a dEUS tour diary

Erh, it’s 4.45, got back from the afterparty at Athanor Studio, that was really, really cool, VIP’s included Arno, Craig Ward (both pretty wasted), Tim Vanhamel, the girl with the black eye from AWTWB, Daan (who sports erh…. some Fidel Castro sort of beard), Stijn, and probably some others as well. Great music from the start, I have no idea who the DJ was but he sure put some groove on. In dEUS gossip news, I chatted a bit with Christian Pierre, who became a father last Monday, that’s another dEUS baby (okay, he’s not in dEUS, but he’s a supacool manager) and he told me that dEUS would play at least one more concert in Belgium next year, mmmmmh…. A bit of chatting with Alan, I was concerned about Arno (with whom he used to bass some years ago) because I’d seen him wander out of the party with some trouble, but Alan just told me that music is a transcendental way of communicating, or something, so that Arno being drunk all the time doesn’t matter. That’s how we love him anyway.
While ordering beers with Arthur, again, I got some Mauro interaction. He asked us to get him one beer, which he then generously spilled over my open wallet when giving me one big fat kiss on the cheek. Alcohol, ladies and gentlemen…
At this point, I should probably point out that I’m rather wasted myself. I never drove this stupidly fast in Brussels. Someone blame me.
So together with my good friend Anne-Sophie, we danced all night long, the place was very crowded, way muych more than yesterday, where it was a bit too quiet. But tonight was like a sauna at Athanor. There was this old man who was dancing like a mad man next to a column, I was concerned about him getting a heartstroke but he managed alright. I wonder who he is. Father of one of the guys? Whatever.
Tom was less relaxed than yesterday, I didn’t see him dancing. But I did see him having fun with some girls, and then he went to spin the plates himself, he started DJ’ing somewhere around 3 and that was pretty cool.
Oh - again, I saw some pretend male-on-male action from the boys - Mauro, Stéphane AND Klaas this time on some demonic dancing threesome. But the only guy who gets a kick from that is me of course. Can’t say that party was very interesting in terms of gay flesh. Rock’s for heteros they say. Bah.
Jesus, I shouldn’t be writing all this shit.
Ooooh, there was Maarten Vandenabeele as well, a photographer who’s worked with dEUS for a pretty long time, he was also waaaay over the top, kept photographing dancing girls like mad. I say, those dEUS parties are cool.
Apart from that erh….. I dunno, my mind’s a blur. I’m gonna try go get 3 hours sleep before work.

Oh yeah - remind me to talk about the goddamn CONCERT tomorrow. I recorded the first 3 songs, then just danced and screamed and shouted and pissed the people around me.

I love this band.

… can be ordered on the Sherpa website. Rush.

….. and not even 4 hours after presale started, dEUS have sold out Forest National. Over 7.000 tickets. Or so it seems - says “temporarily unavailable” on the Fnac website, Goformusic has “sold out” on its home page, but apparently you can still click on the link and order tickets. The situation is not desperate yet.

… and now (13.30) it looks very sold out. eBay for the unlucky ones then… yes, tickets are offered there already. Disgusting? Sure.

Brussels 1040 - Brussels 1000 - Brussels 1050: 3km and a taxi home.

You’re getting ripped off, dear visitors - no media tonight either. I’m on a selfish «I just wanna dance to those fat tunes» ride.

Call me stupid, but when I get home and my ears are riiiingiiiing I always think that’s the sign of a great gig. It means: a) it was loud; b) it was good enough to make me wanna stay where it was TOO loud; c) I’m half deaf, I’ll never work as a professional interpreter and that degree from 2003 is lost on me.

So then, what can I say I didn’t say yesterday? First, obvious: the crowd. This time, there was an audience, and this time, it wasn’t merely listening. People reacted a lot, and not only during Suds & Soda - Instant Street (song #4) got people jumping already, Turnpike From Hell got people screaming and shouting and being really, really happy at Man-Turned-God (or Archdevil) Pawlowski. I should stop mentioning him or that’s gonna rub Tom’s ego in the wrong direction. Not that he reads this, mind you.

The sound was waaaay clearer than yesterday, it was amazing how you could make out every single nuance, especially from Klaas’s stupendous and always underestimated work. His violin strokes, his violin pizzicatos, his keyboards, finally on this tour he’s being given the sonic space he’s always deserved. And not a single moment where you thought «hey, I can’t hear this or that instrument properly» - that was the AB’s soundsystem at its finest.

The setlist worked much better than yesterday - as usual, I can’t remember the proper order, started pretty standard, ie Pocket, Magdalena, Cold Sun, Stop/Start, Instant Street, and then apparently that’s where I lose track. But I can’t really keep a clear mind when they shoot Fell Off The Floor, Turnpike, WCS , If You Don’t and Assault On Magnus into my ears. They ended the main set with Roses then Nothing Really Ends (found it a bit messy, but I just need to find something to criticize) then Sun Ra then Serpentine then Little Arithmetics (great song for a final), and came back for a first encore which included Bad Timing, 7 Days, What We Talk About, which worked much better today at that slot than yesterday as last song of the night, and a rawer but shorter Suds & Soda, before coming back for Magic Hour as a «goodnight, sleep well» sort of second encore. So, all songs they played yesterday, plus one.

All in all, they might have played a little less perfectly than yesterday, but the show was so much better thanks to the crowd’s response - a feeling that’s shared by the band, as Mauro told me later tonight. The aftershow was a mainly female band called Chacda, I saw them supporting Feist earlier this year and wasn’t convinced, and that hasn’t changed. The singer is an Avril Lavigne kind of alternative/skater girl and that’s totally okay, but she sings uninspired sad rock/pop that left me yearning for another beer.

Then I got down to recover my jacket and mobile and found that Arthur (of dEUS.be fame, for those of you who found this blog by accident) had tried to call me right before the show - the man badly needed directions in Brussels, he comes from Eindhoven and it’s true that the Belgian capital is one hell of a wrong place when it comes to traffic signs. Safely got into AB, though. I couldn’t meet him, but I’m sure he loved the gig as much as I did.

Caught Tom as he headed from the backstage into the bar, asked me if I wanted to go to *secret place* where the after party was being held, I wasn’t even aware of it but my friend Anne-Sophie and I headed to the club and played it cool (like hey you know, we’re not those groupies who’d do anything for a bit of attention [erh erh….]). The whole band was there, that’s where I got to chat with Mauro for two minutes while we were trying to attract the barman’s attention, and as usual, I couldn’t think of anything remotely interesting to say. Damn that «fandom disconnects brain» thing. The DJ was playing some cool retro electro tunes, to which Tom was dancing like a mix between erh…. Joe Cocker and a duck, I’d say, Klaas was dancing as well, and that’s funny, hadn’t seen him dancing before, and he does the exact same moves he does on stage. There’s a funky robot inside that man. Alan was with his girlfriend, kissing cutely now and then, but the last I saw of him was Stéphane and him dancing very hotly together (but only the gay man in me saw that as hot stuff and not as the obvious joking fun it was). And then erh… had to go home, back to bed and my 9-to-5 routine (I’m not complaining).

Good night!

Setlis (thx to zero79)t:
01 Pocket Revolution
02 Magdalena
03 Cold Sun of Circumstance
04 Instant Street
05 Fell Off The Floor, Man
06 Stop-Start Nature
07 The Real Sugar
08 WCS
09 If You Don’t Get What You Want
10 Theme From Turnpike
11 Roses
12 Assault On Magnus
13 Nothing Really Ends
14 Sun Ra
15 Little Arithmetics
—
16 Bad Timing
17 7 days, 7 weeks
18 Serpentine
19 What We Talk About
20 Suds & Soda
—
21 The Magic Hour

Brussels 1050 - Brussels 1000: 2×2km

Pretty cool to have your favourite band coming to your town. You leave the office, go home to change clothes, go out to dine at a friend’s and then walk 3 minutes to get to the venue. I should have come live here earlier.

I thought the band played very well, but I’m MAD at the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd. Okay, you guys applauded between songs, some of you cheered during them, but pleeeaaaaase, MOVE YOUR LAZY ASSES AND DANCE/SHAKE YOUR HEAD/MOVE YOUR FEET/DO SOMETHING. What a dead-looking bunch of horribly still people. That’s out. God.

So then - today was a no-minidisc, no-camera night (as will be tomorrow and Thursday), as I just wanted to enjoy the show without having to care about self-inflicted blog stuff. Which means I’ll have to recall the setlist from my very broken machine of a memory. Pretty standard set actually, with the obligatory Pocket Revolution for starters (it’s been on that spot ever sicne November 2004), then onto Magdalena (weird position if you ask me), then Cold Sun, Stop/Start, and from that point I can’t tell the order. Got to say though, Cold Sun is one nasty little beast with its live clothes on, one of their best rock songs on the current set. And Stop/Start gets more and more convincing (I thought it was pretty empty/boring/lacking in momentum the first few times I heard them play it).

During Instant Street (and also on another song before that), the crowd cheered madly when Mauro started singing Craig’s verses, which was nice. He had quite a big fan horde in AB, as his singing made people very happy. And I heard people were singing his guitar part during the outro, leading me to believe that those people were at the Lille gig one week ago (where Mauro’s guitar broke and he actually sang that part). Great reaction during Mauro’s Scary Turnpike Screams, too. Mmmmh… did Mauro stole the show? Perhaps.

Apart from that - on a general note, I was a bit disapp’d by the sound tonight. Nice during the quiet parts, very messy when the band rocks - which they do a lot in 2005. Hope things will be a little clearer tomorrow & on Thu.

Back on track then. Assault On Magnus has become my favourite live track on this tour, which isn’t to say the new songs aren’t good, but this wrongly-labelled dEUS song is among their best. I couldn’t grab a setlist tonight, but I believe they (once again) messed around with their plans (I’m not complaining, as this adds some surprise factor) - they played Sun Ra and Serpentine at the end of the main set, while those two songs are usually “first-encore” material. Serpentine - wow, the 2005 version must be one of the best. Klaas does a perfect job at recreating the haunty piano touches of the original, Alan and Mauro sing on it as well, and Mauro’s guitar part at the end is fantastic. Thumbs up.

Onto the first encore: Bad Timing probably got one of the loudest cheers of the night. This is one hell of classic already. And it was perfectly executed, which is very cool, as I was afraid it’d be dropped from the setlist after seeing not-so-convincing renditions one month ago. Then they played 7 Days 7 Weeks (again, superbly executed), followed by the ultimate crowd-pleasing pair, Little Arithmetics and Suds & Soda. I so wish I’d minidisced the show, cause Suds & Soda was one of the coolest versions I’ve heard, jazzy, hip-hoppy, a very vocal Tom who just wouldn’t stop singing whatever he pleased during the instrumental bits. More impro please

Then it was What We Talk About and then it was over. Weird choice for a second encore, and oddly short, but really, that Belgian crowd didn’t deserve more. People please - show your love.

The band in the ABClub after dEUS were called Giants of the Air or something like that - not bad Grandaddy/Cure sort of stuff, good voice, good music, they lack originality, but are decent.

Voilà. A very unordered review, but I just let it flow and I need my bed. I’m getting old.

And I’m lagging behind - there are photos and mp3’s from Lille last week waiting for an update here.

Setlist (thx to zero79):
01 Pocket Revolution
02 Magdalena
03 Cold Sun of Circumstance
04 Stop-Start Nature
05 Instant Street
06 Fell Off The Floor, Man
07 Assault On Magnus
08 The Real Sugar
09 WCS
10 If You Don’t Get What You Want
11 Theme From Turnpike
12 Roses
13 Nothing Really Ends
14 Sun Ra
15 Serpentine
—
16 Bad Timing
17 7 days, 7 weeks
18 Little Arithmetics
19 Suds & Soda
—
20 What We Talk About