It’s been posted a lot already, but it just made me laugh so much, I had to put it up. In the opening skit of the season premiere of Saturday Night Live Tina Fey is so convincing as Sarah Palin. Her accent, her mannerisms, the nonsense she talks, it’s all so close to the real thing. Imagine a world with Sarah Palin as the most powerful person… Actually, I think I’d rather not.
Two weeks ago we went to see Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes fame, perform with his new band The Mystic Valley Band in the Botanique.
Although he’s never been in my top ranked artists and his voice sometimes gets on my nerves after a few songs, it’s D&TC who’s the big Bright Eyes fan in our household, I was looking forward to the gig as his latest album has a few very strong songs.
Apparently Conor Oberst doesn’t have the best live reputation, but I enjoyed it very much. We got to the venue pretty late, so my positioning wasn’t ideal to take pictures, but here’s a few anyway.
Last year we couldn’t really believe it when Blondie were announced as one of the bands playing at a festival in Zottegem. As this place is only about 30 minutes away, we were really excited and then seriously disappointed when they cancelled some weeks before the festival.
This year Blondie are celebrating the 30th anniversary of what many think is their best album: Parallel Lines. And to celebrate in style, they’re touring, with a halt in Zottegem this past saturday. There was no way we were missing an opportunity of seeing Deborah Harry, in the flesh, so close to home, so we broke our vow of no more festivals. About 2 minutes after we got there we were reminded of why we took that vow in the first place: muddy ground, drunk and smelly people, and an overwhelming smell of pee along the way to the gate.
But back to Blondie. In keeping with the theme of the tour, Deborah Harry walked on in what looked like black and white striped pyjama bottoms and a grey and white striped hoodie. With her shouting “I’m in the phone booth, it’s the one across the hall” we were off for the complete Parallel Lines album, followed by some less known songs (even a Deborah Harry solo song).
The band then left the stage for a few minutes before coming back for an encore of Call Me, Atomic and Tide Is High.
There is no real way to describe how cool Debbie Harry is. She has this attitude, this defiant look on her face. You definitely don’t want to mess with her, even if she’s 63. At the same time she genuinely seemed to be having a great time during the gig, often waving or smiling at someone in the audience.
UPDATE: I almost forgot to mention that at one point she exclaimed to not be able to stand it anymore, took off her high-heeled shoes and proceeded to throw them into the crowd! Nowhere near where we were standing unfortunately…
I was lucky enough to smuggle in my camera, and as we were on the first row, albeit on the side, I did manage to get a few shots. Most of the pictures are not that good and a lot look very similar, but in my opinion you can never have enough images of Deborah Harry.
It’s been a few months since the last (and so far only) mix posted on this blog. About time for a new one, right? I apologize for some of the rougher transitions, it had been a while since I’d recorded myself mixing.
MGMT – Kids
Belinda Carlisle – Heaven is a Place on Earth (Hidden Cat Remix)
Santogold – L.E.S. Artistes (Ooh Ee Remix)
Rihanna – Don’t Stop the Music (LAZRtag Club Remix)
The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name (Tom Neville Remix)
Per Qx feat Warren Morris – Everything Counts (Depeche Mode Cover)
Kylie Minogue – Wow (MSTRKRFT Remix)
Madonna – Into The Groove (Sidechains Remix)
Toxic Avenger – Escape (LA Riots Remix V8)
M.I.A. – Bucky Done Gun (Billion Dollar Djs Remix for Kicks)
Feist – 1234 (VanShe Technologic Remix)
Duffy – Mercy (Dunproofin Thankful Mix)
Estelle – American Boy (Nadastrom Remix)
Coin Operated Boy – Where’s Your Rocker At
Elbow are not much to look at as far as bands go (I read one review where they described singer Guy Garvey as a cross between Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry), but what a difference the music makes. From the first note Guy Garvey’s voice was spot on and it stayed spot on for the rest of the show. There was a kind of warm glow in the Orangerie, obviously most of the people there were real fans judging by the length of the applause between songs. Guy Garvey’s friendly and gentle banter definitely helps a lot to create the vibe of a band comfortable making great music for a (not too large) discerning audience. I hope I get a chance to see them again soon, preferably in a small club and not at a festival.
Here’s the setlist and the closing song of the evening, and one of my favourite Elbow classics, Scattered Black And Whites. More pictures after the break.
Last Saturday we went to see Martha Wainwright at the Botanique in Brussels. The show was great, her voice is fantastic.
Her new cd has the best title ever: I Know You’re Married, But I’ve Got Feelings Too. Some of the songs on it are very enoyable (Bleeding All Over You, You Cheated Me and Pink Floyd cover See Emily Play), but I haven’t really gotten into this album as much as I did with her first one. However, she brings such a great show that even the less good songs on the album, sound great live.
There were even two goosebumps moments for me when she sang first an Edith Piaf cover and then the Barbara song featured on her first album, Quand Reviendras-Tu?
She makes herself very likeable through her chatting in between songs, giving the impression of a very nice, friendly person. It made me do something I hardly ever do after a gig: I bought something at the merchandising stand. They had these supercute red briefs with the title of the album printed on the back. Now who could resist that?
Last week republican presidential hopeful John McCain was a guest on the Ellen Degeneres show. And as Ellen put it, they talked about the elephant in the room: marriage equality.
A few years ago people used to criticize Ellen for “straightening-up” on her talkshow, but they can hardly do that now. She only just announced she and Portia were going to marry, now that it’s legal in California. And now she’s putting a pretty damn convincing case to McCain as to why civil partnerships or any other watered-down form of union are quite similar to the racial segregation of 50 years ago.
Maybe I tend to see too much good in people, but from this video I kind of get the feeling that McCain would like to agree with her, but can’t because he’s scared of appearing too liberal and losing the right-wing christian fundamentalist support.
I bet eveyone’s wondering how our set went at the Pride party saturday. No?
Well, here’s a few highlights (and lowlights):
- seeing Regi sitting in a dark hallway, waiting to go onstage for the Milk Inc. show (at least I think it was him, I could only see very blond hair and big white teeth in the dark) while we were being led around the backstage area to the tiny dressing room (about 3 square meters) that was allocated to the 17 DJs to share
- seeing a minute of what was probably the most expensive gig per spectator of above-mentioned act and their follow-up Kate Ryan (seriously, the person choosing the acts for Pride needs their head examined, most of us are not fans of the ultra-commercial, generic music these two acts make) as there were about 100 people in the audience and I can’t imagine either one of them performed for free out of love for the gays
- getting in a right panic because I couldn’t hear the second channel in my headphones once we’d started playing. Luckily it was only a button that needed adjusting and we got it right after about 3 songs
- playing one of the gayest sets I’ve ever played featuring Madonna, Mika, Kylie, Cindy Lauper and many more
All in all we had a very good time and we did make some of the crowd in the Stonewall Room dance, which is what we came for.
Back to the topic of this post. Lula called me “lacksadaisical about blogging”. I’m not sure what it means exactly, but I think she’s ticked off because I didn’t do anything with the last tag she dumped on me. So I’ve decided to make up for it by doing the new meme she posted.
The rules:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.
So here goes, in no particular order:
1. MGMT – Kids
I’ve been singing this song in my head for quite a while now. I wanted to play it at the Pride party saturday, but I think the audience would not have appreciated it. Here’s an unofficial videoclip for the song.
2. Estelle – American Boy
I’m not a Kanye West fan, and I hadn’t heard of Estelle before I saw this clip on tv some weeks ago, but I can’t get this tune out of my head. It’s great to get me going on my morning bike ride to work!
3. Feist – Honey Honey
I’ve been rediscovering Feist these past weeks. And ever since this song was featured in an episode of The L Word, it’s the first song I play whenever I switch to her on my ipod.
5. Band Of Horses
D&TC made me discover Band Of Horses at the end of last year and I’ve been playing them on repeat ever since. It’s very hard to pick one song, but I guess this one has the most plays in my itunes, so I’ll go with it.
6. Portishead – Machine Gun
We didn’t go to the Portishead gig two weeks ago because the venue is really unpleasant, but I sometimes get that little pang of regret about it, so I put on Machine Gun and hope they’ll come back somewhere smaller and more intimate.
7. Gossip – Careless Whisper
I love (the) Gossip and I used to love George Michael when I was a teenager. So when you put them together, what’s not to love? (the sound and image are out of synch on the video, but it was the best I could find)
As I don’t think there’s 7 different people who read this blog, I’ll just tag the one who has to because otherwise I’d kick her out of my bed stop cooking for her, D&TC. To all the others: go for it!
The reason why it took me so long to start blogging has become glaringly obvious these past weeks: I don’t have the discipline to keep it up on a regular basis. I even got tagged but have been too busy (some might say lazy) to follow the lead.
However, self-promotion is always a good motivator. So here I am blogging again.
This saturday it’s the Belgian Lesbian and Gay Pride in Brussels. And Lori Glory and myself will be playing some tunes from midnight to 2AM in the Stonewall Room. If any one of you 2 people who visit this blog are going to the party, please come and say hello and shake your booty in front of the discobar. It will be much appreciated.
The Last Shadow Puppets is the new project by Alex Turner, frontman of the Arctic Monkeys. His partner in crime is Miles Kane, of the Little Flames and the Rascals.
I enjoyed both Arctic Monkeys records very much, so I’m very curious to hear what this new Alex turner venture sounds like. If the rest of the cd is anything like the first single, I know I’ll be listening to it quite a lot in the next weeks. It’s off to the record store for me!
The Last Shadow Puppets is the new project by Alex Turner, frontman of the Arctic Monkeys. His partner in crime is Miles Kane, of the Little Flames and the Rascals.