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Brutus Toured The UK And Gave Us This Beautiful Tour Diary

When ​Belgium's Brutus were over in the UK last week, they did a nine date tour and a session on the Radio 1 Rock Show. What did you do last time you were in Belgium? Exactly.

Pure Brutus tradition when we're heading to play in the UK: As soon as we get there we stop at the first service station we see and Stijn buys as many bags of these "Pretzel Snacks" as he can carry, he loves them. We can't buy these in Belgium so Stijn makes the most of their availability when in the UK!
First show: The Dome in London, supporting Black Foxxes. Loading in and out will be a daily routine for the next 10 days.
Cavern - Exeter. First headline show. Preparation: playlists, merchandise, new strings, guitar setup. Touring also involves a lot of waiting. Soundcheck at 4pm, game-on at 9pm.
We absolutely love the old, vintage hotels in the English countryside! Hotels in cities or close to the venue are usually way too expensive for our touring budget. So after the shows we drive a little out of town and we're always on the lookout for 'unique' places like this to stay. Just awesome.
Exchange - Bristol. Great people, great venue. We've played in Bristol before and also had the pleasure of playing local festivals Arctangent and 2000 Trees this year. We're building in the UK and in Bristol, having now played those few shows before, we can see a tangible growth in our audiences with each visit. Thank you folks of Bristol!
This is our guitarist Stijn with Callum, singer of our support band for this tour, Guillotines. Such nice guys! Touring with a band you only know by their music can be tricky, not yet knowing them personally, but this turned out so well. Love you guys! X
Exchange Bristol - For this tour we had friend and photographer Eva Vlonk with us. She is in none of the photos, always behind the lens, so we would love to mention her here, just to show our appreciation :) Thank you Eva!
Castle Hotel - Manchester - This is only an 80 people capacity venue and it looks so cool! Our driver and stage-manager Leo-Benjamin is pictured here - he's an ever-present member of our touring crew, and shown here taking care of pre-show preparations.
Castle Hotel - Manchester. Small venue, small stage. Such a contrast with the big festival stages we were lucky enough to be invited to play across Europe this summer. But to be honest: we love the intimacy of these venues so much! We can feel each other, and the music we make, so much better in these kind of settings.
Castle Hotel - Manchester. We took one day off on this tour, and we spent it in Manchester - Every 4 or 5 shows in a row we do need that time off. For Stefanie's voice, for ourselves. But Eva had a day off too - so we don't have any pictures of our actual day off :). But outside of being tourists in the city, we went drinking the awesome guys in the band The Hyena Kill, who we met at the previous show in Bristol. It's possibly a good thing we don't have any photos from that night...
Broadcast - Glasgow. We drove a long way to Glasgow to play at Broadcast. A really cool venue and also a really nice kitchen! Go eat "jackfruit". With Stefanie being vegan and Peter vegetarian, it was nice to discover a whole new thing to eat. And this was so so good!
Broadcast - Glasgow. This feels like a pretty typical UK urban backdrop? The topless guy is our sound guy Thomas, the third and final member of our incredible touring crew. He is with us since the beginning and he allows us to always relax and focus on playing our best at every show, we never have any concerns with the sound - what a hero!
The landscape for the drive from Glasgow to Birmingham is incredible! Six hours of pure sightseeing. Thank you for being so beautiful UK!
Broadcast - Glasgow. Show number 5 - the halfway point!
Birmingham - If you can't find a cheap vintage hotel, find a cheap big and dated hotel! Sleep is important on tour!
One of the cooler green rooms/backstage areas on this tour: Frogs & Fiddle in Cheltenham.
For us, this looks so exotic. For you guys, this must be classic England? It's beautiful!
We had a great time in Cheltenham! This is what we love the most!
The Joker - Brighton. Stijn the man. Did you knew they also do baby showers in The Joker in Brighton?! It's true! Right before our soundcheck!
A typical shot to end with: load-out through the fire exit. On tour, we bring our full backline. We love to play on our own gear, drums, guitars, amps ... And we carry them with love. Back to Belgium. See you again soon! X

When Belgium's Brutus were over in the UK last week, they did a nine date tour and a session on the Radio 1 Rock Show. What did you do last time you were in Belgium? Exactly. They brought talented photographer Eva Vlonk along for the ride, she shot a tour diary which the band captioned and gave to us, and which you can see above!

If you're not familiar with Brutus' music, you should follow the lead of big fans Lars Ulrich (Metallica) and Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan) and get to know. You can start by checking out their recent video for Horde II right here:

If you're the kind of person who enjoys tour diary, then check out these recent ones from Culture Abuse and Higher Power.

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