REVIEW AND PHOTOS BY ALEXEY VORONIN

Hello you all,

Okay I am back from Budapest and didn't read a single message from the list yet. As you may know I was there to interview dEUS (which i successfully did) and ee them live with REM (which I also did).

Now from the beggining: I was interviewing Klaas (mostly) and Danny before the gig (luckily I struggled thru heavy rum hangover sleeping on the bench for 3 hours and was looking fine). They all as we know are really nice and kind people. So the facts that are probably will be interesting to you: Klaas liked a lot working with Mr. Botrill that he thinks is the best produser they worked with yet, because Pierre Vervlosem is an asshole; while Klaas was recording the violin parts Pierre said things like this: "It sucks, but you can't do any better, so let's keep it" He also didn't speak any flemish, and Klaas any french so a lot of misscommunication happened. Peter Vermeersch is a very good musician. Feldman at all wasn't in the studio when string parts were recorded. Recording TIC was very enjoable in Spain. Klaas spend much time alone in the room doing string arrangements and he never did it exactly before so he was really enjoing the whole thing. He works very slow so probably a solo album maybe released in not earlier than 5 years. At Let's See Who goes Down First he put a Johnny Halliday sample (French singer that is terrible), but record company refused to sell the rights for it so Tom wrote the lyrics. He had a dinner with rudy awhile ago and he is really energetic. Klaas loves him a lot.

dEUS don't have ANY new material recorded and they don't play any NEW songs besides TIC. They don't have time for that and touring is really destructive "I can't stay sober any night!" We talked a lot about toring and it seems most of the band mambers are really tired of it. Tim possibly will become a dEUS member, he is in fact. He is currently listening a lot to Kika soundtrack - that's the great film of Almodavr, if anyone doesn't know. Tom and Stef are always great friends. They were socked by Sandman's death and he called somedays before that tragedy. Klaas promised that they will make hungarians love them.

After that they played for 40 minuets. Craig and Klaas seemed not happy at all and not smiling. Tim was doing all the crazy moving and i smiled at it a lot. Danny seemed like he wasn't just giving a fuck. Tom was trying way too hard with singing and playing. It was obvious that he wanted to be cool and not fail befor REM. they played Magdalena for REM. The first song was Instant Street with a great ending than they played Sam (liked it a lot). Non TIC songs played were Little Arithmetics, Suds&Soda, Fell Off the floor man. the rest was TIC stuff. There were around 40-50 hungarian fans at front greeting and shouting and clapping

REM played for 2 hours. I am not a huge fan of them but liked the concert a lot. The design of lights was great and they seemed working alot and trying hard. But there was also this feeling that they've done the same stuff all the tour already. They also played a song for dEUS and said tnx twice.

After the show I went to dEUS dressing room and chatted with them for a while drinking the vodka I brought. Jules was really nice and happy (as always- i saw him before like that), Tim and Craig as I understood left not seeing REM. Klass didn't like their part of the gig at all and we decided not to talk about it a lot. He is not a fan of REM and like their song Drive. I chatted with Danny for some 15-20 minuets. He was also tired of touring "Can you imagine I see their faces everyday, see Jules, see Klass ooohhhhh" But he kinda like recording TIC and he co-wrote "two best songs". the new ViveLa Fete is already recorded. since he is really tired of touring he also said that he may possibly leave dEUS in the future. He joined them because he was a friend of theirs and played with Tom is Tenerife. We talked about Ghent (my fav flemish town and his hometown), Sexmachines "That's me man!!!" I took some exciting backstage photos that will appear soon on the Soup mag. Than we went to the corridor and talked with Tom all together (he even remembered me seeing 2 years ago in Nandran). He will be recording new songs with Stef after they finish touring. Nothing new with Rudy and he is jealious that he wasn't invited for a dinner as Klaas. He seemd really happy and amused by the concert and loved the vodka I brought "The best I ever had!!" Than Michael Stipe came up. I was really not ready for that and amazed. I am not a fan as I said and I don't have any fanatism in me, but seeing michael stipe a meter away is someting shivering. We all had my vodka and chatted about different types of that alcohol for long. told funny stories, his press agent told a lot. Tom recommended Stipe the Rondo studio, because Stipe said they were looking ofr one to record some material. so we just chatted - Itook photos of Tom and Stipe together !!! hehehe Than we left. dEUS to the hotel. Stipe somewhere else. Me walked to the hostel.

Probably thats all to tella bout that, now i am to write an article in russian. which i will do days later. oh specially for sister Lauren and other americans - they are not going to play in the States soon and not looking forward to do that. unfortunately.

hope you enjoyed - I worked on it and it is the largest bit i typed in months

alexey