Friday 23 September 2011

The Bikeshop, Henk of the Hill and The Fongster100

So friends,

After the great open mic at Averecht, we were scheduled to go onto our next couch surfing host, Henk Van De Veen. Now, this guy has a great profile page on couchsurfing, perfect for any musician looking to make a friendly connection. He is big into 'gigswapping' and is a fantastic musician, and we have been staying with him since we decided to plop ourselves down for a while in Utrecht. He owns and runs a bike shop (see video below), and it's a great place to catch very rare acoustic gigs. I have done a couple of mini shows there now, it's great fun, the bikes hanging up make it feel like a robot surgery, with little internal bike organs found by your feet. The perfect place to be musically inspired.

On our first visit there we were met with smiles and I was told to entertain the customers with some guitar playing. So I did, and here is a bit of it...



Henk gave us keys to let ourselves in at his place, and we left the bike shop. A few hours later he came home and told us that an American was also due to arrive soon. Henk then left us to go look after his two boys and we had some food.

There was a knock on the door, and standing there (bagless!) was Robert Wilfong, aka The Fongster100, Blues master. His bags had been misplaced by the airline and were currently in the land of "unknown whereabouts". We set him up with a temporary bed until Henk could sort out one for him (we had only just arrived ourselves so were a little disorientated).

The following day, Rob played to Beauty and me in the kitchen, it was amazing, and the song 'Ever Since the World Ended' will forever be engraved in my mind.


Thankfully, Rob's luggage arrived a day later, delivered by the airline. He had several guitars in there, as well as street performance gear (amps etc.)

We would go busking together often, but that's the stuff of a blog of it's own...

With so much music around us in such a short time, it seemed like we really had to stay around here, just to give our ears what they wanted.

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