Okay, this might seem completely insane, but in the Summer of 2002 JJ actually got us to
spend a weekend in a prehistoric
village in Eindhoven .... which also turned out to be an open air museum ...
with us as the main attraction !
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DPRP goes PrehistoricWritten by Ed Sander, with additional notes by Derk van Mourik, Remco Schoenmakers and Bart Jan van der Vorst Saturday morning 9:45 myself and DPRP mates Derk and Bart Jan arrived at the prehistoric open air museum in Eindhoven. One of the care-takers of the property, who had been bothered by some other visitors who wanted to park their car on the grounds, led us to our area of the park. This 'well tempered' gentleman made it more than clear that he 'hated people that couldn't walk'. My joke that he shouldn't be so hard on folks in wheelchairs did not really improve his mood. ;-) Before long we met the rest of the 20 'clan members', including DPRP team members Rob and Remco, as well as team member Jan-Jaap and some other familiar faces (Nicole, Olga, Samantha), and several new faces. We all had to exchange our 'normal' clothing for old rags and/or cow and sheep skins, to become authentic inhabitants of the age referred to as 'the iron age' (being 750 BC). For some of us this turned into a real improvement, while for others the change was hardly noticeable. To give you an impression, by simply putting on some sunglasses, some of us were able to easily transform from prehistoric folks into hippies from the sixties' Summer of Love. No wonder the Romans were scared shitless when they met these folks for the first time when arriving in the area that's now Eindhoven. ;-) Our guide for the weekend showed a striking resemblance to that old TV star Catweazle, including goatee and weird Asterix like ponytails in his hair and in desperate need of a shower. He turned out to be a very friendly geezer nevertheless, and absolutely obsessed with everything prehistoric. During the weekend he gave us several tours through the area, which included several loam farms, baking ovens, areas for chopping wood, campfires and let's not forget the meeting area with the holy tree which (seemingly) housed the greatest god of them all, Wodan himself. Besides the prehistoric area, the museum's property also housed a new Middle Age area, including a authentic inn. On our side of the park, which was originally set up as a scientific experiment to recreate the prehistoric age, no such catering service could be found. Instead, we had to make all our food ourselves. This turned out to become the day's most important task; making sure that you had something to eat in the evening and the next morning. All camp activity was focused on this all-important goal and soon we found ourselves chopping wood for the fires, making clay-balls to seal the oven, grinding corn into flour, kneading dough and actually baking our own four breads. And that was just for next day's breakfast. When the bread was in the oven the clan continued making vegetable soup and a weird combination of corn, vegetables and bacon for supper. Not to mention the big bowl of suspicious tea which seemed to have everything in it that grew in the area. It's amazing how much man hours went into all of this and it made me realize that the prehistoric man would have little time left to do anything other than work and trying to stay alive (which, in most cases, would only succeed for 30-40 years !). While we were working away on the chopping, grinding and kneading, some of the women of the clan (how traditional) made some fine pancakes for the whole group. By the time supper was cooking on the campfires we continued to repair the clan's farm, which had several gaping holes in it. Before long, yours truly was covered up to his armpits in clay. When we heard that last year, one of our clan members who had done this before, had sneaked of the grounds in a canoe to buy beer, we made the quick decision to make some drastic measurements this time, resulting in buying 10 bottles of honey wine (mead) from the museum's souvenir shop, to be added to the stock of alcohol some others had already brought with them. The first of these bottles were opened around dinner time, while midnight found us consuming the last remaining drops.
The time in between supper - which looked absolutely horrendous but tasted
quite well and
has since 750 BC survived in some student houses - and midnight were filled
with conversations,
cleaning the dishes and pans (extremely hard without warm water and
detergents !) prehistoric
games ('bikkelen') and music. Rob and Remco had both brought their acoustic
guitars, while BJ had
brought a real didgeridoo and some toms. Add to this several other old
percussion instruments, an old
bull's horn and a group of mead-consuming prog rock aficionados and you've
got all the
ingredients for an evening of fine music. The complete setlist of the
evening which BJ wrote
down is simply too long to include in this e-mail, mainly because we didn't
play more than a couple
of chords of most songs. Some highlights of the evening were Genesis'
Dancing With The Moonlight Knight, Script for a Jester's Tear, Another Brick in the Wall
(part 2) (with yours truly attempting to recreate the bass line on acoustic guitar), Suzanne (VOF de Kunst), Hotel California (with Remco and Rob on guitar, BJ on several prehistoric drums and myself doing lead vocals) and Rob's broad collection of
old Dutch golden oldies.
The absolute classic of the evening had to be the recurring interpretations
of Remco's brand
new composition Ed, zijn de bananen gaar? (Ed, are the bananas done?,
referring to the evening's dessert). This brilliant piece of songwriting has the obvious
potential to become next
year's big Carnaval hit. We anxiously await Remco's final version. (side note by Derk: "You will recall that both the lyrics and the first version of this
composition were mine, so I think a co-credit for me is in order! :)") All of this didn't just scare away half of our own clan - in all honesty, this first every performance of this line-up was clearly about quantity, not quality - it also kept the folk musicians of the Middle Ages well at bay. Around midnight we all hit the sack, being sleeping bags on hay covered benches. The wine had done it's work and it might have been more a thing of 'losing consciousness' than actually sleeping ....... Only to be woken again at 4 o'clock by the town's infamous rooster. Damn bastard! Kept me awake for most of the night, wriggling about in all kinds of uncomfortable positions while trying not to kick any of my 'roommates', although I probably kept everybody awake in those few moments that I slept by thunderous snoring (a hay-fever attack of the previous evening had completely clogged up my nose). Rise and shine .... well make that faintly shimmer, at nine in the morning to sample the bread we had made the day before (though not before fighting off a hangover with an aspirin, I know that's cheating but the town's druid was on vacation). The bread wasn't bad at all (by now we'd eat anything) and in combination with some eggs and bacon prepared over one of the campfires, all the ingredients of a good start of the day were there. And then it was back to chopping, grinding and kneading. Blimey, what a live ..... makes you appreciate your modern appliances all the more. After arriving home I must have spent several minutes hugging my dear old friend .... the microwave oven. ;-) Lunch featured small breads filled with various ingredients like unions, cheese, apple, etc. Rob even made himself a real pizza ! During all of this we were watched by the visitors of the museum, who freely wandered about. We should have done the most sensible thing that any prehistoric clan would have done while being approached by a strange or hostile other clan; throw stones at them. ;-) Anyway, after lunch we basically had the choice of either staying until 5 o'clock (which would probably mean even more chopping, grinding and kneading!) or clean up and sneak out before the planned sacrifices to the Gods would take place. We opted fort the first option and around 3 o'clock we walked out into the modern world again. I'm absolutely knackered when I type this and the only thing I want this evening is some cold beer, a warm bath and a clean bed. The experience was one to cherish and I wouldn't have missed it for a thing in the world. We had loads of fun and the whole event actually taught us quite a lot. Most important, it makes you appreciate your daily live all the more. I'll be there when we do it again .... but quite frankly, those 30 hours were enough for the rest of 2002. ;-) BJ's notes on the setlist:
Ed hinted at my keeping a setlist, I guess that was the reviewer in me :-) But I thought it would be nice to keep track of what we came up, and looking at it, this is a dream setlist for any prog fan, really.
JJ: high vocals, higher vocals and also some low vocals occasionally
Ed Zijn de Bananen Gaar part I epilogue by Derk:
BTW: strange as it may sound, Rob's, BJ's and mine real adventure only
started when we went back into civilisation. Five minutes after we boarded
the train at Eindhoven (departed 16:08), there was and announcement that
the train in front of us had had an accident, and that our train couldn't
go on. So then we were stranded at Best station (we were thinking of seeing
how you were doing, Remco, since we were in the neighbourhood anyway :).
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