland for our show in Glasgow.

Ewout and lighttech Joice sleeping like babies


posing in front of some lovely snowy Schottish hills, that unfortunately didn’t get on the picture…

We had a very hectic scedule in the afternoon because we had an acoustic show in between soundcheck and the show. The acoustic show was a secret session for about 60 lucky listeners of 96.3 Rock Radio who won tickets for this show.
The setting was a café with a little stage, we played See me in Shadows, Go Away and Cordell, and took some time for pictures and autographs afterwards. There was a very nice intimate atmosphere which we would’ve loved to enjoy longer, but we had to rush back to the venue The Cathouse for our full electric set in the evening.






Secret Session in Glasgow


Meeting with some fans after the secret session


With Tom Russel from 96.3 Rock Radio
You can find all pictures of our secret session here.

We had some of the largest pizza’s I’d ever seen before on arrival, and got ready for the gig.  We really enjoyed our first gig in Schotland. At the encore, we wanted to make that clear by carrying a bit Scottish flag on stage, which was greatly appreciated. Thank you Glasgow, you were great!

Having an early morning in London isn’t that bad when you have a lovely continental breakfast to wake up to AND when you’re looking forward to rocking Nottingham on the very same day.

We left London taking a route through the city centre, seeing some of the sight I’d only known from movies and magazines. The same movies and magazines unfortunately don’t show you that the traffic gets completely stuck, so we had to make up for the delay the rest of the way to Nottingham.

We arrived at the venue Rock City pretty much on time for all the promo that had been sceduled, the rest of the afternoon, the build up and soundcheck went smoothly thanks to our hardworking crew.


meet our newest crewmember Lenny, with us for the very first time this tour

For dinner we went to a nice little place that served cola by the liter and provided entertainment for the little ones, and also for the not so little ones…

Otto showing off his artistic skills with colourfull crayons

When we came back there was already a long line of people waiting in front of the venue. They filled up the venue quickly as our two support bands rocked the stage.

people lined up in front of the venue hours before the show

The crowd showed us a lot of love that night. When coming out after the show security was already kicking out the audience so we met some of them outside before returning to the hotel which was just around the corner.

back at the hotel: mascotte Tiger has friends in high places

Today was the kick-off of our first UK headline tour. We’ve been in the UK before at Metal Femme Fest in Birmingham, and as a support of Sonata Arctica last December, but today was the first time we had to do it on our own. We were all pretty excited because our album April Rain was released not too long ago in the UK, and we’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from UK fans, magazines and radio stations.

[guess who’s back! Our tour mascotte got himself some nice shades

We started the day by crossing the canal from Calais through the tunnel, having some minor atacks of claustrophobia. We made it to London two hours early, which gave us the opportunity to enjoy a bit of London in the sun. We all expected the UK to be cold and rainy, but we had lovely weather today!

Sander’s considering a new hearcut, something like this..

On arrival at the venue we met the guys and girl from Achilla, our support for the week, after which we started build-up, and had some promo. The afternoon flew by and it wasn’t long until the venue was packed and we were all getting ready to go on stage.

preparing for the gig, special UK make-up

The show was magical, we got such a lovely respons from the audience that it left us speechless at some points. It was a very special evening, and not only because of the nice response, but also because this was the first night that Otto, our new bassplayer, joined us on stage. He got a very warm welcome, we thank you all for that.
After the show we had a good time meeting fans outside, some who’ve been waiting from 8 am in the morning in front of the venue. We really enjoyed their company, so to all of them (you know who you are) thanks, also for the sweet gifts, and we hope to see you next time!

Delain hits newspapers after first London headline gig ;)

We would like to introduce to you with pride our new fulltime Delain-member, Otto ‘the baron’ Schimmelpenninck van der Oije (Detonation), who will replace Rob on the bass. We are very happy to welcome Otto to the Delain family. Starting from our upcoming UK tour, he will join Delain live on stage. We will update our member profiles soon. Until then, you can get to know Otto by visiting his myspace.

We would like to thank Rob for his years of dedication, musical craftmanship and the good times we had throughout the years. Rob’s official last show with delain will be at the Mezz in Breda (08-04-2010), we’ll make this show one hell of a party in his honour!