a dEUS tour diary

… and I wouldn’t want to miss that, obviously. dEUS are going to kick off their 2008 tour at Mezz in Breda, just like they did in 2004. I’ll post some live impressions to my Twitter account, and later on some photos and MP3’s on this blog (I don’t have a very versatile phone yet).

The wait is over

dEUS as surprise headliner for Studio Brussel’s PuntUit festival - that’s one lovely extra if you had a ticket. Vooruit in Gent is a really gorgeous venue: it’s an old theatre building overlooking a channel, with a concert hall for about 1000 persons (the one where the band played), a lovely theatre, a roomy and lively café and a small ballroom. And last time dEUS set foot there was in 1996 - almost 10 years ago. Among the artists invited tonight: Hooverphonic, Zornik, Absynthe Minded, Millionaire. The latter two were playing in the same room as dEUS, so that I saw the end of Absynthe’s concert (really good, they know how to build some good noise) and the whole of Millionaire’s gig (they sure know how to build some good noise, but I wish they remembered they used to sound much more funky on their first album). Oh, Tim Vanhamel has a haircut so huge he makes Robert Smith look bald in comparison.

When I got inside the building, the first thing I noticed was Tom being interviewed by Studio Brussel. StuBru had set up a live studio behind a large window, dressed with red chairs, red curtains, a red sof - picture this: you’re heading for the cloakroom, and then all of a sudden you see Tom sitting inside what looks conspicuously like a cosy little boudoir, Amsterdam’s Red Light District style. StuBru have a wicked sense of humour.

Gig then. Predictably enough, the concert hall was packed, packed, packed. The band came on stage to the sound of… erh, nothing, as they opened with Theme From Turnpike. The setlist was very different, which was to be expected, as dEUS were supposed to play just one hour. And that’s just as good, as it was an absolute no-low selection of songs. The audience was really into it; there certainly was a sense that it was quite a privilege to see them so close, as they’d done such massive gigs just ten days earlier. It was also certainly easier to get into the concert as the band kicked off with quite a “best-of” kind of choice: Turnpike, Instant Street, Fell Off The Floor and Via among the five first songs - resistance is futile. Via and Roses were particularly well received, as was What We Talk About (which Tom announced as Sentimentios Quando Hablamos De Amor, and had an ending that rocked so much it made you wish the whole song received such a knife-sharp treatment). And then Suds & Soda to close the show - or so the theory went.

Give dEUS constraints, you won’t be disappointed. Play one hour you say? Ha! They went through their whole setlist, plus Nothing Really Ends thrown in for good measure, and then they came back for an unexpectedly long encore. It was so obvious the band were having an absolute kick out of this gig - I think they hadn’t planned to play more than Serpentine, but Tom told Klaas to launch the Little Arithmetics intro right after that song, and then they didn’t stop, the interplay between Tom and Mauro at the beginning of If You Don’t was fantastic to watch, they were almost playing forehead to forehead, and then when the show was over, Tom felt he was 24 again and let himself fall backwards into the crowd, guitar and all. Supacool. 1h20. Should I complain about something? Oh, yeah, sure. Alan’s bass wasn’t loud or clear enough. I’ll blame it on the Vooruit

Then, DJ’s invaded the Vooruit. The really fun and funky Discobar Galaxie in the café, and some guys that I didn’t know in the concert hall, one DJ and one, erh, MC who kept dancing and addressing the crowd and turned Vooruit into one hell of a dancefloor. It was silly - at one time, he took a towel that was lying on the stage, announced it as Tom Barman’s towel, and asked 3 girls on stage to win that coveted prize. So, the girls were asked to take part in the World Championship of Fake Orgasms. Silly but a laugh. I realised a bit late that, as it wasn’t a dEUS gig, but an indoor festival, the band would probably have gone to another place to have fun. So I danced alone, which is never a bad thing when you’re drunk enough and the music takes control of your legs and arms.

So thank you guys for doing the Vooruit, and have a blast in America next week!

Actual setlist:

01 Theme From Turnpike
02 Stop-Start Nature
03 Instant Street
04 Fell Off The Floor, Man
05 Via
06 The Real Sugar
07 Assault On Magnus
08 Roses
09 Sun Ra
10 What We Talk About
11 Nothing Really Ends
12 Bad Timing
13 Suds & Soda
—
14 Serpentine
15 Little Arithmetics
16 If You Don’t Get What You Want

Tom and Stef chatting in the VIP bar at Vorst Nationaal, after last Wednesday’s gig. Thanks to Harry Buys for the photograph.

Almost forgot to recap this little story.

You might have seen this photo already. It’s quite a classic. I’ve got the story behind it. Woohoo, a wastedwounded exclusive! (It might have been circulated earlier, though. Dunno.) At the KVS afterparty last Wednesday, a friend of mine was curious about those super-daring girls who manage to score Tom like he’s easy game - how do they transform from nice-looking groupies to idol-licking whores from Hell? What do they tell him? Does Tom have any particular type (I’d say tall and blonde and young, but I’ve seen exotic exceptions).

So the answer hit me like a truck. Mauro. Pawlowski. He was standing nonchalantly by the counter, right next to me, so I just turned to him and said -

- «Hey Mauro pal, I’ve got this little question, it’s kinda embarrassing, but you’re a man of experience so I’ll ask it anyway.»
- «Haha, nothing can embarrass Somnabula!!! HAHAHAHA!» (I might be overdoing it - editor’s note.)
- «Well then. There’s this photo of you and Tom, snogging like the world’s about to end and there’s no goat on the island. Looks ‘95-ish to me. So the question goes - how did you trap Tom into your evil seducing strategies?»
- «Aaaaah, then that’s not a question for Somnabula. That’s one for Il Signore Mauro Antonio Pawlowski. I shall enlighten you, caro.» (I am most definitely overdoing it - editor’s note.)
- «Well?»
- «Actually it was Tom.»
- «Ha, I knew he was gay!» (Not that I’m interested in the slightest. He’s got no butt worth mentioning.)
- «Dream on. And stop interrupting me. I could be Somnabula again. We were at some party (erh, I think it must have been dEUS+ES at Vooruit in 96, but I can’t remember that) and some photographer…»
- «… caught you red handed!»
- «… asked if he could take a photo. Make it interesting guys, he said. So Tom frenched me.»
- «Oh. Well… Thanks for your help. I’ll just go put some Xanax in my friend’s glass then. Catch you later.»

Only later did I realise I had my camera in my pocket, and a friend willing to help make interesting pictures.

dEUS -Rock Chick (Magnus) - Vorst Nationaal, Brussels, 02.03.2006

Better late than never, the saying goes, so here’s some life to this tour diary. I remember how, back in October, when dEUS announced they were doing Vorst Nationaal/Forest National (this is Belgium, where even concert venues can have two official names), I took that as the worst piece of dEUS news in years. I just hate those huge venues and couldn’t figure how they’d fit in there (even though they’ve had much more massive audiences in festivals, but it ain’t the same ya know.)

Still, this is dEUS we’re talking about. I should have known better!

First day, with my two younger sisters (who spent the gig on their first row seats, about 3 lightyears from the stage) and a bunch of friends. Met Bart from the newsblog again, as well as Hans who’s also on the ISRC. I was really looking forward to seeing Elbow, as I missed them during their last club tour – voice as perfect as ever, they are great, but their setlist did absolutely not fit the place. They should have gone for all that’s noisy in their repertoire. But as support acts go, this is one absolutely brilliant band. I can definitely not say the same thing about Snow Patrol, who opened the day after, and whose music struck me as nicely executed, absolutely not bad in any way, but just plain bland/dull/boring FM rock. The crowd didn’t even cheer when they played their radio hits. I felt a bit bad for those lads.

Our idols then. Not much sense in making separate reviews, as I’m writing more than one week after, and the setlist was nearly identical both days, so it’s gonna be mixed up a little.

The audience roared when the lights went out and the Sun Ra sample started, and 7000 fans are a noisy thing when dEUS come on stage. Quite impressive lighting, with huge floor-to-ceiling lightspot ramps, all that you need to flood Vorst and blind the fans a little in the process. They kicked off with Pocket Revolution, no surprise there, skipped Magdalena (so my prayers were heard) and right into Stop-Start Nature, a nice change. Then, okay, I knew they’d played it at recent gigs, so hearing the song wasn’t a surprise to me, but I couldn’t help but scream with pleasure when I heard the very first chord of One Advice, Space. I would never have thought they’d bring that one back from the depths of ‘99. Just as beautiful as ever – too bad they’re playing such a shortened version of it, as I’m particularly fond of Craig’s verses at the end of the song. Instant Street was as insane as ever, that crescendo from hell just seems never to stop.

I couldn’t help noticing some tension on Tom’s face, as he scanned the audience from time to time – he’d told the media that Vorst is a very dear place to him, as that’s where he saw Prince (one of his all-time favourite artists) when he was 15. He asked the lightman to flood the audience, so he could see everyone up to the ceiling (shadows in the distance). I wrote on the forum that I wasn’t really happy with the static crowd, but truth be told, there was definitely a lot of handclapping and cheering. And I was happy with it on day 2. So it wasn’t that bad (forgive me now?)

I have to say that from a technical point of view, I think day I was the best. From where I stood, the sound was better, and also the band played really concentrated (perhaps they were more relaxed the day after and cut some slack a little). Big, big thumbs up to Vincent, their live sound engineer, for making Vorst an aurally enjoyable place. Even though he modestly told me later on that it’s «just another venue». Which sounded like one huge aquarium last time I saw Radiohead in there.

Back to music stuff. Worst Case Scenario is probably one of their strongest live songs these days, there’s just so much happening in it (with, with the exception of Tom’s singing, the whole band doing absolutely nothing during the first 45 seconds of the Zappa sample), as is the evil version of Turnpike. Something that nicely surprised me: I felt there wasn’t enormous response to Roses in the pit, but then Sun Ra started, and the first row went berserk. New album, 6 years and a half later, new fans, they’re 15 or 16, they haven’t heard Roses before and they wave their arms during Nothing Really Ends. I loved seeing that. A lovely kick in the ass of the Dutch journalist who wrote that seeing dEUS today is an enjoyable trip down the mid-90’s nostalgia lane. Don’t you dare make me feel old

Rock Chick came right after that, and even though I think it’s a bit weird, and unnecessary, to add another Magnus title to the list, I like what they’ve done with it. It’s downtempo groovy and a relaxing listen. On day 1, they made a mess out of What We Talk About, which went really nicely the second day. Then, on day 1 they played the best version I’ve heard of Nothing Really Ends. Every note was perfect, Tom’s singing was beautiful, and the outro, which can sound a bit messy sometimes, was fantastic. Very much the highlight of Wednesday to me.

The first encore was the same both night – an untouchable trio of Bad Timing, If You Don’t and the ever-evolving, ever-bettering Suds and Soda. With bits of the Arctic Monkeys, that «Supersharp» hip-hop spelling thing, and the very appropriate chorus of the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage near the end – WAAAAAAAAAH! (Ruined both my voice and my bootleg because of that). Sweat, blood and broken teeth everywhere in the pit, of course.

Then came Hotellounge as second encore (and then Serpentine on day 1). I am really happy that they’ve reverted to the original version (I still have to find someone who genuinely loved the live version from 2002). It’s absolutely amazing how faithfully they can play it with the new line-up – apart from the backing vocals, that could have been 1997. Ok, nostalgic trip, sorry. Tom sang some verses from Gainsbourg’s Requiem pour un con («écoute les orgues, elles jouent pour toi…»), something he used to do years ago already, but it took some deeper meaning as it was just 15 years since the French singer died.

So yeah – dEUS is big enough for Vorst in their homeland. They’ve been for years actually, they could have filled it in 99 already (though not that fast). But it’s not such a dramatic step. I enjoyed both evenings tremendously.

Heeeeeey time to go to the afterpaaaaaarty!

Sorry, it’s not going to be as entertaining as my antics of last year. I skipped the Wednesday after entirely, as I felt quite uncomfortable about going to greet everyone and all that, while I haven’t worked on any of my sites ever since I went to Copenhagen and Barcelona. I didn’t ask for a guestlist allowance and purchased tickets for the first day long in advance. But I’m a shameless shit. I loved the gig so much that I just had to go on the second day. I dropped a mail to the tour manager, and he fortunately put me on the guestlist for Thursday (thank you a lot for that). So… Concert ended, Bart and I went down some stairs at the back of the concert room, then to the left (security guards everywhere, the staff in this place is used to much more famous stars), into a lovely little VIP bar where the whole crème of Flemish entertainment was gathered. I’m not much of a B.V. spotter, so I didn’t recognise many people, but there was Stef Kamil alright, chatting and laughing with Tom, first time I saw them together away from a stage, that was nice; Christian Pierre sporting a beard and some sort of mullet hair, and a classy cardigan, suits him very much (he made me think of the Broken Social Scene frontman, who is a really lovely guy); the “product manager” (yuck) for dEUS at Universal, who happens to be a young, fragile-looking woman with very short hair (she was giving away free drink coupons); and all sorts of people (including the band members of course).

Then I went to the real afterparty (after scoring guest passes for Nele and her sister, and a girl I know), at the KVS in downtown Brussels. Stopped by at the nightshop, got really scared by two massively surgically-enhanced prostitutes who wanted to lure me into erh… whatever. KVS is a really nice place, first time I ever went there, it’s a theatre, a very modern building right across the old KVS (a beautiful old building being completely renovated). I have no idea who the DJ was, but he was playing some cool stuff. Tom was being assaulted by beautiful girls, as usual, Mauro was dancing with just about anyone who got close enough (nicest guy ever, really), and then it all went very silly because of the girl I know. I promised her not to write about it here, so I won’t get into any details. But she ruined any fun heavily for me, and I left after hardly one hour. So that’s all there’s to say about the crazy afterparty this time. Bummer.

PS: from now on, I’ll edit the date of my posts so that they reflect the date of the gig. Not quite conform to reality, but there’s good logic behind it.

I still have to write a report of the Copenhagen gig (which was really good, with a very enthusiastic crowd, and they played Put The Freaks, which was supercool, and I met about a gazillion fans), but I´m still on holiday in Barcelona, so quite frankly, I have other things on my mind than extensive blogging. Saw Vive La Fête here last Sunday and that was quite memorable too.

In the meantime, here´s a nice report of this week´s three Italian gigs that Mala kindly sent to me.

November 27th - 2:40 a.m. - Rimini’s train station

So this is where step one ends, or at least where it is supposed to end. Actually it won’t be finished until I’m safe in my bed back in Rome. This is just the beginning of my 3 days dEUS bender: Rimini tonight, Rome tomorrow and Milan on Monday. Basically something like going to hell and back.

So Rimini: got to the venue extra early and there they were, having dinner. Wow… I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I haven’t seen these guys this close in 6 years so that’s quite moving. I’ll cut the bullshit short and go straight to the juicy bits: it was a great gig. Great set, splendidly played. But… I don’t know, it didn’t give me goosebumps, it didn’t make my eyes tear (though they even played Via, which is one of my favourites ever) as shocking as that may sound. Something was missing but it might have been just me. I’ve been counting off the days since bloody July, I know the setlists by heart, I heard some of this year’s livesets…. that might have spoiled the fun.

But the same show, another town, is waiting for me, 17 hours away… and let’s see what that is going to be like.

November 28 – 2 p.m. - a train to Milan

Picking this up again at the beginning of step number 3: we hit Milan today. Last night in Rome, the city I live in, and the best part of it was at the Alpheus. It was announced as a sold out but it actually wasn’t, though it was packed as hell.

Mauro put my esteemed colleague Mr. Giuseppe Siciliano and myself on the guest list, and we got aftershow passes too! dEUS hit the stage at 22:15 (a thing that never happened in Rome before: gigs don’t usually start before 23!!), Pocket Revolution and violet lights. I manage to sneak through a side door and get closer to the stage, also succeeding in the impossible task of finding my friend The Masked Rat among THOUSANDS. From here on it’s pure delirium. The boys on stage are in a better shape that yesterday, they laugh, they’re having fun and hell, I am too, annoying the fuck out every single person around me by singing at the top of my lungs and jumping around (and please, note that I haven’t jumped approximately since 1995) and while I’m doing this I also ask myself why would someone go through all the effort of making it to the first rows just to stand there, still as a freaking rock. I never understood that. The setlist is pretty much the same as yesterday, but goosebumps came this time. Must have been their mood, or Tom’s kind of angry way of singing. They looked happier, they played better. Theme from Turnpike’s outro was great and the same goes for Suds and Soda’s (the S the U the P the E the R, the S the H the A R and P). Tom and Mauro also did the Pharrell/Gwen Stefani impersonation (Tom: can I have it like that?; Mauro: you got it like that). Another wonderful set. Funny when the crowd started clapping along to Roses with Tom stopping singing to say “It’s not a clapping song”… never cross mr. Barman.

And now on me merry way to Milan….

November 29 – some time in the morning - Eurostar # 9444 to Rome

Froze my ass in Milan last night. Rumours had it that Millionaire joined the bill too but that didn’t happen. Not a club this time but more of a sports hall. What can I say that I haven’t said over the last two days? It was another great gig. Some technical problems pissed off Tom over the first few songs and Mauro seemed to be having some problem too. Everything solved, the gig carries on, the crowd goes mental and I’m run over by a human landslide, which pushed me about 8 paces away from where I was standing. Suds and Soda louder and freakier than ever.

Towards the end of the concert I saw Tim Vanhamel standing at the back of the stage and doing his special dance moves.

AFTERSHOW PARTY!! Tom was supposed to be djing in a club called Goganga (a very stupid name, if you ask me) so we moved on there. Rome aftershow was basically just sitting around having a few drinks, no music, non chills, no frills. This is a lot cooler: Millionaire are pretty wasted and they spend most of the time falling around. Tim is dancing all over the place, upturning tables in the process and nearly managing to get himself kicked out at least twice. The esteemed colleague and I got to interview Mauro, so nice of him freezing is ass outside the club for us, and I saw a look of terror in Tom’s eyes as I was going to greet him, probably scared to death that I was going to interview him too. I spared him, he was having too much fun.

The place closed around 2 a.m. with dEUS looking for another place to hit. Lost them along the way. Me, I just want to sleep. It’s been a very long weekend, lost some intelligence along the way, but hell, it was bloody well worth it.

I’m finally taking my first extended break from work since February! I’ll be on a two-week trip, first to Copenhagen (my Danish needs some practicing), then straight to Barcelona, where the plan is just to party with friends for one week. Talk about having a rest. Expect reports from the dEUS gigs in those two cities

http://www.deus.be/community/viewtopic.php?t=2308&start=14
http://www.deus.be/community/viewtopic.php?t=2338

We Irish and Scots feel cheated upon.

dEUS - Little Arithmetics - QMU, Glasgow, 05.11.2005

The fun about writing this, and the whole point behind the idea of starting it, actually, is when I get to write stuff that’s related to the whole experience of going through this «following the band around» thing. Driving, flying, taking trains, jumping in and out of taxis, meeting people, discovering new places and venues, partying, and all the glitches that make travelling an exhilarating activity. I don’t know, and never will, how it is to be touring with a band. But this thing is fun. It breaks (and disrupts, my colleagues could argue) the daily working routine.

Enough rambling eh. Glasgow. Home of one of my all-time favourite bands Mogwai, and of the (to me) legendary Chemikal Underground label, who can boast Aereogramme, The (now defunct) Delgados, Magoo and Arab Strap among others. I’d heard it was an ugly town, but having grown up close to a very pretty, but otherwise totally boring town, I couldn’t care less. And truth be told, I found Glasgow’s architectural mix of industrial buildings and ocre Victorian houses absolutely compelling. And that town is really bustling with shops, the streets were so crowded it took me ages to walk from the bus station to Clyde Street, where the hostel we stayed at was located. There I was met by Fred from the forum, his little brother Martin and his friend Neil, all fresh from the 3-hour-delayed Newcastle train. We unpacked in our room, and headed for, well, the closest Burger King. Sorry guys, I’m a junk food lover. Then onto a pub. Guinness. Two pints. Then another one, called Fat Boab’s. I loved that name. Guinness. Erh…. one or two pints. We grabbed a cab and were dropped right in front of the QMU, which is actually called Qudos and is a venue run by the QMU, the students union of Glasgow University.

It has to be said that the QMU is a really great venue. It’s small, I’d say about 250 people were in there, has a really nice bar with seats and a big curved, metal grille that runs along it behind the seats, so that the bar is somewhat separated from the concert room, but you can see between the bars of the grille, so it’s not really separated. Erh, I’m not good at describing that sort of stuff. Anyway, intimate venue, with a great atmosphere and a good sound, much better than the Ambassador on the day before. The Newcastle boys and I stood in the middle, but still close to the bar, and for the rest of the night, Martin would regularly keep us hydrated with Guinness. So that was my first drunk dEUS gig. So, there’s a problem: how do you review a gig that you had so much fun with, while knowing that it would have been a totally different experience had you been sober? Ah, you don’t. You just admit to Glaswegian visitors that yes, the 3 annoyingly noisy Brits + 1 guy with a French accent at the back of the venue were, indeed, you, yes, you committed the Sin that is talking, singing, dancing awkwardly, laughing loud and telling jokes during a concert by your very idols, and you even go as far as saying that it was a superb experience. Tell you what, I even found Red Organ Serpent Sound to be wildly entertaining (but not half as entertaining as later that night - read on).

One thing I can say about the gig, though: I was damn glad they skipped Magdalena, as I’m a notorious hater of that song, and the setlist worked a hundred times better with more rock right from the start (if I ever share my bootleg, which is very, very unlikely, you’ll hear my live comments about that). And I found it a bit of a pity that they dropped Assault on Magnus from the main set, because, yeah, it’s a Magnus song, so the audience don’t know it, but it’s such a killer song that it’s a shame they don’t get to hear that. The London ICA crowd were served with it, and they loved it. As for the rest, they played very, very well, the audience was nice -a bit quieter than the Dublin one though- I loved it when they started requesting Little Arithmetics during the encore break, and LA did indeed came (okay, that’s what the setlist had planned anyway, but still).

Then, after the gig, I took a picture of the setlist, commented on the songs they dropped, then a short, dark-haired girl asked if I’d seen them before, and then she asked my name, I told her, to which she said she was Erin and I hadn’t even bothered answering her e-mails. Ahem. Such delicious moments. I was very happy to meet her, though, because she’s a very cool girl. So the five of us headed to the after party, which was at the bar on the first floor, normally you needed a pass, but I didn’t see anyone checking and we all got in. There we got more drunk, Erin as well, she desperately wanted to talk to Tom, as she’d seen him in Vancouver last year for the AWTWB premiere at the film festival there (she’s Canadian and studying in Great Britain), I talked to people, I think I might have been a bit unsensitive with Alan, I got Mauro to get me a whisky and coke because he’d spilled beer into my walled at the last AB afterparty, I annoyed Klaas for a while, we also had fun with Rory, the singer from Red Organ Serpent Sound (ROSS for short), who was pretty wasted himself, and looked quite gay to me (and to Fred and Jenna as well), but apparently wanted to keep up appearances and snogged a local groupie, I got said groupie to take a group photo (see below), she first accidentally attempted to take a picture of herself, then nearly dropped my cam into her glass, Erin was invited to sit at Tom’s big, very social table (it’s always a funny sight to see Tom on a chair, his arms and legs are everywhere all the time), at some point Stéphane fetched Mauro cause they were moving on to another party, we followed suit and left as well. Tom, Steph & Mauro jumped into a cab with Erin, Tom told us they were going to Riverside Club and he’d ordered two more cabs, and indeed the Newcastle gang and I got into another one, I spotted Rory and his ROSS groupie making out against the dEUS tour coach, so I grabbed them and told them to tag along, the journey back to the centre of Glasgow seemed to take aaages.

We finally got there, incredibly enough the place was 50m from our hostel. The guys at the club’s entrance wouldn’t let Rory & his girl in, as they were far too drunk (Rory’d fallen flat on his knees on getting out of the taxi), so the boys and I walked in, then bumped onto a guy at the top of the stairs who just said “TEN QUIDS”, I paid reluctantly, then we got into that erh… not very good club, just one big room, hardly lit with a blueish tint, with bare walls and a big Riverside Club sign, indie charts music, I asked Tom if he could get Rory in, as I felt very bad about taking the guy away from his bandmates and quite a long way from the QMU, to which Tom got (understandably) a bit pissed at me, then things got a bit out of hand for me:

Some dude: «…………» (something which I didn’t get, because of the accent I’m not used to)
Me: «Excuse me, I’m a French speaker, I didn’t get that, can you speak a bit slower please?»
Dude: «Fuck off ya cunt!!!»
Me: «That’s rude, I’m trying to speak your language, I’m making an effort, really that’s no way to talk to me just because I’m not a native - *makes gulping sound*»
Dude (holding me very tightly by the throat and looking demented): «I’m gonna fookin’ kill you, you cunt, I swear I’m gonna kill you!»

First time anyone ever assaulted me. Neil grabbed me away and tried to get me a drink but I was too shocked, then I cooled down a bit and, drunk as I was, went back to the thug and asked if we could talk without him going for my throat, to which he said again that he’d kill me, went to see another thuggish-looking guy and talked to him while pointing at me, at which point the intelligent being in me woke up and took me outside, where I complained about it to the guy at the entrance, who said he’d just throw those guys away. That’s when I found out that my «new friend» was actually part of the club staff as well, so this was starting to stink a bit. Mauro came and was very soothing about it, then Stéphane told me I’d best leave it there and just go, Tom came out as well and grinned while telling me not to get into trouble, I dunno if they saw the guy attack me, or if my English mates went and told them, but I felt veeeery bad about them being involved with my little problem. Anyway, we all left, I thought about asking my ten pounds back but fortunately knew better, the band left to another party with Erin in tow, and Newcastle and I went back to the hostel, where, thanks to all the alcohol, I had absolutely no problem falling asleep. Let me recommend Eurohostel Glasgow, by the way. It’s cheap, super conveniently located, comfortable, way better than the shabby, overpriced hostel I’d stayed at in Dublin (Kinlay House - best avoided).

What an adventure.

Setlist:
01 Pocket Revolution
02 Cold Sun Of Circumstance
03 Instant Street
04 Fell Off The Floor, Man
05 Stop-Start Nature
06 The Real Sugar
07 W.C.S.
08 If You Don’t Get What You Want
09 Theme From Turnpike
10 Sun Ra
11 Nothing Really Ends
12 Roses
13 Serpentine
14 Bad Timing
—
15 Little Arithmetics (mp3)
16 What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
17 Suds & Soda

Brussels-Dublin (CRL-DUB): 880km
Dublin-Glasgow (DUB-PIK): 315km
Glasgow-Brussels (PIK-CRL): 888km
Total distance: 2083km (5.14% the circumference of planet Earth)

A nice little trip, all in all.

dEUS - The Real Sugar - The Ambassador, Dublin, 04.11.2005

Started pretty badly actually. On Thursday, I realised, loooong after working hours, that I’d forgotten my keys at the office. As I couldn’t get into the building after 22.00, that meant I had to sleep away from my place and couldn’t get packed. So on Friday, I had to go to work very early, so that I could grab my keys on the desk, rush to my place at lunchtime to charge my MD, iPod, mobile phone and camera, drop socks, undies, t-shirts and a Discworld novel into my travel bag, drive back to work, pretend I wasn’t somewhere else entirely, then drive to Charleroi Airport, swear at the traffic congestion, find out I was way too early for the plane anyway, land in Dublin, rush to get the airport coach to the city centre, swear at the heavy roadworks, be delighted at the driver’s helpfulness, get slightly mad at it when he was showing it to other people at stops before mine, finally get dropped a few metres from the hostel, check in, greet the two Hungarian guys in the 6-bed dorm (they couldn’t speak a single word of English and listened to very crappy dance music), unpack, lock my valuables, call Jenna to tell her I was on my way, walk to the Ambassador, leave my jacket at the cloakroom (apparently everybody on the guestlist was Belgian) - we’re getting started.

The Ambassador’s like an old, round theatre. Oddly enough for a theatre, the ground there is flat, and there are no fixed chairs, so it was a standing concert. Found out I couldn’t take any photo, as I’d left the charged battery pack in my jacket, and there was half a kilometer of queue for the cloakroom already. Jenna was expecting me at the bottom of the erh, 3 stairsteps down into the concert room. Got introduced to her whole little gang, we were standing just a few metres from the stage, to the left. A few minutes waiting, and then Red Organ Serpent Sound came on stage.

Red. Organ. Serpent. Sound. Some name. Mark or Phil (Fred & Funkyphil from the dEUS forum, respectively) had sent me their single over msn, called In Search of Orgasmuz, and really, that’s one hell of a poppy punky funky bomb. Starts with silly synths, then onto a giant scream of «We looooove each other, that’s why we’re here» and it’s so cool I’d been playing it all day at work before leaving to Dub. So, well, perhaps I was expecting too much. Five guys in ridiculous outfits invaded the stage, the singer wearing a red hood that completely covered his face, a red tank top, tiiiight trousers, one huge boxing glove, a Slash-like hat and sunglasses. I found them funny, but wondered who the hell had taken those guys out of the fridge they’d been frozen in for eternity back in 1976.

Then came the guys. The band played pretty well, but you could definitely notice that Tom wasn’t completely at ease with his voice, he had a worried look at times. Talking of his look - I absolutely love how angry he can look when singing Roses.

Now, the trouble with seeing the same band over and over is that you lose sight of the general impression, and you can get quite picky. Everybody there said that the gig was massive. To me, it was erh, great, cause that’s my favourite band playing and those songs do «something» to me, but I kept being annoyed by the sound balance, cause I was hearing too much of Stéphane’s toms, too much of Tom’s voice, too much of Klaas’s violins, and not much of the rest. People ask me how I don’t get bored by seeing them over and over, but it’s a different experience than “just” going to a concert. You just watch the concert from other points of view. At times, I find myself finding that the band are in a really good mood and technically near perfect, but I see that the audience’s response isn’t great, and I start being afraid that the band are going to sense it and play shorter. I’m turning into an anxious mother.

Mmh, I suspect the above paragraph is just gibberish to say that I don’t remember much of the Dublin gig. Glasgow erased it all. After the gig, I met Funkyphil (n°1 poster on the dEUS forum, if you’re a casual visitor and not part of the obsessed dEUSSIANS), who’s a really, really nice guy. Along with his friends and Jenna’s gang, we were taken into erh… quite a dull pub actually, some way off the Temple Bar district, where I learnt to hate the smoking ban, because I might be a non smoker, but I chew gum quite a lot, and there was no ashtray for me to throw my old gums. Then we moved to a club called The Village, which wasn’t really my thing, a bit too posh to me, and the DJ really didn’t deserve to be called as such. Plus, I was tired and wanted to have a chance of getting up early enough to see a little bit of Dublin. Which I did: I spent 3/4h at the local Habitat store. Sometimes I might act a bit too gay.

Ooooh, almost forgot: when Jenna introduced me to her friends, she said «This is Jaaaan Eeeeves, he’s following the band around», to which her friend Stephen said «Oh, that’s funny, cause this afternoon I was checking some guy’s blog, and apparently he’s here tonight as well», to which Jenna said «Yeah, that’s JY’s blog», and then Stephen looked at me unbelievingly, like I was some alien, shook my hand, and said «Really?? Is that your site? I’m so proud of meeting you man, that’s great», and then I felt very, very embarrassed. Although some might see this as an ego trip on my part, it’s not. I’m no one, just a lucky fan, probably a bit more obsessed than most of you, which is why I started those websites about dEUS and Magnus, being able to get somehow close to the band is an honour, but I’m just messing around with some HTML and Photoshop and if you’re a fan of me then it’s all a bit disproportionate, no?

Setlist:
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 (mp3)
08 W.C.S.
09 If You Don’t Get What You Want
10 Theme From Turnpike
11 Sun Ra
12 Nothing Really Ends
13 Roses
14 Serpentine
15 Bad Timing
—
16 Little Arithmetics
17 What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
18 Suds & Soda