Netherlands-based rockers THE GATHERING check in with the following update from Hans Rutten:

"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!

We would be happy if you want to leave a message down under, say something on our message board,Twitter, MySpace, Last.fm or just send a nice card to:

The Gathering

PO Box 1366

6501 BJ Nijmegen

The Netherlands

Cheers!"

More on The Gathering at this location.