Delft Blues Day Two

And back we went.

After enjoying dinner at the Ruif with Matt's lab mates, we all headed to the Stars & Bars for the second night in a row, this time to watch Memo Gonzalez & the Bluescasters perform. The place was packed to see Memo perform on his harmonica. I am not sure if he was "three hundred pounds of Texas dynamite" or not, but the band did play a nice mix of country and blues.

When Memo took a break, we headed back to old town and to De Waag to hear Professor Deaf & His Eardrums. We knew the Professor (dressed in a graduation gown and mortar board) must be good when we saw the place was so packed that the crowd was bursting out the doors. We squeezed in to listen to the eclectic group, with their funny hats, play a range of instruments.

The music was good, the atmosphere was excellent, and the draft beer was better, so we stayed a few hours to listen to bluesy-jazz music. We stayed all the way to the end - long enough to hear the encore of Elvis hits. Although our group of friends headed on to the next performance, we headed back home. Matt was due to play 5 frisbee games the next morning and it was time to get some rest.

Delft Blues

This weekend Delft is hosting the Delft Blues Festival - a musical play on their fame of blue Delftware. Bars and cafes all over town are hosting solo, duet, and group performances, with free entry. We took this as an opportunity to visit places we might not have frequented otherwise.

We started by celebrating Valentine's day (a day early) with dinner at De Zeven Zonden (The Seven Sins) and music by Bluesinn. The atmosphere was cozy and unique; the dinner was delicious and unique. The restaurant was filled with these wonderful custom made light fixtures, in fact most of Europe is filled with wonderful custom made light fixtures.

I opted for the special Bluesmenu and was not disappointed. My dinner started with a kangaroo carpaccio with a mango sauce; I wonder if they import the kangaroo steaks or if there is a kangaroo farm somewhere in the Netherlands. Regardless, the carpaccio was wonderful - it almost made me wish Matt had ordered the kangaroo steak for dinner. But neither of us were disappointed when we got our dinners, completed with the perfect roasted potatoes. Here in the Netherlands, they put bowls of potatoes on your table just like an Italian restaurant would put bread on your table in America.

It was strange to be sitting in a restaurant in the Netherlands, eating kangaroo, while listening to Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and Walking in Memphis. You never would have known it was a Dutch blues band up there and not blues trio out of the south.

After licking ever bit of yogurt ice cream and strawberry Indonesian cake off our plates, we headed off the Stars and Bars - probably the only country-western bar within an hour train ride and the CLEANEST bar and pool hall I've ever seen. Charley Cruz and the Lost Souls - a pop/country/blues band was supposed to be playing, however, I think they let their kids perform the warm-up act. The teenagers were pretty good, but I didn't care for the beer on tap and time is relative thing here so we headed home after the warm-up group. But we might be back tomorrow to hear Memo Gonzalez & the Bluescasters - straight from Dallas, Texas.