Gala Nocturna brief summary

That’s the long Easter weekend over, meh, back to work. Most of the weekend was spent in Belgium – mainly consisting of beer, genever, chocolate, more beer and of course Gala Nocturna. I would do a proper update with photos but Photobucket has decided to upload all my photos in the wrong order, so it may take some time.

The ball was superb as usual, in fact I think I preferred it to last years’; the music was better and despite it seeming busier than usual in the bar area, the atmosphere was still fantastic. The religious theme of The Popes Daughter worked a treat in the venue, a de-consecrated baroque church and much tarting around in pseudo-religious poses was done.

Despite my previous wibble about my dress being too understated for Gala Nocturna, I am very happy with how it turned out and felt good wearing it. By some miracle, the huge headdress stayed in place all night too! It was probably the most comfortable ball outfit I’ve ever put together. Of course I still managed to pull off my usual trick of being completely invisible to any photographers other than those who knew me, so I’m glad that I did at find out about the official photo-booth, so that there is some proof that I did exist there. ;-)

photo from the talented Martin Soulstealer

and I rather like this one, pinched from morbidfrog - that lectern was just asking for some camera tartery!

I was wondering how they were going to top QNTAL performing last year. Was a bit worried that a mini-gig might become a standard addition to the ball and no other band could fit the vibe of the event than them! So it was a relief to see that they went an entirely different route, with a fantastically creepy and unsettling modern dance/theatre routine (and i was rather amused by the fact that the music played for this was more akin to what I was missing at Resistanz festival!)

A link to a little video summary posted on the FB group:

For the rest of our time in Antwerp, we did have intentions of museum visits and did at least make it to the Rubens museum (a beautiful town house with leather wallpaper and stunning Flemish art) but the majority of the time was spent bar-hopping. My liver needs a thorough drying out now!

So in case I don’t manage to do a proper post, here is a link to my photos and those taken out and about in Antwerp (Mostly bars), which of course are also on Facebook (I somehow lost Monday due to spending all day uploading photos and getting tagged in friends’ photos)