Stampede Showband in Holland

Don't worry, I am still alive and well.

We have begun our Topdeck tour and are having a blast in Switzerland currently.

You likely won't see anything else on this blog until I return to Calgary.

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog.

CW

We competed in Prelims on Thursday, placed second.

Today (Sunday) is Finals, we hope to do better than prelims.

The weather is not favorable, our hopes for the competition are still high.

We are going to kick some ass today.

This blog entry refers to Monday July 27

Today was our trip to Ypres, Belgium. The day started out with the band eating the same breakfast that we have since we arrived. From there we were told to go to the field to do a full run of our field show, we hadn’t warmed up (musically) so we were without instruments and music for our feet. The run was acceptable; naturally we missed some parts that we had made changes to the night before. We then returned to our rooms to collect our uniform parts and anything else we thought we would need for the day. Boarding the busses, we were greeted by an uncomfortable realization; the leg room on the bus was less than that of any airline I have ever travelled with. Our bus ride took three hours, in that time the sunny and warm weather we had enjoyed in Kerkrade disappeared into a grey haze of cloud.

We arrived at Flanders Field and were greeted by the man who organized this visit for the band (I did not catch a name). The band was then free to mill about the cemetery and monuments in the field. It was a very somber stop on our trip and I am glad that I was able to see the field behind the famous poem. Our next stop was the town of Ypres, a town full of war monuments, statues and cemeteries. We were to visit the In Flanders Field Museum housed in a reconstruction of the original Cloth house in the town square, but the band was too big to fit in all at once, so we broke into four groups to lessen the load on the museum. Being in the last group I got to explore the city for a little while, this also proved interesting because most of the stores in town were closed at 2:00 in the afternoon. The stores that were open seemed to do quite good business because of our visit.
The museum tour began with everybody receiving a bar-coded card with a different name on the back, this was for people to scan throughout the museum and learn details about the person who was involved in the war. During the visit there are also convincing sound effects added to the ambiance of the building to suggest that you are standing in a building that is being shelled during the war. The exhibits inside are impressive and extremely educational, so much so that schools in Belgium must send their students to the museum once every year in an attempt to warn future generations of how horrible war really is. The first part of the museum was more about how the war started and the tactics employed during the war. The second part of the museum featured diary accounts from soldiers on the front and the people who cared for the sick and injured. The final section of the museum is a grim reminder of the toll war takes. After a quick trip through the gift shop (yes, even a war museum has a gift shop), the band was reunited to visit the church just behind the museum. We surprised the people who were already in the church, they were wondering where these random 150 people came from and what they were doing there (we were all still in street clothes). Our Chamber Choir lined up on the altar and sang ‘Ave Verum’, this left the rest of the band and the visitors to the church in awe. The entire band then stood up from their seats and shocked the visitors one more time when we sang ‘Lux Arumque’; the final note of the piece echoed throughout the entire church for a good ten seconds after our cut off. Dick Olver has been recording almost all of our performances with a high quality audio recorder. In return for our performance, the organist at the church decided to give us a performance with the large and ancient church organ; Carmen described it as ‘amazing’ and ‘so cool!’

Our next event was a stand and play performance in the town square, the crowd seemed thrilled by our style of entertainment, they especially liked our actions in You Can Call Me Al (they always do). We managed to draw quite a large crowd from the shops and hotels in the square. We then headed back to the memorial for fallen soldiers from the first battle of Ypres where we took this year’s full band photo. I am sure the final photo looked great but trying to organize an entire band of 140+ people shortest to highest on a war monument is about as easy as herding kittens. After a short warm-up and review of Belgium’s national anthem we presented a white cowboy hat and a belt buckle to the man who organized our visit to Ypres.

The band then formed up to take part in the twenty eight thousand seven hundred something-th wreath laying and last post ceremony under the war monument. Most of the band could not see exactly what was happening during the ceremony because we were in a parade block and were not supposed to move during the ceremony. We played the third movement of our show followed by the woodwinds playing an excerpt from ‘Irish Tune from County Derry (Danny Boy)’, the military group that was there then played the last post, we concluded with the Canadian national anthem followed by Belgium’s Anthem.

It was another experience to add to our day, perhaps not the most fun or exciting thing we have done on tour, but it is an important experience for my generation as well as ones to come.

CW

The past few days have been quite tough on the members’ physical health. There are quite a few sick members as well as ones who have injuries such as collarbone, knees, and other assorted body parts. I am happy to report that the Dutch healthcare system works like a well oiled machine. We were able to have two members checked out, diagnosed, and sent away with drugs to help their pain; all in less time than it took a local taxi cab to get to the Abbey. Can you say efficient?
We were visited by a music judge for WMC at our rehearsal last night. He wanted to see the band that he would be working with at our clinic/workshop for other bands on Tuesday. Basically, he called us out on almost all of the things that the band should have been working on in the last week. There are quite a few changes that we have already made as a result of his visit that will make our show stand out from the crowd. He thought we were doing amazing and thinks that if we can pump it up just a little bit more, we should have an interesting week at WMC.

A note from Carmen:
More rehearsal awaits us in Kerkrade, nothing to report on that except that yesterday was our first day here that we didn’t get rained on. Most of our rehearsal days go from 8:30 am to 9 pm. Our first rehearsal day (ie. The day we got here) we rehearsed until 9 pm, but had to stop playing at 8 because the religious folk requested quiet, but from the second day on the Nuns said it was ok to play until 9 because the Monks were on vacation. How amusing.

Going back to our tour of the caves as I had noted at the end of one of my posts; we got onto our respective busses after our morning physical warm-up (in the rain) and drove out of Kerkrade. I am not sure many people actually knew what the town we were visiting was called, so many of us were surprised when the busses stopped quite abruptly in front of a small plaza and a small hill with two doorways cut into it. The town was called Valkenburg, it was your typical European town, narrow streets, cobblestone sidewalks, lots of pubs advertising a different brand of ale (mmm…Heiniken). The special thing about this town was that back in the late 1600’s the town’s people began digging caves underneath the nearby hills to excavate limestone for houses in the town. The caves got bigger and bigger over the years and in turn became more and more intricate. Today, the caves stretch over 70km long while reaching up to 70ft underground in some places, they’re so extensive that no single person knows the entirety of it. The caves maintain a constant (no matter what the weather outside) twelve degree’s Celsius. Little did we know that this adventure would be one of the cooler places we would spend time in during this trip. During WWI and WWII, the caves became a refuge for citizens from the wars raging outside. In WWII, the German’s invaded the town and discovered the caves; the plan was put forth that the caves be used as a factory to build parts for the Nazi V10 missiles. The plan was abandoned when the town was liberated by American and British soldiers. During the Cold War, a steel airtight door and an atomic shelter fit for 15000 people was installed in the cave in the fear that the Russians and Americans would use nuclear weapons and nerve gasses against each other during the war.

The most stunning part about these caves is the sheer size, and the amazing art on the walls. There are some of the greatest amateur sculptures and paintings I have ever seen in the Valkenburg caves. Our tour guide explained to us that they could not use very much color when drawing in the caves because chalk would not last very long on the walls due to the humidity level. Therefore, artists were forced to use charcoal. You can also see etchings of people’s names and dates on every wall in the cave.

Our tour ended and then we were on our own for lunch. Many people went to sit down-ish resturaunts, others (including me) visited a snack shop where we sampled the local fast food. I had a cheeseburger which was delicious; not what I expected, but delicious. The patty was covered with chopped onion and cheese, underneath the patty was pickles, cucumber and some kind of barbeque sauce. It sure was different, but it was delicious.

Still trying to put pictures up from the visit...

CW