So, yesterday, 03 February 2008, took place the first Belgian semi-final of the Roland V-Drums Contest 2007/2008 in JH Nijdrop, Opwijk.

This is the very first contest of that kind in Benelux. Great idea indeed from the Roland staff, since drummers do not often get the opportunity to play drums as frontmen, most of times we act as sidemen. Everybody was cool and kind. Thumbs up to all the folks from the organization staff.

Eight drummers (among which your humble servant) had the chance to display their drumming skills on that day in front of an audience and a professional jury : Davy Deckmijn (Zornik), Michael Schack (Ozark Henry, Milk Inc), Alain Bokken (Magical Flying Thunderbirds), Christophe Cools from Roland Central Europe and Bert Libeert (Goose).

We had to play solo. No playback music and that was pretty cool yet scary for most of us. Most of us never had played before on the TD-20 kit (well, I never). Keep in mind that there had already been a previous selection by Roland before the semi-final, so all participants made a pretty decent performance.

I was already very glad to have been selected to take part to the contest. And I\'ve been lucky enough to make my way to the final. So did great drummers Minco De Bruin en Yannick De Clerck. Thank you all in the audience and at Roland.

The second semi-final in Belgium takes place this 10 February in Hasselt. Good luck everybody !

Thomas Boulvin