I have a strong connection to the song, Vesper Van Nederland. I wrote it as my friends in EF and I were stranded for a weekend in the tiny, dutch village, Winschoten, after our black Dodge van decided to give up on us at the middle of the freeway. We had left Amsterdam and were heading towards Rostock and it was going to be our last show on our third European tour. This was in the fall of 2006.
We loved our black Dodge van but to be honest it had given us nothing but trouble since the day it entered our lives. This was also the van where I was invited to sit down while getting introduced to all of the members of EF one hundred years ago while I was told, "If you will join EF you will get to sit in this van all the time".
Back to the story; the van broke down and we were towed to the nearest village, which happened to be Winschoten. I had never heard about this village, who had really? Even though I spent a few years of living in the Netherlands I never sat foot nor heard a single dutch person speaking of this hell hole. I am not even sure if this place even exists, or if I have ever been there, for real.
The tow truck dropped us of at a service station, but as this was a Saturday, and in a village that didn't exist, all the shops were already closed. We had to cancel our last show and find us a hotel to spend the weekend there while waiting for Monday to save us. Have anyone ever been longing for Monday to arrive?
I was devastated. Sure, hanging out and touring with your best friends can be fun when you are in your early twenties, but not in three weeks in a row. Especially not when you are homesick and been counting the days the past week for when you will be back home. The guys decided to make the best of this weekend that we needed to spend in Winschoten, the village that does not exist. I spent the entire weekend in bed refusing to eat while longing back home to Gothenburg. This was close to everything I did while waiting for Monday to come, but actually not everything; I was laying in bed with my computer on my belly, hanging out on Myspace and actually writing this song, Vesper Van Nederland.
"Vesper Van Nederland" is dutch and means something like "Evening Star of the Netherlands"
My weekend in Winschoten, the village that does not exist, was not an entire waste. At least I came up with this song that I have been recording and performing in a couple of different versions through out the years. I figure this recording will be the last and final version and I hope you will enjoy it. Hopefully now even more, now that you know how much I suffered while writing it.
What happened later, after the weekend we spent in Winschoten, when Monday finally arrived? We went to the service station where we had parked our broken down, black Dodge van, and were told that there were nothing that could be done at the moment. They had to order parts to the van and it could take up to a week until the parts would arrive.
Did we stay in this dutch hell hole waiting for our black Dodge van to be repaired? Of course not: we rented a van, loaded it with our belongings and drove back to Gothenburg.
Poor Jonatan, our former member, that had to drive down the rented van back to the hell hole the very next day. A few weeks after one of us had to go back down to pick up our black Dodge van that was now repaired. We sold it right away for next to nothing and never saw it again.
Do I need to say that this little adventure costed us everything we earned that tour? Since that day we always rent a van when touring.
Did we stay in this dutch hell hole waiting for our black Dodge van to be repaired? Of course not: we rented a van, loaded it with our belongings and drove back to Gothenburg.
Poor Jonatan, our former member, that had to drive down the rented van back to the hell hole the very next day. A few weeks after one of us had to go back down to pick up our black Dodge van that was now repaired. We sold it right away for next to nothing and never saw it again.
Do I need to say that this little adventure costed us everything we earned that tour? Since that day we always rent a van when touring.