a dEUS tour diary

Brussels-Paris: 306km

Since 2003, the City of Paris has been organising a summer event called Paris-Plage (Beach) along the banks of the Seine river. Roads are closed on the quays and turned into some kind of urban oase (or something). Fnac, a network of large media stores, and a long-time organiser/supporter of alternative festivals, takes advantage of the Paris-Plage initiative to offer free concerts on several nights: the “Indétendances” festival.

The first day of this year’s Indé was a Belgian night (the country’s national holiday being July 21), with Saule, Ozark Henry and Zita Swoon announced…. plus a “surprise” band. Rumour quickly got around that dEUS would be the surprise act… and surprise they did.

Zita Swoon played a brilliant gig, virtually the same setlist as in Liège two weeks earlier. The energy they put into the show, the way their songs keep evolving, the obvious joy and pleasure that emanates from them, makes that band one of the very best live experiences there is today. And as if that wasn’t enough, they have recorded several songs with French singer Christophe Miossec, who joined them on stage on the last two songs, sung by the Breton.

By that time (20h), the festival was already running one hour behind schedule. Ozark Henry came next, whom I didn’t see, cause having a beer sounded like a more attractive prospect. dEUS should have started at about 21.45, but due to technical problems, they only came on stage at 22.50, after much concern that they wouldn’t even be allowed to play because of the curfew (it’s an open-air festival right in the middle of the centre of Paris, close to Notre-Dame). The crowd cheered and booed, but in the end, dEUS did get on stage.

And wow.

At festivals, dEUS turn into a lean and mean ear-killing machine. No mercy’s the word: they rock, they rock some more, and then they rock even harder. Bring the fans down to their knees. They kicked off with Turnpike, during which Mauro’s guitar sadly couldn’t be heard at all, but by the time they launched into Instant Street to follow, everything was fine and the finale was as crushing as ever. The Ideal Crash being by far dEUS’ most popular record in France, this was a highlight for the French fans. Tom cracked a joke in French: “You’ve got some weird beaches in France… In my country we’d call this a parking lot.” Then they did Fell Off The Floor, Man, rolled on with a massive Sun Ra during which Tom went berserk (that is, more berserk than usual, as he’s usually rather epileptic on stage), and into Via, obviously lesser known there.

They also did What We Talk About, during which Klaas’s keyboards were over-prominent, and blasted the crowd with a ferocious Suds & Soda during which none other than…… “Stef de Zita Swoon” joined dEUS on stage! I would never have expected it, having learnt not to hope for that kind of “reunion” happening, as I hate being disappointed. Last time that happened was in Oct. 99 in Brussels, when both Stef & Rudy came on stage. Tonight, Stef “Friday’ed” happily throughout the whole song, kept headbanging, looked on an absolute high, and he was wearing a really cool black dress. That man could wear anything and still look sexy and classy. The song ended without the jazz/Beastie Boys interlude, Stef left the stage under frantic applause, and Tom introduced Nothing Really Ends as a soft song to match the romantic Seine surroundings. The song’s outro faded out into a scorching Bad Timing, after which an additional microphone was brought to the stage, and Eva and Kapinga, the two female singers from Zita Swoon (also known as 2/3 of Radio Candip) joined dEUS, along with Stef, for the most beautiful version of Pocket Revolution ever played. At the end, the girls kept singing “I keep control” long after Tom stopped, he couldn’t end the song in the usual “Ha!” way, the band kept playing and Tom sang some lines from Serge Gainsbourg’s Requiem Pour Un Con. For good measure, they added Roses to the noise mix, before leaving the stage - there was no encore, but we should feel lucky that they were allowed to play so late.

Raw electricity. Manic energy. Stef. Paris. Magic.

How could this not be one of my all-time favourite dEUS moments?

Setlist
—
01 Theme From Turnpike
02 Instant Street
03 Fell Off The Floor, Man
04 Sun Ra
05 Via
06 What We Talk About
07 Suds & Soda (with Stef Kamil Carlens)
08 Nothing Really Ends
09 Bad Timing
10 Pocket Revolution (with Stef and Radio Candip)
11 Roses

[edited 21.07 19:00]