a dEUS tour diary

MP3: dEUS - Oh Your God - Mezz, Breda, 06.04.2008

I’m pissed. First, I lost my phone at a (great) party on Saturday, so I couldn’t post anything live to Twitter, as I’d expected. Second, I apparently lost my camera after the gig. Which means that a lot of Mauro action shots are lost forever (a friend of mine was taking pictures of him all the time, her new goal in life is to become Florence Pawlowski). Third, I wrote a first draft of the Breda gig yesterday when I came back home, and for some reason it’s lost. And now it’s Monday… Eeew. Anyway.

I arrived in Breda a little before 18:00, 1h30 later than what I’d planned, effectively ruining my bourgeois “koopzondag” plans. I parked right in front of Mezz, where dEUS were rehearsing Slow behind closed doors. After exchanging my internet code for the paper tickets, my friends and I went walking around the city - a lovely, clean town full of shops, bars & restaurants: your typical mid-sized Dutch town. We ate waaay too much at Popocatepetl, a great Mexican restaurant, then it was time to head back to the great Mezz (small, intimate, great sound, bar at the back of the room - what else could you ask for?). The first thing I noticed there was a huge (ca. 1 m²) canvas with the cover art of Vantage Point: if you pre-ordered your copy of the album from Breda’s Velvet Music record store, you would receive a promo copy of the Slow single (there was a whole stack of them) and have a chance of winning that signed canvas! Nice.

So, what’s to say about the Vantage Point try-out concert? A lot of positive things, actually. Perhaps the thing that struck me most, early during the gig, is how cohesive that band has become. The group dynamic is obvious - you can’t say it’s “Tom Barman & Band” anymore. Mauro’s role is much more prominent, not only on The Architect but on other songs as well, and all members sing a lot more than ever before. Stephane’s performance in particular was noticeable: he sung Karin Dreijer’s part on Slow and Guy Garvey’s on The Vanishing of Maria Schneider - and it didn’t feel wrong. On the whole, that’s a great evolution, pushing dEUS in new directions instead of trying to recreate things they did in the 90’s. Then, there’s Alan. His bass groove is huge, and it’s a pivotal instrument in many of the new songs - Slow, obviously, but also the great Is A Robot, and on Smokers Reflect as well. Plus, he’s got perfect teeth, which is a dramatic improvement over his predecessor As for Tank-Top General Klaas, I was surprised to find out that he’s using the violin in almost every new song, but in ways that make it hard to recognize: playing a little strummed riff on The Vanishing, pizzicating a lot, driving it through a massive distorsion on The Architect…

Overall, the new songs worked great, apart from Slow, where Klaas probably had a lot to do: he launches a sample, plays the piano parts by strumming the notes on his violin, then he loops them, plays some violin screeches, some keyboard notes… He looked a bit overwhelmed, actually. Hopefully they’ll sort it out as the tour progresses. They kicked off with When She Comes Down, already one of my Vantage Point favourites. Watch Tom opening his arms wide as he sort of raps through the verses… Oh Your God is, as expected, an ideal song for the live setting. Stephane’s drumming rocks. And Favourite Game is quite nice on stage… especially the last part - I still have trouble with the “Rest your eyes / Got no tears for love songs” part, which grates my ears. Then came Instant Street, greeted with a massive cheer, which certainly helped relieve Tom’s apparent stress. Oh the climax, oh the love. Louder, louder…

For Eternal Woman, Tom welcomed Mintzkov’s Lies Lorquet on stage - she’s doing that song’s female vocals on the album. She’s got a lovely voice, but she acted a bit shy… Well, I suppose I’d be slightly impressed as well Then came Slow (see above), and The Architect, with Tom hitting an electronic drumkit (and putting his drumstick in his pants - look, Tom has a woody), definitely one of the highlights of the concert. That song was written for the stage, it’s got such an infectious rhythm and it’s fantastic to see Tom & Mauro playing ping-pong with the lyrics. Sun Ra sounded as scorching as ever, and then came another Vantage Point song, Smokers Reflect, an instantly lovable folksy ballad with a catchy “You shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be doing this” chorus.

Nothing Really Ends had a new guitar intro (but don’t worry, the song’s beauty remains untouched), and during its noisy ending it faded into Bad Timing, like the band often did during the previous tour. It sounded a bit fucked up at times, but then, it’s not the easiest song to play in the dEUS repertoire. I love it when Alan’s bass kicks in, anyway. They followed with Is A Robot, a great dEUS song with a lot of things going on, the kind that sounds like they’ve tried to cram a whole album into a 5-minute song, and then Pocket Revolution, with Stephane doing some rolling percussions, and an extended “I keep control” outro. The last song before the encore was Roses, during which Tom’s blue guitar (guitar techies, forgive me) got some apparently much-needed roadie attention.

The encore was great, starting with The Vanishing, another VP highlight, which reminded me of an Elbow song, and not just because Elbow’s singer is present on the album version. It sounds more classic Elbow than classic dEUS (not complaining: Elbow is one of the greatest bands around). They did What We Talk About, which sounds a zillion times better live than on the album, followed by a short but powerful Fell Off The Floor, Man (that’s unfair competition for What We Talk, really). They played a great version of Theme From Turnpike (you’ll get a video of that later, if my camera reappears), and ended the gig with Vantage Point closer Popular Culture, their most anthemic song to date. It’s an unambiguously folk song and it could very well become a sing-along fan favourite, because it just feels so good and lovely. Don’t argue - you don’t wanna be late in popular culture, do you?

All in all, a very pleasant try-out gig. The setlist was mostly a Vantage Point/Pocket Revolution affair, but that was to be expected, since they needed to test all their new songs (in the album order, mostly), and PR was the first album with the current line-up. The biggest disappointment to many was probably the absence of songs from Worst Case Scenario, but I’m sure we’ll hear a few of them during the tour. Not to worry.

After the show, I chatted for 16 seconds with Mauro, who’s planning to release 4 records this year under various guises, without any fanfare, as usual. I got my own private Somnabula moment when he made a very cute vampire grimace. And I went home with a copy of Vantage Point, so I can finally hear the album and annoy my boyfriend and neighbours for months to come by hitting repeat forever.

Actual setlist:

When She Comes Down
Oh Your God
Favourite Game
Instant Street
Eternal Woman (featuring Lies Lorquet)
Slow
The Architect
Sun Ra
Smokers Reflect
Nothing Really Ends
Bad Timing
Is A Robot
Pocket Revolution
Roses

The Vanishing Of Maria Schneider
What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
Fell Off The Floor, Man
Theme From Turnpike
Popular Culture

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Tags: breda, Mezz, mp3, try-out, vantage point tour

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