We spent the night with Jean Louis and his roommate Gael in Beauffont, a little village outside of Paris. I think some food, some sleep, a shower, and some coffee did us all good and we tumbled into the van for the drive to Amsterdam in much better spirits. As we pulled away Sasha reminded us that was the first day of summer and Bill’s birthday. I drove most of the way to Amsterdam with Sasha and Damir figuring out directions as we went because apparently Josip’s GPS unit doesn’t know anything about Holland.
We finally found the ADM squat on the waterfront after many consultations with bus-stop maps. The 46-square-acre compound used to be a ship yard but has been a squat on and off since the 50s. After driving around aimlessly we called our contact Berk. He appeared out of from between two piles of junk and admitted that the gig had totally slipped his mind. In addition, he had just had a hernia operation that morning and was totally out of it. So the show was not going to happen. He introduced us to some other residents who took care of us though. They led us upstairs to a huge open warehouse floor and produced a couple of crates of beer, some pizzas, and an amazing salad with produce from the ADM garden. Despite not playing a show, we had a good time hanging out and listening to music.
