Dear all,

I am proud to announce the first dates for our upcoming The West Pole/20th anniversary European tour (jan/febr. 2010). Please note there will be more gigs added this tour. We are still working on a couple of Greek dates too, as well as a South American tour and some more club gigs in The Netherlands.

As you might know Marjolein will not be able to play with us the first week. Old bandmember Hugo Prinsen Geerligs will join us on stage, after 6 years! So these gigs will me memorable for sure! Hugo will join us from Krefeld untill Bratislava, Marjolein will be on stage again in Budapest untill the end.We are thrilled and excited and we hope the same goes for you!

Update! 02-11-09: we have added 2 new gigs, in Poland and Belgium, and the venues name in Erfurt will be HsD (formerly Gewerkschafshaus).

Today we have added 2 gigs in Greece, end of febr. 2010 (see list below).

Update: 09-11-09: Tickets for the German gigs here:

http://www.metaltix.com/item_list.php?item_cat=2169

Tickets for the Greek gigs here: http://www.ticketpro.gr

Tickets for all Spanish gigs here: http://www.ticketmaster.es

Tickets for the Belgium gig here: http://www.biebob.be

Tickets for the Hungarian gig here: http://www.concerto.hu but also here and here!

Tickets for the French gigs here: http://www.digitick.comhttp://www.digitick.com but also here!

Tickets for the Czech and Slovakia gigs here: http://www.ticketpro.cz and here!

JANUARY 2010
fri 22  Krefeld (ger) – Kulturfabrik
sat 23  Erfurt (ger) – HsD (formerly Gewerkschafshaus)
sun 24  Berlin (ger) – Columbia Club
tue 26  Karlsruhe (ger) – Substage
wed 27  Nurnburg  (ger) – Hirsch
thu 28  Prague  (cz) – Abaton
fri 29  Krakow (pl) – Loch Ness
sat 30  Bratislava  (sk) – Randal
sun 31  Budapest (hu) – Diesel

FEBRUARY 2010
mon 01  Zagreb (hr) – Mochvara
tue 02  Milan (it) – Alcatraz
thu 04  Barcelona (es) – Salamandra 1
fri 05  Alicante (es) – Nave 8
sat 06  Granada (es) – El Tren
sun 07  Madrid (es) – Heineken
tue 09  Lyon (fr) – Ninkasi Kao
wed 10  Pratteln (ch) – Z7
thu 11  Aschaffenburg (ger) – Colos Saal
fri 12  Vosselaar (be) – Biebob
sat  13  Lille (fr) – Le Splendid
sun 14  Paris (fr) – Elysée Montmartre

sat 27  Thessaloniki (gr) – Block 33 club

sun 28  Athens (gr) – Gagarin 205 club

Hello all,

And then, suddenly it is there! The 20th anniversary of The Gathering. Exactly 20 years ago my brother René and me, together with Bart Smits on vocals, started this band. No strategy, we just wanted to write songs so we could release a rehearsal tape. Lots of people in Oss were playing in bands, and they triggered us to do something for ourselves.

Exactly 20 years ago we biked from our parents house in Oss to a little village called Heesch, were we rented a rehearsal room on a farm, and started writing our first song: ‘Anthology in Black’. Great, exciting times.  I can remember clearly it was freezing cold in that room in wintertime. I see Bart struggling to get the heater on with matches. Every Sunday morning we biked to that farm, most of the time with a big hangover because of a rough Saturday evening, and started early in the morning writing and playing songs.

A lot of things happened in those 20 years! Good times, bad times, but we always survived. Sometimes we had to struggle our way back and managed to come back stronger than ever. Most of the time we enjoyed playing in this band, seeing a lot of countries, touring all over the world and playing clubs and festivals, making 9 studio albums, 2 DVD’s and a lot of EP’s, singles (even a small top 50 entrance with Strange Machines) and live records, getting to meet some of our fantastic fans..  A lot of positive things to remember!

And now? A party? Well, we will celebrate this with the upcoming live gigs in the Netherlands and a European tour around January/February 2010! The tour will be around three weeks and we are all really looking forward to hitting the road again. There is some sad news in this though as Marjolein can’t go with us the first week of this tour due to her daytime job. Luckily she will be there the 2nd and 3rd week. So, who will play bass guitar then?   We had only one name in our mind: Hugo Prinsen Geerligs.  As many of you know Hugo was with us for 15 years and we were very happy when we asked Hugo and he said yes! 5 years have gone and now he will join us and help us out! These gigs will be something special for sure and give our 20th anniversary even more cachet!

Tourdates will follow asap.

We would be happy if you want to leave a message down under, say something on our message board, twitter, mysace, facebook or just send a nice card to:

The Gathering

PO Box 1366

6501 BJ Nijmegen

The Netherlands

Cheers!

Hans, René, Frank, Marjolein & Silje.

Hi all!

For the first time in 6 years, this event will take place in two locations: Mexico City and Querétaro.

Musicians in these bands have been part of The Gathering support acts in 2006 and 2007, in Mexico City concerts.

Custom t-shirts and surprise gifts will be given away.

More info:

myspace.com/darkrockproductions
dadax.com.mx
heksolson.com/redpage
myspace.com/forgottenbeauty
myspace.com/ancientserpent12
darkrockproductions@gmail.com

Dear all,

Together with the Z7 organisation we decided to postpone the Pratteln gig to the 10th of february 2010. After the cancellation of the Tattoo the mind festival it is too far away logistically speaking to do this gig. I hope you all understand this. We hope to see you there 10-02-2010!

On behalf of the band,

Hans

Dear all,

We will play at the Gexel XL, a festival with local acts which will be held in Arnhem. This will happen friday the 6th of november at the beautiful new Luxor Live theater in Arnhem. More info about this festival here.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers, Hans