Monday, March 12, 2007

Finally an update!!

Heya! How's everyone?? I finally got the oppertunity to post something on my blog! All school computers block all blogs and myspace and youtube and I thought I was doomed until I found out a classmate has got internet on her room, hurray!!

I've been on Warwickshire College in the UK for nearly 5 weeks now, and we're leaving for our internship on a sheepfarm on Friday (in 4 days). It's great over here, although sometimes we're a bit bored... Our courses are a bit too easy and things aren't quite planned too well for us. But we're having fun nontheless! In the weekend we'll go see some nearby city and do some shoppings haha.
Two of my classmates have gone home, because they were ill or homesick. Unfortunalety they can't finish the international course now.
Sheepclasses have been just great! I love bottle-feeding lambs! Their so sweet.
My pics are at my photobucket acount. See post below.

Love, Rianne!

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

You gotta check this out! Switchfoot performing Beyoncé's Crazy In Love

Switchfoot Utrecht 31-1-2007 review

So, Wednesday, January 31, 2007. I wake up thinking: This is THE day. THE day I’m seeing Switchfoot live for the first time in my life. I have a nice long yawn and stretch my entire body. Sit up straight, have a look around my dorm room; My clothes I’m wearing today waiting for me, the bag I picked; packed and all ready to go.
I had a long train ride yesterday. I had to pick up my tickets at home, because Interticket was a little slow on sending them (Basterds!). When I was on the train, I had a nice call from the Music store: Oh!Gravity just got in. Yay! It was worth the 7,5 hours trip. So last night I came home at 10.30, with tickets and CD. And off course I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up watching 3 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy… Shouldn’t have done that, I’m dead tired now…
Anyway, I get up, go to school where I meet Wendy, my good friend and concert buddy for tonight and she nicely tells me we have class until 5pm! Great! I was planning on being in Utrecht EARLY. But class turns out to be really boring so we decide to leave during lunch. We take the 2 o’clock train to Amersfoort and arrive in Utrecht at 3. Neither of us have actually ever been to this city so we kinda feel like tourists finding our way of off a printed route description… But nonetheless we arrive at the venue, Tivoli. Wendy and I look at each other and laugh; This is it?! It looks so tiny! There is no one waiting in line yet, so we decide to find the artists entrance at the back of the building, to see if we can catch the guys before the show. We walk around the block to check out the back. Wait, did I say back? There IS no back! The back of Tivoli is a children day-care centre! We pet a passing-by cat and go back to the front, and sneak in because we hear music! Ladies and gentlemen: we hear the sound check!! Yay! It’s only Jon playing the acoustic guitar and some drums, but we are PSYCHED! They’re really here! Wendy tries to record it on her phone but it doesn’t work. So we stand there for about 10 minutes crawled up to the door the sound is coming from and then two interviewers come in and are being send through an other door. Hmm, should we act like we’re here for an interview too? Not knowing how they’d react, we decide to be good and go off to get some hot cocoa and cheeserolls and have a nice relieving pee at Hema. When we get back the venue at 4.30 there STILL is no one in line and we wait around a bit until we get cold. We see some people walking in and out the mysterious door and I want to stay and see what’s going on, but Wendy can’t wait and we agree on going to the nearest bar to have a some soda. The nearest bar is nice and warm and has a view on the entrance of Tivoli. Could it be more perfect? Yes it can because there happen to live two cats at the bar, which are happy to be cuddled J. At 5.30 we leave the bar and there are 4 people in line! Yay, some company! We chat and joke around a bit until this Tunisian dude comes in and starts to bug us and talks in 3 different languages at the same time. We get annoyed by him very soon but he won’t go away, so we decide to just ignore him, but it won’t work, he just keeps (s)talking! When he starts to smoke some pot we tell him very clearly not to so luckily he stops after offering us a smoke. NO thank you. Some more people get in line and soon it starts to get more crowded and the Tunisian guy goes off and talks to other people. Glad we got rid of him; it wasn’t funny anymore. There are some people taking a lot of Chinese food and French fries into the mysterious door (aka backstage entrance...). Meanwhile Wendy and I really have to pee but we can’t because the doors could open any minute, so we decide to go as soon as they’ll open. Result: 3rd row. Dang it. There’s a girl in a wheelchair in front of us. I don’t know I should be happy about that or not; We can’t get around her and she takes space for about 5 people but on the other hand we don’t have annoyingly tall heads in front of us so we do have a clear view on Jon’s spot. The venue keeps filling up and then the opening band, Verra Cruz, comes up with a lot of, well, noise actually. They are nice, but they’re a tad too rough as an opening to Switchfoot. Besides the fact that the lead singer/guitarist switches guitars (which sound the same, believe me) EVERY freakin’ song, they are quite amusing. The lead singer says he did his tax administrations last night and only slept for about an hour, so that’s the explanation why he is, I quote: ‘A bit weird’ tonight. Finally (nah just kiddin’) they get of stage, no one yells ‘We want more!’ which I find a bit insulting to the band. I don’t know; should you ask for more on the opening band? Because most of the peeps are here for Switchfoot. I hate to bug you with this, it’s just some random thought running trough my head.
Anyway a guy we’ve seen walking about when we were in line comes up and keeps nagging about children in I don’t know some poor country, probably Africa. But Wendy and I don’t mind; we keep our ears closed and our eyes open; that dude is hot! ;-p So they say Switchfoot will be up in about 15 minutes. Add 30 minutes up with that and you get the actual waiting time. There are some annoying dudes behind us who keep smoking (I hate smokers) and keep pushing us in the back. WTF they have enough space, idiots! I’m sorry, I may sound a tad snobbish but Wendy and I got really cranky because we didn’t have dinner and we are a bit tired. So everyone is cheering and stuff because they think Switchfoot comes up with every movement they see on stage. Then I say to Wendy; When the lights go down, they’ll come up. And right after I said that (I’m not exaggerating here) the lights go down….

AWAKENING!!!! I really am awakening now! It’s Switchfoot! It’s really them! I have to stop cheering because if I do any more, my heart might just bump out of my chest. OK, deep breath Rianne, deep long nice breath (…) Ok ready for cheering again!! Could my legs please stop shaking? Kthnx. Even though I studied the lines to the new album all night long yesterday (well, not during Grey’s Anatomy), I only know the lines to the chorus. But that’s ok. Here we are now ladatatalalatadaa, WE’RE AWAKENING!! When they finish the song, all band members put their hand above their eyes and stare over the crowd and freeze… Well, I don’t know what that’s good for, but alright, it looks cool and I can take some nice shots with my camera. Then they play American Dream and after that; GONE!! I adore that song, and I know the entire lyrics! I love the live version of this song with the GONE! GONE! GONE! thing at the end. Wendy doesn’t really know Switchfoot yet but I’m pretty sure this is her favourite song too. We’ll probably be screaming GONE! all day tomorrow at school. Right, so then, Jon looks at this dude in the crowd and pulls him on stage, so I look at Wendy with a face like a question mark and she says he has this sign asking to play Stars. Hence the Jon pulling him on stage, right. Update successfully succeeded. So Jon asks his name; Marty. Now Marty ain’t a Dutch name so I think his name is Martijn or something and Jon just misunderstood. They chat some more and then Jon says: ‘I never trusted a guy named Marty before’, and it just cracks me up! Then Jon hands him his guitar and Marty starts playing. Dude! That dude rocks! I’m telling you he could be part of the band right away! I see Chad and Tim looking at each other with big smiles on their faces, and I’m sure I have one just as big planted on my face too. They play This Is Your Life, Happy Is A Yuppie Word, The Shadow Proves The Sunshine and Dirty Second Hands (I still have to get used to that song). Somewhere in between (hey that’s a Lifehouse song! hehe) Jon says they love being here and that Chad was actually born in the Neths. He also informs us about the merch stand with special cheap Dutch prices, thanks a lot Jon…! Some people in the crowd hand him some tulips and he puts one on his mic. Then he says; ‘This is a song for the older fans’, and I’m like Woot! Company Car! (I had a quick peek at he setlist before the show, hehe) and Jon has us taking our neighbour’s arm and move from the left to the right (or from the right to the left, whatever you want), this is cool! Next is On Fire, so beautiful! I nearly have tears in my eyes. I’m sure that if they’d play Yesterdays, I’d burst into tears, seriously. I had to hold my tears in the train last night when I heard it for the first time. I can’t really relate the that song but wow it is just gorgeous. We Are One Tonight ROCKS the place, we seriously have a pit going on here! And I start to think we really are one tonight. Can’t believe this will be over soon… Oh Gravity! and Meant To Live are last. Now Meant To Live was the first song ever I heard by Switchfoot and it made me fall in love with them 3.5 years ago. Needles to say I scream my lungs out together with Wendy during it. (Screaming without lungs hehe).
As the men of Switchfoot leave the stage, the crowd keeps on going WE WANT MORE etc. and as if a miracle happens, Jon comes back on stage to play 24. (was that too much? I’m sorry I’m getting weird after writing all this, and the fact that it’s now 3:05am isn’t really helping. It really is too long isn’t it?) And last but not least (sorry, did it again): Dare You To Move! I think this is the only song by Switchfoot I can hit all the notes of. Really, I don’t sing on a regularly basis so I’m not the best singer, but this song, I can sing, which I am doing fully as I realize this is the last song of tonight…

Lights are being lit again and people start to walk out to get their coats and go home. But not us! I wanna meet the guys! I buy the poster at merch and after taking a good look at the pink girlie shirt with the peacock, I decide it will look good on me too :-) We sit down in the hallway where the line was, to rest our legs a bit. My poor right foot; the seam of my sock has been terrorising my tiny toe all night long. We’re getting cold so we decide to get our coats and as I’m putting it on and turn around, I see Chad! I go to him but he’s already talking to someone, so I patiently wait. Ok scrap that, I’m not being patient, I just look patient. Inside I have to tell my heart not to act like a crazy organ. And in comes Jon and walks to the merch joking about; ‘I’ll have 5 of those, 4 of those and throw in some stickers while you’re at it’ He’s really funny! So I say: ‘Jon?’ and he looks at me and I’m like hiiii it’s really him!! I’ll never forget the way he just looked at me. We have a little chit-chat and I ask him to sign my CD and to take a picture with me, which he nicely does. My camera on the other hand isn’t being this nice because as it turn out later, it didn’t save the pic with flash because it ran out of batteries. Shoot. Then I bring up that I thought it was a pity they had to cancel their European tour last summer, and he says ‘Yeah, I know but we’ll be back’, and I think; but you’re back now! This is your back. But I don’t get the chance to say ‘cause up comes Marty to talk with Jon. I tell Marty he totally rocked the stage and he says he couldn’t have done it without the band, so I tell Jon Switchfoot totally rocks the stage as well of course. Next up is Chad. Chat with Chad. Now Chad is really nice. I introduce myself and ask him to sign my CD and he asks me how my name is spelled. So he writes down; To Rianne Thanks for listening CHAD. Sweet! Then he takes out the booklet and feels the paper and says it feel different than in the US. I make him laugh saying ‘It’s European paper!’ Wendy takes a pic of us. I ask him how he likes The Neths and he says ‘I love it! I was actually born here!’ Me: ‘Oh yeah Jon said something like that during the show. In what city were you born?’ Chad: ‘In Amsterdam, on a living boat, haha’. Me: ‘Are your parents Dutch then? Or did they just live there?’ Which they did of course. Chad Butler is not exactly a Dutch name. He says he and his parents lived there for two years and moved back to the US then. We say goodbye and Wendy and I go to Tim, and he’s talking with some guys and we wait until they’re finished. I can say I’m patient now, I kinda got the talking-with-rockstars-thing down now. I’m thinking Tim is remarkably short. In pictures I thought of him as a larger person, but in real life, he’s just as big as me. Interesting. Tim signs my CD and I take a picture of Wendy and Tim, and Wendy takes a pic of Tim and me. He’s saying he’s really tired and they just flew in this morning. He also says he could have had a nap this afternoon but he didn’t because he’d be feeling weird all day if he did. I know the feeling. He asks us if we’d been a fan for long and I say I am and Wendy says; ‘I only know you guys for one week!’ And then I’m like; Yeah I kinda dragged her along.’, so Wendy knocks me on the head with the rolled up poster and Tim is slightly amused by that. The Brothers are really funny! Another goodbye and we’re off to Drew. He signs the CD but I don’t really get a chance to have a chat with him because the venue-dude asks if they could wrap it up, so Drew asks if he could just have one more picture taken, and we could, yay! The last goodbye is being said and Wendy and I find our way back to the train station, where we see Marty again and say hi. We’re bummed we didn’t get a chance to speak with Jerome, but we’re satisfied with the entire day nonetheless.

You can check the pics I made at: http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/rianneloveslifehouse/Switchfoot%20Utrecht%2031%20jan%202007/

Friday, January 26, 2007

Here's me at sheep class!!

You'd better get used to this view 'cause I don't think I'll be wearing something different than this in the UK!

Sunday, January 14, 2007

My birthday-party 5 jan. 07

The party was really fun! My friends gathered at my place and they made me wear weird surgery clothes (because of my intership at a sheepfarm 'in the delivery room' in february and march in the UK ) check pic:



We went to my favorite bar at about 11 and my friends secretly brought a Lifehouse cd and asked the dj to play a song! (they don't have any LH there, I've already asked before) It was so unexpected! That was so sweet of them! They played 'Unknown'. I love that song but it sounded even better in my fav bar! I was high for an hour. %-)

At 01.00 I ordered some pizzas and we all had a great late-night snack in the bar. It was hilarious. They didn't think I really was going to 'cause they thought I was bluffing. I SO wasn't!!

I totally had a blast!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

My slideshow; welcome to my life!

Hi ya'll! I made this cool slideshow:



Welcome to my life!