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Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf (NL), June 5, 1995

REVIEW BY PAUL VAN GORP

At 11.50 am dEUS started their show, this time without the little jam, which isn't very suitable for a crowd of this size (30.000+ people). Instead they opened (as in Apeldoorn on march 18) with Ferocious. If I recall correctly, this version was stronger than in in Apeldoorn, because this time tension was built up and the song climaxed in the 'Ferocious, ferocious'-part, whereas in Apeldoorn they started off forcefully right away. A lot of crowdsurfing was going on during this song, but it increased during the second song Via and even more people landed on my head, because at this time I had been able to get to the second row. Via was played in the normal way, without extraordinary additions. The pit cooled down a bit when We're Going Out Tonight was done. I can't recall exactly in which order Shake Your Hip and Suds And Soda were performed, but after this (maybe I'm forgetting one or two songs) I can reconstruct the setlist based on radio- and tv-broadcasts. The Supermarket Song, a catchy intermezzo, was followed by the typical Stef-song Mr. Death Won't Get Me. Again Stef was clearly in perfect concert-shape; his flexible fingers manipulated the bass-strings in a very smooth way. After this the climax of the performance followed: a truly magnificent version of Worst Case Scenario, as I've never seen it before, was done. There was a lot of improvisation, which resulted in a beautiful rendition. Stef participated by singing one verse simultaneously with Tom. W.C.S. was followed by a completely new (at least to me) song, which is called Twenty Something. Tom urged the audience to watch the start of this song closely. Rather ironically, because apart from the first forceful notes, the rest of the song was rather modest and quiet. It was (of course) a wonderful song, during which Rudy participated on a small mouth-organ, which he got from his wallet. After this a sensitive rendition of Let's Get Lost was done, which is in my opinion a risk during such a monstrous festival. But it worked out right, although some morons didn't understand it: even during this modest song there was some crowdsurfing and a-rythmical handclapping going on. At the end of Let's Get Lost the planned time was almost exceeded, which Tom clearly didn't like. With an angry posture and madly waving his arms he made clear that he wanted to perform another song. And he was allowed to do another one, which of course was their latest hit Hotellounge. The song was started with Tom shouting something like 'Aoh! Festivals! One more song!' into the microphone. This time the french verse was left out, but instead there was a lengthy intermezzo with guitar and violin, during which the picture was on Klaas and Rudy.

Conclusion: this was a well-performed show with very few erroneous moments. No guitar-checking breaks between songs or blown amplifiers this time, only Tom's distortion microphone was malfunctioning a few seconds. Although the enthousiasm wasn't very apparent, the band was driven, which was visible in Tom's behaviour before Hotellounge. Unfortunately no songs on My Sister = My Clock were performed, but probably these more experimental songs would not be very successful in front of this hit-oriented audience. Hopefully dEUS will perform these new songs at the gig in Nighttown in less than three weeks from now.