Take the next copyright, then turn left

Yesterday, Undercurrent and Guerilla organised a little concert of German / Japanese electropop band Pitchtuner. It was a very last-minute kind of thing, as we had a lot of trouble finding a venue and ended up in a metal/gothic shack in the centre of Antwerp. This resulted in several bewildered regulars (electro? pop?), a total lack of stage lights and a PA-system that had seen better days (probably when the Mongol hordes were still roaming the European plains). The latter resulted in the concert starting way too late and as there was a curfew, the band could only play for about half an hour. But all of this is -sadly- nothing out of the ordinary. What happened earlier that evening, however, was.

We had made arrangements with the booking agency that Pitchtuner first had to come to our place for dinner, and afterwards we'd all go to the venue for the soundcheck and so on. At about the time the band was due to arrive, they called us saying they had arrived at the venue. We quickly explained there had been some misunderstanding and that they were supposed to eat at our place first. The band said they'd come at once. At this point, we were getting a bit worried as time was already running out and we feared Pitchtuner would have a lot of trouble finding the way from the venue to our place, the Antwerp road system being what it is. But to our surprise, only a few minutes later the door bell rang. "Wow, those guys definitely have a good sense of direction!", we thought as we opened the door. Upon which four persons entered our house. Nothing strange about that you think? Well, it is if you know that Pitchtuner is a threesome.

There are three of them, right?

We figured it must be their driver. Not. The band figured it was either someone from the club or else a friend whom we sent there to help them out. Not. After a lot of discussion and several raised eyebrows, we -being utterly clueless- finally turned to the guy asking who the hell he was. It turned out - brace- that he was someone from the Belgian copyright organisation Sabam, whom you have to pay whenever you organise a gig without getting anything in return (unless you're Madonna). He explained that he had been waiting for us at the venue for several hours -god only knows why- and that when the band turned up, he offered to show them the way to our place. But he never told the band just who he was - even though he claimed to us that he did. But hey, as he was here now anyway, maybe we could oblige him to fill out the paperwork? Well, we didn't have much of a choice, did we?

At any rate, this was the first -and probably only- time Sabam actually did something good for us, because if it weren't for this guy, the band would have arrived way too late for dinner and our time schedule would have been entirely corrupted. So thank you Sabam!