Promoting brand new album “Fear The Universe” (RCR0017) Martyr supported the US thrash metal band Flotsam & Jetsam on their European tour August 2009.
21-8 Treibsand – Lubeck – Germany – 500Km
Left early for the rehearsal room to get the gear together and meet with Gerjan, our tour manager and the crew: Mauri (sound), Bozzy (road crew) and Jeroen (road crew). It will be a long drive after loading all our stuff in the van and picking up the guys from Flots at the hotel nearby. With the Lizzy Borden tour we also played Treibsand - Lubeck and remember it as the place with the greatest hospitality and a bunch of crazy fans. So we´re looking forward to play Treibsand again. Arriving at 17.00 we were immediately "spoiled" with an enormous amount of food and beer backstage (and this wasn´t even dinner). Yes, that´s how we remember it! The cook from Treibsand is really one of the best!!! And the local crew as well (also because of getting us the first bottle of Jagermeister this tour haha). After setting up the backline, we had some more time to meet the Flots and getting to know them some more. Great guys, very relaxed. After our traditional rounds of Jager, the show went off great, the place was packed. Good to see fans with T Shirts in the crowd shouting along. A good start for the tour where we will play the entire "Fear" album combined with some classic tracks like "Snow And Fire", "Speed Of Samurai" and "Darkness At Time´s Edge". Ofcourse Rop can again be found between the audience, throwing with water, acting like crazy. Toine plays wireless this tour, and that was something we noticed. He was on every spot on stage…crazy as hell. Rick and Marcel will be going nuts this tour for sure haha. Wilf must be the only one save behind his kit!

Afterwards the Flots complimented us on a great show: "We don’t want to play after you fucking crazy bastards". But the Flots were fucking great! Although they had some troubles with the monitors this first night the crowd digged their classic tracks like: "I Live, You Die", "Doomsday", "Hammerhead" and others. And so did we. One mistake though: When the Flots played their set we noticed that the MARTYR backdrop was still behind Craig Nielsen (drums) Oops (haha).

Backstage fans were waiting for us with the old MARTYR albums (like Metal Massacre VI rare vinyl) to sign. Promoter Jens Lindeman was also very happy and probably MARTYR will soon be added to the line up of a big metal festival he also organises!! After enjoying and other extensive meal, the necessary (!) drinks and hanging out at the venue, we went back to the hotel very late (or early?) to get up very early for the Rockmania festival in Dettelbach. 22-8 Rockmania – Dettelbach – Germany 580 km
Supposed to leave early we noticed Gerjan and Mauri were “lost” last night. After calling Gerjan (who was so sleepy and confused not knowing where the hell he had ended last night) we went off to pick up Mauri at some kind of student apartment and finally left for Dettelbach. Because show time was early for MARTYR, there was not that big audience that we hoped for. But….as we said to each other…"let´s just give it our full effort….”, we managed to get everybody (and I mean everybody) out there screaming for more. Of course Rop’s performance helped! Great show, great sound, great lights. Met a lot of bands and people as well over there as well (like the guys from Disbelief, fucking great show!). Around 21.00 we picked up Jason B Ward (bass) from the hotel to start the party with us at the Frankenhalle. Eric A K (vocals), Ed Carlson (guitars) , Mark Simpson (guitars) and Craig arrived a little later. The Flots performed as a headliner and did a great job. Even better than yesterday. Imagine that they hadn´t played in 6 months together! Having some more drinks with Mark (no more Jager for me) and Jason (what a mouth waterfall) we hit the sack again late. 23-8 Rock Temple– Kerkrade – Holland 415 km
Never know what to expect from playing a venue in Holland on a Monday evening and during the summer holidays. But after all we can only say we were very satisfied with this gig. The Rock Temple is a well known venue in Holland where a lot of great bands play. And…..Jagermeister served from a tap.

While the Flots immediately went back to the hotel we set up the gear and did the sound check. The confidence in creating a good sound (also for the Flots) was there so after this show we were able to do almost every sound check. Thanx to local engineer Rene Meerts we managed to get a good heavy sound in this not too big place. After the intro tape “Snow & Fire” hits the audience hard. While Rop walks between them and Toine enjoys his wireless system there is still some little space left onstage for Rick and Marcel to play their heavy riffs side by side.

When in Holland of course there has to be ordered something to smoke besides the drinking so Rick send out a courier to get some stuff. Craig and Ed left immediately after the show, while we enjoyed talking to some fans a little bit "Your riffs on the 3d song were so fucking amazing that it got me a hard dick for about 10 seconds…." Haha, very literary. Our hotel was in a place called Heerlen nearby. So after checking in, only 3 times because the rooms were either filthy or taken, we went to the centre with the crew and met Jason, Mark and A.K. to hang out in a few bars. Lots of Jager and beer did not help Jason to shut up ..Haha. After abusing the piano in the lobby and Gerjan and Bozzy shouting to wake up Jeroen, we finally got some sleep. 24-8 Die Halle– Frankfurt – Germany 285 km
A short trip today to die Halle where we played last year as well with Lizzy Borden A small and difficult to find place but we knew what to expect and how to get there. Christoph welcomed us after our arrival with plenty of drinks, sandwiches and his famous chilli con carne (great). At 21.00 we´re hitting the stage. We noticed MARTYR fans from Dettelbach up front so that was great as well. Die Halle has great lights and sound, and although it is clear that the people came to see the Flots we managed to conquer them as well with a good show. On such a small stage with also a strange construction it is difficult to move around. Haha, the only show where Toine was kind of stuck on his spot on stage……On "Speed Of Samurai" one the Dettelbach fans hit the high note that Rop normally hits..AAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAA. Awesome, when he can spoil water like Rop does, he can always be asked as a substitute haha. But no kidding, it was a great show. The Flots played their set as ever…..very tight and with great enthusiasm. Again…better than the night before. Jason got off stage with blood on his fingertips…wow, he is an amazing bass player. After the show some autographs, partying with fans and the Flots and off to the hotel. 25-8 Exit Chmelnice – Praque – Czech Republic 510 km
Yes, up to Prague. After the border we decided to order our first beer. Hell yeah, 80 cents for 0,5 l. That’s the way it should be. Let’s order some more..more…more. We arrived a bit too early at Exit Chmelnice, which unfortunately was not in the centre of Praque but in Praha 3. Not too much to do out there except the non stop bar with beers for…yes…80 euro cents. Let’s wait here shall we…?? At 17.00 Exit Chmelnice opened it’s doors for us , and we were informed about the fact that the promoter of this show had gone bankrupt. A problem for Ger Jan, no food for both bands. But the show must go on. It was a weird show. After the No Mads from Poland (heavy death Metal) finished their show it was up to us. We did not have that much confidence at the start of the show that this would be a successful night for us but it did. A lot of the Death, thrash metal fans slowly but surely got along with our songs and yelled for more. We gave it our best and that really worked well. After the show we met up with the No Mads and had a great party with them, watching the Flots on stage. At 2.30 Am we arrived at the hotel, still no food. So we all went to the bar where there should be something to eat but…nothing there. And everything in the area was already closed. With no Czech Koruna in our pockets we decided to take the car and a cab to search for something to eat. At a non stop shop finally we scored food and bear for 15 euro’s. It was so cheap that we bought all bread that’s was left and still had enough money for beer, sausages, sweet bread and more haha. Meanwhile Gerjan arrived with MacDonald’s!! Finally, it must have been 4 Am we were bunkering like hungry wolves. 26-8 Heya Club – Szczecin – Poland 510 km
A long trip again to Poland, but really looking forward to it. The Heya Club is supposed to be a great venue and our earlier shows in Poland we did with Lizzy Borden were so amazing that we were very eager to play Poland again. When arriving at the Heya Club we could not believe our eyes. What a hall. Great place, good organisation. The dressing room filled with food, salads, bread and lots of beer and Vodka. The promoter & sponsor Piotr Winnicki seemed to be the boss of the Polmos distillery . We knew we were going to have a great time here!! Katinka , assigned as a personal assistant for the Flots and MARTYR took us to dinner while the first 3 polish bands played at the Szczecin Metal Meeting. Returning around 20.00 we noticed the place was filled with around 500 Polish metal fans. After the first 3 bands Jeroen and Bozzy quickly changed backlines and we were ready to start off with "Snow & Fire&. Next song was "Darkness At Time´s edge" followed by "Fear". It was obvious the Polish fans digged our sound and were really into it. Followed by "Different kind of Rain" and "Take Me Home" it was time for another classic and our fans favorite: "Speed Of Samurai". Rop noticed 2 very young fans in front of the stage and took them up to bang with us on stage. "The Most Evil One" and "Eaten Alive" where the crowd sang along with the band: "I Hate You". A really great show, but what was less terrific was the fact that in our dressing room our present from the sponsor (Polish booze) was stolen and drank by the other bands….shit. After the show ofcourse we watched the Flots and partied with the fans and Piotr. Arriving late at the hotel all guys of Flotsam & Jetsam, MARTYR and crew got all the booze together and partied on in the lobby. Unfortunately a ticket next day for wrong parking but that could not spoil the happiness. 27-8 A Day Off – Berlin- Germany 150 km
Today MARTYR enjoyed a day off in Berlin while the Flots play Wacken South. Our show at K17 was unfortunately cancelled. A little bit of sight seeing finally and enjoying the local liquids (beer) and food at East Berlin as well helped us through the day haha. 28-8 Turock – Essen - Germany 580 km
1 hour before arriving at Turock, one of the shows we were very anxious to play with Mucky Pup and Izegrim as well, we were asked by management to play 1st instead of Izegrim. Although not really happy with that decision and after lots of discussion we did. However after arriving and our sound check again we were asked to play 45 min earlier around 19.30 and only for 30 minutes. As we were not informed the right way we were still in the dressing room around 19.40 when warned by the stage manager that we already had to be on stage for 10 minutes and had 20 minutes play time left. Fuck….we were really pissed off by that. Of course at this time not too many people were attending the show, and we left the stage disappointed. Mad at everything, and because of the booze, this was getting even worse along the evening and night . Not our best show on this tour, driving almost 600 km to play 20 minutes sucks!! Because of the curfew of the place, and the change into a dance arena round 23.30, we had to get our gear together very quickly but did not feel like it obviously. Even after arrival in the hotel and having some drinks in the lobby, we were still pissed. And almost called it quits. How big the contrast would be with the show tomorrow. 29-8 Elsrock – Rijssen - Holland 180 km
Showtime at the Elsrock party was 14.00. Should there be a crowd? Hell Yeah, when we arrived at 13.00 we noticed that Elsrock was sold out with 1500 metal heads and lots and lots of them were already on the area! Starting off with "Snow & Fire", we immediately kicked ass, ending with hundreds of fans shouting along with "Eaten Alive´s: I Hate You". Lots of Dutch fans and friends welcomed us home, that was so great!! It was a great and huge festival…..very good organized and a very nice band accompaniment! Meeting again with our friends from the Heavy Metal Maniacs, thanking Bozzy on stage, doing the interview with Moonrock Radio and having all the Maniacs on Stage with us this was a day to remember. Meanwhile the Flots arrived. They had to play Wacken Seaside this afternoon before hitting the stage at Elsrock around 19.00. During their "I Live You Die" track we all went on stage with the Flots to party and celebrate the end of this tour. After watching Action in DC (AC/DC coverband) we said goodbye to crew, fans and the amazing guys from Flotsam & Jetsam to return back home. MARTYR would like to thank: Crew (GerJan, Mauri, Jeroen, Bozzy) , all local crew on the road, The Flots (Jason, Ed, Craig, A.K. Mark) , Nance, Bajvan Agency, Rusty Cage Records, all organisers and promotors.