KindaBorrel, Het Schuim Amsterdam, 04-03-2006

Kindafarewell night to the KindaMuzik crew.
KindaMuzik has grown so much since the beginning that from time to time it's interesting to have those get-togethers in order to meet and greet all the new persons that came aboard.

So saturday night, a bar in Amsterdam, cool people and KindaMuzik Soundsystem represented by Martijn, Yorick, Norbert, Paul and Vincent (as featured on the picture taken by KM photographer Cor Jabaaij).

Well it was up to the belgians to close the joint and really enjoyed Vincent's last 45 minutes, some electro, some classics but all things groovy as only the Vinne does it.

Free beer and whiskey on the house in the end and some VU's Run Run Run singing along with the bartenders and it was back on the road again, direction Ape-Town.

Keep this KM baby growing guys !

dEUS @ Vorst Nationaal Bxl, 02-03-06

Support act Snow Patrol will soon be forgotten. Quality musicians but tunes without any edge.

Then dEUS. After the very good concerts some months ago @ AB and l'Atelier I was waiting to see how they would conquer Vorst which is one of Belgium's biggest concert halls (around 7500 persons?) and not a very suitable place to connect with your audience if you don't have this stadium-like attitude including grotesque movements etc... but they managed by rocking as they never rocked before and it became one more great concert during the come-back Pocket Revolution tour.

Setlist:
Pocket Revolution
Stop-Start Nature
One Advice Space
Instant Street
Fell Off The Floor Man
Via
The Real Sugar
Worst Case Scenario
Theme From Turnpike
Roses
Assault On Magnus
Sun Ra
Rock Chick
What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
Little Arithmetics
Nothing Really Ends
---
Bad Timing
If You Don't Get What You Want
Suds & Soda (Sabotage)
---
Hotellounge

Great mixture of old and new.
Pocket Revolution and Bad Timing are such intense live songs, always enjoy them very much live... 2 Magnus songs: Assault and Rock chick, great to hear as well but one could notice that for most of the crowd these were completely unknown songs
They left out 7 days, 7 weeks - the weakest part of the setlist a few months ago and as requested by the fans they finally played Hotellounge again - one word: WOW - together with suds and soda it became a nostalgia trip back to 1994 - university had just started, the debut album came out and finally music in Belgium became fascinating again, Ape-town was enjoying the afterglow of the european cultural capital year... great era, fantastic memories, sublime soundtrack ...

Thanks to a friend we were invited to the aftershow, great fun just before leaving Belgium again to hang out with my favorite belgian band, some beers and the interesting rest of the belgian music scene :)
Afterparty continued at KVS and made the alarm clock hurt very much at 7am in the morning after a very short night of sleep.

(picture kindly taken from dEUS flickr group - Myrto)

De Nachten - friday 27 januari 06 - De Singel Antwerp

Saw:
Midaircondo
65daysofStatic
Bikini Atoll
Jimmy Edgar
Five Corners Quintet
A Brand

Was impressed by 65daysofstatic - very intense postrock with electronics

Was satisfied by the jazz of Five Corners Quintet and found out that Jukka Eskola plays trumpet with them.

Thought the Midaircondo performance was lovely and dreamy but saw too little of it to know it built up to something or not.

Next year, same time, same venue.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba

Thursday 26-01-2006: Punk & Poetry opening night of this year's De Nachten festival,
just arrived in time to see headliners & postpunk legend THE FALL.

With more than 30 different line-ups since 1977 & after 24 John Peel sessions the band led by Mark E. Smith still rocks on.. in true form and excellent shape.
Energizing guitars and drums, the right amount of synth and the mumbling of Mark.
Impressive.

More info about the band here
(picture taken by Ini Soyer)

Vespertina synaxis

Tonight I had the privilege to be invited to join the monks for the Vespers at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Leffe.

The evening hour Vespers, or vespertina synaxis, is composed of four psalms, a capitulum, a response, a hymn, a versicle, a canticle from the Gospel, litany (Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison), Pater with the ordinary finale, oratio, or prayer, and dismissal (Regula Sancti Benedicti, xvii).

It was quite something to see and hear a small group of monks contemplating their religion through centuries old psalms combined with a strictly defined pattern of rituals... Impressive.

Also ate a dish involving pig's ears this evening but let's not drift away from the serenity of this post.


Vesper definition kindly taken from this website with more background on Vespers

Bookmarked: Reverso 68

Pete Herbert's new remix moniker (together with Phil Mison).
Saw him dj @ Cafe Capital in A'petown last night and it rocked.
House as it should be - uplifting and ending in absolute bliss.

On that account a quick recap of NYE @ Petrol - DJ Naughty - selection not bad, but nothing extraordinary, technique only so and so. Luckily there were an inspired Jos Lebon and Louis Katorz to set things straight afterwards.

+ kudos to the dj at Central in Brussels on friday night for still blending in some fine broken beats...

Gigs I appreciated in 2005

Used to have a book in which I kept tickets & small reports from concerts & festivals I visited, keeping track of stats & what I liked & didn't like...

As this activation of soundtracking my explorations here and there comes a bit late for 2005, just a quick look back of what excited me this year livewise:

dEUS - both @ AB and L'atelier
Cocorosie - AB
The Rebirth - twice at Le Tavernier
Pixies - Pukkelpop (missed them in 04)
Jamie Lidell - Petrol
Juan Maclean - Petrol
The Kills - Werchter & Petrol
Kraftwerk - Werchter
Lady Sovereign - Pukkelpop
Neon Judgement - Petrol
Henrik Schwarz - 10daysoff Vooruit
DJ Grazzhoppa's bigband - De nachten
Hesperimenta Vocal Ensemble - Nuits des Choeurs
Toots Thielemans & band - Zuiderkroon

Saturday Night Fever

The Kids
Raymond v/h Groenewoud
DJ Pierre Elitaire
Jahcoozi
Stereo MC's dj-set
Johnny S Mad

From Apetown's Sint-Jansplein to AB, over to B4 and back to AB.
Quite some eclectic night.

Mad props to Johhny's short guerilla set in B4, saving what otherwise would have been a rather dull musical night (missed Lidell, Jackson & his computer band etc etc).

Toots Thielemans

Tiets Toolmans or Stielemans,
whatever, the guy is 83 and survived a brain haemorraghe,
but tonight I saw him live for the first time and wow, can this guy still pull it off...
played harmonica with the greatest: Miles Davis, Dilly Gillespie, Goodman, Parker, Bill Evans...

accompanied by piano, bass, drums
and Toots on harmonica (also attempting guitar which is not obvious after his haemorr...)

great artist, funny and loveable guy.


more about him on his website
(photography by Jos Knaepen)

Kick Off ?

Curious to see if this will be going any further than my eponymous pitas blog from what seems ages ago & where I never went further than welcoming everyone.

Anyway this was primarily created so I could be able to react on a friend's blog and we'll see where we take it from there.

Have a nice day & welcome !