REVIEW BY YOUR INTERNET HERO

Ah my dear fellows ...

There's a stupid happy smile stuck on my face which is not going to fade until 2001. Those Brussels gigs were very expensive, but they were definitely worth it. I "only" went on Thursday and Friday (and it's now 00.15 and I wonder if dEUS are still playing ... mmh, Les Rythmes will start in a few minutes - gosh, too bad I didn't have the money).

Actually my dEUS weekend didn't start very well. I missed the train I'd intended to take, and the next one had a 25 minute delay. So I almost had to run, especially since I a friend of mine was waiting for his ticket - one of those in my pocket ... It was 20.45 when I arrived, and then I realized that I had one extra ticket and I had to sell it very quickly. Unfortunately, NOBODY needed it, so at 21.30 I dedided I was bored of waiting and I came in without selling the bloody scrap of paper - 950bef down the drain. Out of rage I walked to the bar and ordered a couple of beers for quick swallowing - I wanted to think about something else. I handed a 200bef banknote and was given back ... 900bef, the barmaid having confused it with a 1000bef note. Smile :) This + the beer put me in a very good mood for the concert to come (but still, I lost 150f). Which leads us to the gig doesn't it ?

Let me say it : a TOTAL BLAST (yeah, I use that word a lot when I talk about concerts, don't remind me :) To my joy they started with Dream Sequence, one of my favourites for no particular reason. Very standard version, except that Tom sang lyrics from some English song I didn't recognize. Then came Sister Dew to which I didn't pay much attention (I don't think it's a very impressive song, not the Ideal Crash version at least - they should give it an acoustic go). I think Little Arithmetics came after that ... oh I'm already tired of reviewing like this. Song after song isn't much fun, especially because I don't remember the order of the songs :)

I knew we were in for surprises : having advertised so much, they HAD to do special things if they didn't want the press to be extremely sarcastic about them in the days to follow. There were lots of suprises actually (well, not surprising to me : I could more or less guess what would happen during which songs - no magic for me anymore, I'm a cold fish of a fan). The audience obviously was more suprised than I was : it was a "I like the singles so why not go out to hear them again"-type crowd the two days. They were surprised at Sam Sam Sam - a situation I enjoy enormously cuz it helps the feeling that it's some kind of private song for real fans only. I danced like a devil and the people around me didn't like it cuz they would have preferred to concentrate on that NEW song - I LOVE it :) But they were also surprised at Hotellounge - well, some of them at least. Hotellounge : good version played on the 14th with Craig singing "I wanna live the movies of my dreams / I wanna live them all", wonderful and much longer version on Friday with Tom singing "Et si tu n'existais pas / Pourquoi existerais-je / Et si tu n'existais pas / J'inventerais l'univers pour pouvoir t'inventer" before Craig sang his cover ; of course some stupid people laughed at Tom's singing in French ("ah ah trop ridicule le Tom"). On the two days they distorted the end in order to play Put The Freaks - on both days they had Bart Maris (X'Legged Sally) and his friends playing the horns. I must say that it wasn't very convincing, to my ears they were always out of tune AND beat (as far as beat can be applied to blowing as in PTFUF) - but I now decide that I liked it because at least the ytried to change things a bit. During the noisy part of Instant Street Les Ballets C. de la B. climbed on stage (reminder : they are the dancers you can see in the Turnpike, Roses & Instant Street videos), and they came again during Turnpike, but with some warm fire-eating with the crowd cheering at each blow (oh, have I mentioned that the audience sucked ? Well - THE AUDIENCE SUCKED ON BOTH DAYS : no dancing, no singing along, too much clapping in the hands, I guess that's less tiring than dancing - you lazy bastards. I wasn't very far from the stage, but nobody around me moved - hardly a little nodding and shaking the shoulders during the very rythmy bits).

And so, on Thursday, after Everybody's Weird, Tom's face split into a huge smile and he said "Mesdames & Messieurs, Rudy Trouvé & Stef Kamil Carlens" at what point I went mad and fortunately so did the crowd (well the good part of it at least did) and I shouted Morticiachair repeatedly like a demon and elbowed my way to the front of the stage and of course Rudy started "I remember the time I had this morticiachair" and then got lost in his notes - yes, Rudy Trouvé was so drunk he couldn't sing the song without reading the lyrics and he managed to skip two lines and some more here and there - white as a zombie and acting like one actually. Poor lad, I'm not sure he enjoyed the prospect of facing a crowd of 2,000 dEUS fans 4 years after leaving the train. But hey, for the first time of my life the real dEUS were playing Morticiachair and I had never dreamed I'd see such a thing (I became a fan in 95 but never had the opportunity to see them until July 97) so I really felt high, I screamed "Informatiooooon" possibly louder than Rudy did and completely broke my voice. Stef managed pretty well, but unfortunately his mike was less efficient than Tom's one and it wasn't easy to focus on his voice. He had to play with Danny's bass guitar, and since he's left-handed (Stef, that is) he must play it reversed - but didn't he do that already when still with dEUS ? After that they played Worst Case Scenario, the very best version I've heard, with the Cool Rocket looking very concentrated on his extremely important one-touch-keyboardist role (I think his brain saturated when he tried to hit two keys at the same time while keeping an ear on the rhythm), there was also Elko Blijweert (Kiss My Jazz, Dead Man Ray) on that one, Rudy wasn't doing anything during it, probably trying not to fall down or preventing himself from throwing up or trying to remember the chords and lyrics to ... GREAT AMERICAN NUDE, the last song of the night. At first I didn't recognize it, and when I did I could hardly believe it. It's not exactly the kind of song that makes an audience crazy, and apparently not even one person in ten knew it, but I enjoyed it a lot, and so seemed Tom & Stef (I didn't look at Klaas or Julle, but I'm not sure Klaas was too happy about it for reasons you'll read hereinafter). The very last bit of music played was Rudy's guitar - completely out of tune, and it was as if he wasn't realizing that the song was over. He's fucking brilliant, I can hardly wait for the next KMJ or Gore Slut gigs (from January on as Elko told me at the Dour festival).

What more should I say about Thursday ? Oh yes, during Everybody's Weird Guy Van Nueten was on stage with his red old fashioned 80's synth hanging from his shoulder - he wrote the keyboard part of the song (which makes 80% of that song as far as I can judge) and Bart Maris blowing like a Val St Lambert glass blower, but in a far more chaotic way (ok it was a bad comparison but I won't press delete). On the day after the whole brass band played on that song, but I preferred it on the first day. Turnpike featured again the Prodigy cover of No Good and various other lyrics bits (on Friday too - actually Friday was an edulcorated version of Thursday without Stef & Rudy).

And more ... On Thursday, Craig gave his guitar to the fans right in front of him, there was a little fighting, approx 532 fingers pulling on the instrument in different directions, and eventually a security man jumped to get it back - with 3 strings broken already. He shouted something at Craig and Craig smiled back while putting on another guitar. Danny jumped from the stage ONto the crowd, but unfortunately there were not many people to hold him apart from me ... So after one second or two he fell - good for personality :) He climbed back on stage and stood closer to the crowd so that the fans ripped his skirt (of course he had his leather pants on). Klaas did a lot of angry hitting the cymbals during Turnpike - so hard that you heard the clatter clearly even though there was no mike around it. Tom explained that the Flemish didn't like it when Tom sang or talked in French - Tom said : "you know why ? that's because ..." and so Everybody's Weird came (and nobody noticed because the song didn't start right after his attempt at a joke - arh arh arh :)

On Friday, Craig made another attempt at giving his guitar, but this time only held it at good distance so that from where I was standing it was really funny to see those dozens of arms aiming in vain at the guitar - what a fucking Scottish sadist he is. Sam Loewyck the crazy Turnpike dancer wasn't there for some reason - perhaps he broke a bone the night before or something, I have no idea. They also danced on Fell Off The Floor which was sooooo great (a boy behind me tapped me on the shoulder because he wanted me to STOP dancing !!!). Danny dived again but with more luck this time : he got a proper crowdsurfing and I'm sure he enjoyed all those hands all over his body :) Tom sat down during a part of Magdalena (or was it on Thursday ? Mmh I should ha' written a proper review earlier). Danny tried again to "improve" WCS with some one-key-synth, but Klaas started laughing and walked to him, showed him something and took him to his own keyboard and they spent the rest of the song, Klaas apparently teaching something to Danny ;) Oh, Serpentine came back and the crowd showed some presence at that time (quite late if you ask me).

Unfortunately there were some sound problems on Friday : during Let's See, around minute 4, there's a bit when you only hear Klaas's keyboard playing something very dark and low - well, right then his synths suffered from a power failure and there was sudden silence. To my dismay Tom didn't want to stop the song so instead he caught up with his singing and got the band to continue - rather out of beat. The technician got the keyboard to run again, but nonetheless the rest of the song isn't worth talking about ... And while attempting to get the synth back the sound engineer cut the right loudspeakers to shut for two seconds. Probably because of those problems there was often larsen effect during the rest of the gig. But believe me, despite of this it was a brilliant gig (nothing to be compared with they day before of course).

Both nights they seemed to have lots of fun, and so did I - good.

On Thursday I spotted Klaas after the gig. Having talked to him 18 days before, I hoped he would recognize me, but he didn't (take that, bloody ego). During the show, Tom said they wouldn't play Zea anymore and "that's how it is". Being of a stubborn nature, I asked Klaas WHY.

Jyves - "Hallo Klaas, ik weet niet of jij me herinnert, we praatten na het Placebo optreden twee weken geleden"
Klaas - "Erh .... Watte ?"
J - "Okay I'll try English it's easier for me. Nevermind the question. Fucking brilliant gig - but why did Tom say you wouldn't play Zea anymore ?"
K (patient) - "Well, it's a very old song, we haven't played it for 6 years or so ... I don't even know how to play it anymore."
J (out of tune) - "The Blimp, The Blimp ...."
K - "That's Beefheart ..."
J - "Oh I know, just trying to remind you - but Morticiachair & Great American Nude are old songs don't you think ?"
K - "Yes, but we played them only because we'd invited Rudy & Stef !"
J - "Hey, you play Suds & Soda, Hotellounge & WCS without them, and these are also old songs"
K (angry) - "Oh what do you want me to say ? It's true, and so what ?"
J (trying to change subject in a blunt attempt to avoid conflict) - "Well I'm sorry, after all you're the musicians, you give and we enjoy what you do, sorry for that ... But still .... Since January you've been playing the same 15-18 songs again and again ..."
K - "YES, but we play them differently"
J - "Sound like the album versions to me. You change the order but it's always the same ... No new songs ?"
K - "Listen: we don't have any time, we haven't written anything new since we finished the album"
J - "So no new song on The Ideal Crash single"
K (walking away) - "No, no, no - we haven't had the time. Bye !"
J - "Thanks a lot !"

Tim on the other hand was very sweet and kind. He was going downstairs with his girlfriend.

Jyves - "Tim! Tim!"
Tim - "Ja ?"
J - "Hello, great gig ... Mind if I ask you one or two things ?"
T - "No please do ... Did you come from England to see us ?"
J - "Oh no ! I'm from Wallonie, it's just that I'm too tired to try my wacky Dutch on you"
T - "Hey good, I took you for an English speaker"
J - "Thanks, you'll be the first to tell me something like that. What's up with Millionnaire ?"
T (backing away and looking very amazed and looking at his girlfriend and back at me) - "Hey how have your heard of it ? Where ? You know about MY band ? Cool ! Good ! Where have you heard of it ? Hey I can't believe this !"
J - "I'm a stupid EvilS fan, that's why"
T - "Great ! You've come to see my playing ?"
J - "Not exactly - I'm an even more stupid dEUS fan ... Are you a permanent member now ?"
T - "Oh I don't know - it's cool as it is, but we're stopping pretty soon, so I'll start playing with Millionnaire. You've heard about Millionnaire ? Jesus ... How ?"
J - "Even heard of Internet ? It's full of people even more stupid than I am and anyway ... There was that article in RifRaf where Mauro said the band has split long before officially splitting, and he said you were in a 'brilliant band called Millionnaire'"
T - "Ah yes, RifRaf ... Oh, do you know my girlfriend ?"
J - "Hi ... are you the model they wrote about in Nieuwsblad ?"
Model - "Oh yes that article ..."
T - "Fuck I really hate this - now I'm in dEUS and we're famous ... I don't want them to go into our private lives, that sucks !"
J - "Sure it does ... And all those fan sites on Internet, just the same."
T - "Oh yeah ? I don't use Internet - I'd like to ... They talk about Millionnaire on Internet ???"
J - "Yep I saw something there"
T - "Wow that's cool - I already have fans in the whole world ! Well, thank you, it's nice meeting you ... What's your name ?"
J - "Jean-Yves"
T - "Jean-Yves ?"
J - "Hey you said it correctly ! First time I ever meet a Flemish who can say that one"
T - "Oh, they wanted someone talented in dEUS you know. Okay, nature calls - see you later ?"
J - "Let's say so - bye"

He's really really kind and obviously he was glad someone knew of his bands, especially outside Flanders. But his girlfriend, honestly .... A little skin and hardly any flesh on a tall skeleton. Super model ? Erh ...

Gosh, I've been typing for almost 2 hours now (and listening to my dEUS mp3's and drinking some green tea). That's all for now.

Before I forget : LES RYTHMES DIGITALES were really impressive, I was blown away (and so was Marieke I suppose. Nathalie was pissed by "such crap music" and Manuel wouldn't dance. Or a very little. Well - real men don't dance :)

CONGRATULATIONS for reading this far !

Cheers

Jyves

SETLIST (not sure either)

Dream Sequence #1
Sister Dew
Suds & Soda
Little Arithmetics
Magdalena
I See A Darkness (Will Oldham)
Hotellounge (w. lines from Joe Dassin)
Put The Freaks Up Front (w. Bart Maris & band)
Sam Peckinpah's Daughters
Roses
Let's See Who Goes Down First (w. power failure :)
The Magic Hour
Instant Street (w. dancers)

Theme From Turnpike (w. dancers)
Fell Off The Floor, Man (w. dancers)
Everybody's Weird
W.C.S. (1st draft)

Serpentine

RUNNING ORDER

MAIN HALL
Doors open at 19.30
20.30-21.15 : ADD N TO (X)
21.15-22.00 : DJ SIMON
22.00-00.00 : dEUS
00.00-00.30 : DJ LOW
00.30-01.20 : LES RYTHMES DIGITALES
01.20-... : DJ LOW

SECOND HALL
21.00-00.00 : Brasil Cuba Chill Out : Up Bustle & Out
01.00-02.00 : Color Humano
02.00-04.00 : Up Bustle & Out