Catching the train the other night was insanely intense.  After a languorous day of walking along the Dutch canals, we had some Thai food, drank Chimay with a puff of hash.  Along the way we stared at some purplish veined, aging prostitutes in the windows and then finally made our way into Amsterdam’s Central Station.  Hanging out at the platform an hour early, we wondered why our train was strangely nowhere in sight. Then at the last second (just minutes before boarding time) we realized that our intended train was on the other side of the tracks.  With a sickening dread, we realized our printed itinerary was wrong although the conductor had told us we were in the correct spot.

We have a ton of shit, so moving is always a difficult task and the handle on my suitcase broke.  To top it off Senon had to run ahead of the pack to hold the train without his load. It left me with over 170 pounds of luggage, stuck in a urine soaked elevator that froze still on Zac and me. When the door finally opened I was staring  up at a massive flight of stairs.  Meanwhile off in the distance I heard screams that the train was ready to roll off. The conductor and staff were angrily screaming at Senon “Get off!” Senon whaling out to me multiple times “Hurry now, its gonna leave!” I was screwed.  Zac also had his hands full in front of me. The situation was not looking good.

Senon had one leg on the train and one on the cement.  All he could do was yell at me to hurry, but couldn’t step off to help because they would have instantly shut the door on him and rolled off.  I was like a wounded elephant with all this gear, floundering with sweat pouring off my body.  Step by step, I grunted and pulled the heavy luggage with all my strength.  By the time I reached the top of the stairwell, I felt like I was nearly dead.  From here it was like a slow motion 50 yard dash to make the train.

Before reaching the tall step of the train door, there was a deadly gap that led to the tracks below.  My broken ass, piece of shit bag, which was tied to my keyboard case, snapped off and bounced off the gap as I pulled my load through the door.  It was sketchy, but we finally made it in.  Had we missed this ride, the alternative train would’ve been the following night, which means we would have been out well over a thousand euros as well as missing the Munich show (which actually turned out to be the best show of the tour!)

On the train, I hunched over my keyboard case gagging.  My heart was beating as fast as a hummingbirds’ wings and I was dry heaving with stinging lungs. It was so hard. We all agreed that this was in our top three most difficult touring experiences ever.   Once we all regrouped in the train car, we had to focus on which car we were actually sleeping in.  All of us were completely soaked with sweat and had to squeeze through the tiny glass doors with all our stuff.  This proved to be quite the challenge.  I was afraid my metal keyboard case would smash the glass doors and cause more trouble. To top it all off, Graeme, our tour manager, forgot to give us our train tickets when we parted ways in London.

Despite all this, we finally made it to our car.  I cleaned my feet and pits with wetwipes, from Nimol (our lead singer).  Then I plopped onto the middle sleeper to rest.  We uncorked some good Malbec accompanied with a xanax pill and slept through the entire 12 hour journey.

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For more on Dengue Fever’s tour schedule, visit: http://www.myspace.com/denguefevermusic