Then what?

Yeah, bowling.
We finished off our day away from live music by playing bowling. And here's the thing:

A one-legged blind man with no arms, on the verge of death, would be a far better bowler than me. Far better.
The rest of the group did okay, and it's not like I came to Belgium to roll a fucking cannonball down a glossy length of floorboards. Pft.

Our stay at Jan's house (that's his name, and I shan't forget it – what a great guy) was comfortable but cold. Despite having cold winters and harsh winds, Belgians just don't seem to bother with heating houses. At all. They just erect a brick cube and if they plan on raising children in it, maybe a fireplace. Jan's house had one and we damn near burnt our instruments trying to keep the place heated. I managed to snag one of the sofas two nights in a row, a genuine luxury compared to the inflatable mattresses.

Wednesday was Halloween, and we had a spot on the Horrorfest bill, alongside The Violet, Campus, and The Casino Brawl, who we ended up doing three shows with. Really nice guys, them.
We knew we needed costumes (Halloween gigs are legendary) but we had postponed acquiring some until the last moment. The Violet knew of a place in Lommel that closed at 12:00 PM (wtf) so we got up early-ish and headed off to equip ourselves.
The results can best be described in pictures, which will be entered here shortly.
I got me a bunny suit, Max was a panda, Daniel a mouse, Joel a Playboy bunny and Devon a priest. A motley group indeed, and certainly I made one of the worst weardrobe decisions ever for a live performance. I literally thought I was going to pass out from the heat.
But fun it was, especially as our driver Martin, dressed as a gay sailor, accepted more than a few puffs of weed, turning himself into a five-year old on a mission to make the world laugh. He did a soldier job of it too, and will most likely become a Youtube-legend very soon.

Our thursday giggery was at a metal-festival of sorts, which we had managed to squeeze our way into at the last moment. Thus, The Violet were not on the bill. They tagged along anyway, helping with the gear and cheering on when the long hair and goatee-festooned metalheads didn't.
It was a fun place to play, and we did sell some t-shirts and CD's.
I don't think we played a single show on this tour without selling at least one item, but we never sold dozens either.

On friday, we had our longest drive yet to get to the only gig on this tour situated in a country other than Belgium – Germany! Good old, fun-and-games Germany!
Paderborn, Germany, to be specific.
The venue was a club, the kind that has a "metal evening" of some kind probably once a week. They were okay to us, gave us some nice pizza and drinks, and the sound was surprisingly good. But why would anyone come to a club to see two foreign bands, who barely draw crowds in their own respective hometown?
The answer is: they wouldn't! When The Violet got on stage ("stage") there were about four people in the room, other than members of Jesaiah, drivers and employees of the club (of which there were quite many, granted). This number had grown to about eight by the time they finished their set, and continued growing as we started setting up.
Eventually, the place was actually quite packed, although it was obvious that no one was there to see us. We sold a couple of t-shirts and CD's anyway.
We didn't stick around for long, Germany's indoor smoking allowance bothering us even more than the Belgian one. A friend of the promoters lived only five minutes drive from the place, and it was there that all twelve of us slept that night. A really nice attic with a TV (with the obligatory dubbed American TV-dramas) and some mattresses. Wasn't even that cold.

On saturday we again had a bit of a drive to get to the last gig, in Sint-Niklaas (Belgian for "Sint-Niklaas") which was about a half-hour away from Lommel.
It was a great venue, with lots of kids and some cool bands, and we did okay on stage. Wasn't the go-out-with-a-bang I'd hoped for, but we got alot of great response from people afterwards.
After our show, we wasted no time in getting our gear back into the vans and heading back to Lommel.
The farewell-party fittingly took place at Murphy's Law, the pub from which Sander's rugby team took its name, and a somewhat common drinking venue throughout the week.
At 2:30 we paid a last visit to Ketch-Up, a fried-foods place next door to the pub that has a veggie sandwhich named after The Violet, invented by their drummer Jelle. It was awesome. They really are local heroes.

After that, we got into our van and headed north. That was nearly 32 hours ago.
This tour is over. We've got some great memories and some minor injuries, and hopefully we'll be back in Belgium before too long.

Next time, I'm bringing some vitamins with me.