Tropical Storm Tour 2002

Tropical Storm Tour 2002 - Bonaire (by Georgos "Yanni") Because most of you people out there couldn't be with us on our Tropical Storm Tour in Bonaire (a small island in the Caribbean near South America). I came to the bright and wonderful idea to write about our trip so everyone can at least have an idea of what it was like. Our Tropical Storm Tour was our first tour outside Holland and because our first tour in a foreign country should be something really special the Rockfest at Bonaire seemed like a good idea. I mean, how could we ever refuse the chance to play between the palmtrees, drinking al kinds of bizarre cocktails and living the ultimate Rockstar life for a week. I went to Bonaire one week before the rest of the band so I could do some in depth research work into local and south American beers (polar beer rules!!!) and which cocktails were best and were you could buy them (yeah I know a really difficult and hard job but hey someone had to do it and I was prepared to make this big sacrifice) After 10 hours in the plane I arrived at Flamingo Airport where I was picked up by Ed, a good friend of the band and also the tourmanager of the tropical storm tour. When I got out of the plane the 35 degrees temperature immediately hit me like a sledge hammer, so as fast as we could we drove to the nearest bar to drink some cool cocktails to fight of the heat and the jetlag.

After a week of tasting cocktails and domestic beers, hanging on the beach and risking my life by chasing al kinds of bizarre underwater creatures like Barracuda's and Murena's, the rest of the band arrived.

The first few days we spent partying (of course) and then we had our first gig on a Friday night. This was also our most bizarre concert ever and could have come straight from the Spinal Tap movie. When we heard that the concert was in Honor of the anniversary of the independence of Surinam and we played together with some kind of old people samba salsa band we thought it was a joke. But when we arrived at the bar called cocos beach-bar we started to get doubts about the joke and realized it wasn't a joke at all. On the flyer we were put as the special guest and special it was indeed. The other band that played was a samba salsa band with all kinds of old people as an audience, when we looked at this we had a real big laugh with the idea that we would give a lot of people there a heart attack when we would play. After the samba bamba band finished it was our turn. We started the set with Nightmare World and got a lot of the senior citizens on the run. But the good thing was they where replaced by younger people who heard us and came to view the tropical storm released on this once so peaceful island. After we played a part of our setlist the islanders had a good preview of what was to come at the Rockfest the day after. We where allowed only to play a few songs from the organization of the Rockfest because they had advertised a lot for the rockfest on radio, television and papers and of course they didn't wanted us to show everything we got already a day in advance.

The next day we had to play at the Rockfest, the last weeks they had already did a lot of marketing for this on radio, television and in the papers so we expected a lot of people. We went there in the afternoon to soundcheck. The stage was really

great it was build on the beach between the palmtrees it was a real strange and bizarre picture. After our soundcheck we where immediately approached by the manager of the band "candy 66" (a metal band from Venezuela that seems to be very big there). He proposed to talk about doing a tour in Venezuela, which seemed like a good idea. Later we went for some food and some polar beers with our friends from the polar beer promotion team. The funny thing was the whole event was sponsored by Amstel beer and Polar beer was not really allowed at the festival, but our friends from the polar beer promotion team smuggled some beers inside because nothing beats the polar beer from Venezuela. The festival started with a local band called Distortion or the band Chill. I don't know for sure which band was first but I know they where both local bands. Because we where to busy preparing the big chainsaw logo that we wanted to hang in the back of the stage behind the drums for the concert we haven't seen to much of this band. After these bands it was time to release a tropical storm on the island. We started the setlist with "Nightmare World" always a nice song to kick of with. Fortunately the stage was pretty big so we could run around the stage like madman or "loco's from the Netherlands" as the South American people there called us. The song "she just want's to get laid" was also very appreciated, especially the lyrics I think. And

during the song "chainsaw" people already started to sing along "Chainsaw is the law" so that's always nice to hear. During one of the songs Aike jumped of the stage to sing in the crowd. The last song we played was "Road Rage" this is also the song where the beast is let loose in al the members of

the band and we transform completely into mad crazy destructive animals. During this song I also tried to jump of the stage but miscalculated my jump and ended up falling of the stage flat on my back. This was of course not really a problem but the problem was that my guitar was unplugged from the amp for a short while because of this stunt. Luckily the crowd didn't noticed it very much because they were too enthusiastic about the jump, so I did some headbanging together with the crowd to cover up the fact that the guitar was unplugged and when my guitar was plugged and shredding again I stayed playing in the great crowd until the concert was over. Hell Yeah, this was really one of our best gigs. After the concert we really felt like rockstars when people asked us to sign all kind of items, from a snare drum to a Venezuelan flag. After us it was the turn of the Venezuelan death metal band "Hatred Spawn" they played real old-fashioned death metal, so a great band to release all our energy that was left trough the adrenaline rush we got after our gig. After they where finished we drank some beers with our friends from "hatred spawn" during the gig of "candy 66" and partied on until we where in a coma. The next few days we spent acting out the rockstar live and playing a bit the part of a tourist. During these days we tasted a lot of cocktails, swum along the barracuda's, and ended up putting one Barracuda on the barbecue. After some days the rest of the band had to go back to the Netherlands unfortunately. I was lucky enough to have quitted my job in the Netherlands to go to Bonaire, so I could stay a while longer on this tropical paradise. I ended up staying in Bonaire two months more in which I did my best promoting the band and selling some Chainsaw singles and t-shirts. Also I improved my knowledge about drinking cocktails by working in a bar where I developed some good lethal cocktails. And I did a good attempt in transforming this bar into a metal place by playing some good metal. I also had a nice confrontation with a shark during my stay, but it didn't bite of my guitar arm so no harm done. After two months I returned to the Netherlands and our holy mission to promote Heavy Metal in the Caribbean was finished.