De Nachten, De Singel, Antwerp, Belgium 12/01/01 by ASTRID

i had an excellent time aswell. Tom was really great, i was thrilled he played 2:45am (i love elliot!!) i couldnt restrain myself right about then. And everybodys weird sounded kool :-) i didnt really excpect him to play that many deus songs. quite a depressing set lol. was even more depressed when the n.drake film was over. (that guy before tom pissed me off man..) i really wanna know what that song he did was stef was called..anyone else? also, im like 99% sure he wore the necklace i gave him i couldnt really tell *lol* so that was nice. what does magdalena look like? (just wanna be sure its who i think it is. are they going outout?). an pierle is such a sweetheart. and rudy´s hair looked great lol. did anyone else see arno? or am i hallucinating? i cudnt get to see daau- people were standing out into the hall. i think we actually spent most of the night avoiding those hip hop bruxellois dudes. they were real sleazy. if they were gonna annoy us they could atleast have offered us a lift home. right now im just pissed i couldnt be there tonight, id sell my left arm to see Mauro right about now. wudnt mind some mo and ben action either.. hope yr all having fun. [sulk]

De Nachten, De Singel, Antwerp, Belgium 12/01/01 by JEAN-YVES LESTIENNE

(the next few lines are totally uninteresteing, skip them) I have some things to write here, I wanted to post them earlier, but when I came back from Antwerpen I was so tired that I suffered from acute Instant Sleep. It was the first time I went to De Nachten, and there were so many acts scheduled that I thought it would last until 5 or 6 a.m., while Add N To (X) only played 'til 2:30, and then there was nothing I could do but leave (there was a movie called Julien Donkey-Boy, I could have watched it, but it was utter crap and I left before 3 a.m.) Even worse : I was on my own, none of my friends wanted to come because a) of exams, b) of a cold, c) it was too expensive, d) Antwerp is too far, e) "Tom Barman is ridiculous, dEUS should have stopped after W.C.S." Fortunately, I met a cool & chatty girl from Gent during Tom's performance, we talked & talked & talked ("wat zeg je?" then "pardon?" then "in het Engels?" then "oh no, not again"), but after Add N To (X) she had a drink and started smoking pot, and, well, she wasn't exactly the same again after that (unless the expression "reasonable behaviour" includes lying on the floor and laughing at anything). So I left, and walked to the Station, which is not close to De Singel. It was too early to catch a train, so I had to kill time and caught a cold instead. Conclusion : next time, I'll leave my environment concerns aside and take the car. (now you can start reading again) First impression : De Singel is an awful venue. There's nothing I dislike more than having to SIT at a concert. I'd prefer a seated room dedicated to poetry and film, and a standard concert room for the louder music acts, like Add N To X and Echoboy. I spent the whole evening in the blue room (apart from seeing a horrible little man in a red latex suit in the red room, something called "Gespracheverstärker" or something like that, an awful Placebo/Him would-be) where I saw Bherman, A Silver Mt. Zion (almost as good as Godspeed You), another Canadian band, a beautiful shortfilm called Killing Time, Echoboy which I saw for the first time and really enjoyed, three thousand Dutch sprakmakers telling tales I didn't understand, and of course, Tom. He was very good, but, as Thom Yorke said, "anyone can play guitar". Our Tom isn't a very skilled guitar player, and it shows particularly on that new Leonard Cohenesque song, Luxury ... But he has a really great voice, first time I really paid attention to his singing. During the two Nick Drake covers with Guy Van Nueten on piano, it was particularly obvious - to me, this was the highlight of his performance. Unless the highlight was when he played One Advice, Space : I had the impression of hearing a totally new song - no synths, no Craig, the line "Sometimes I wander" sung over and over, and no more than 3:40. Of course, there's a bias : OAS is my favourite dEUS song :-) I also really liked the acoustic version of Everybody's Weird, but it was no surprise since I already knew the version he played at Dranouter Folk. And the encore was very unexpected : Tom & Stef singing a Supertramp song (Goodbye Stranger) ? And I thought it was considered bad taste ;-) And to anybody who was there : when Tom played Instant Street, he said something in Dutch, and then "fuck off". What was he talking about ?