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!
A recurring theme on someblogs these past days was making a list of the top 5 affairs they would have, given a free pass by their partners. Seeing as I am the partner of one of them, I feel I should provide my own list. Here goes:
1. Jennifer Beals
In season 5 of The L Word I completely fell for Jennifer Beals. I hadn’t had such a big crush on her before, unlike some others, but this season, she really won me over. Especially when she’s wearing one of her tank-tops.
2. Rosario Dawson
I was made aware of her hotness when watching A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. I’d seen her in some other things before that, but she’d never really registered om my hotness radar. Oh my, how she registers now! Particularly in this photo.
3. Claire Danes
I knew Claire Danes as a teenager from My So-Called Life, but never thought of her as very sexy until I saw her in The Hours. She was wearing combat trousers and a tight t-shirt and was all woman and oh so sexy.
4. Jill Bennett
It has already been documented that I have a crush on Jill Bennett. I can’t wait for We’re Getting Nowhere to start again. I don’t care which show they recap, I’ll be watching!
5. Jodie Foster
Last but not least, an all-time favourite. Not only is she incredibly sexy in a physical way, but (in the utopia of us having an affair) she would talk to me, in french, about intellectual things I would probably not understand, and I would swoon every time.
Last night we attended the Domino Festival in the AB in Brussels. Main act of the evening: The Gutter Twins, or Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli of respectively Screaming Trees and Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers fame.
I always look forward to seeing Greg Dulli perform live. Although he looks like a young Tony Soprano, his charisma makes him damn sexy! (I know, I have trouble comprehending it myself)
The Gutter Twins CD has several very strong songs, so I was excited to see them live, plus hoping they would bring at least a few Afghan Whigs or Twilight Singers songs.
I managed to sneak in my camera, so I was also looking forward to taking some concert photos, which I hadn’t done in a long time. Unfortunately, things did not really go as planned.
When Greg and Mark walked on stage, and Greg shouted “Bonsoir AB! Ca va?” I had good hopes it would be an exciting show. However, after a couple of songs, it became clear that Greg was not feeling well. He was apparently suffering from the heat and not enjoying himself at all. After 45 minutes the band left the stage. About 5 minutes later they came back, sans Greg, which resulted in Mark Lanegan having to actually say something (he’s the scary silent type on stage usually): “Greg is not well. He can’t make it back on stage.” So we got a few Mark Lanegan songs and then it was finished. It lasted less than 1 hour in total.
We were a bit disappointed of course, but we understand everyone can have an off day. To make everything worse, the lighting on stage was really not good for taking pictures: strong back lighting and only dark blue lights on the two frontmen. I could see all the professional photographers cursing under their breath because they had to use flashes in order to get a decent shot. Plus they stuck a stool right in my eyeline, and it didn’t even get used as the show was cut short!
Below are the few moderately usable pics I managed to make.
No, I’m not talking about D&TC (I’m not on a suicide mission).
The thing is, I rode my bicycle to work today. It’s a 10 km, 35 min ride. I hadn’t ridden my bike in about 4 months. That’s all I’ll say about it.
I have rarely looked forward to a new album as much as to the new Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs.
Their previous one, Plans, is one of the (very very few) cd’s that have been in my itunes and on my ipod continuously since I started using them.
The first single off of Narrow Stairs, I Will Possess Your Heart, has been released, all 8 minutes and 35 seconds of it. And I love it. The rest of the album is findable online, but I’m waiting for the official cd release (May 13th) to listen to it properly. Call me old-fashioned, but I still get a kick out of going to the store and holding the cd in my hands, paying for it and going through the booklet reading the lyrics and seeing who’s being thanked by the band.
They have annouced a series of european shows, this is the one I just ordered tickets for:
July 08, 2008 - Riverenhof (Open Air), Antwerp, Belgium - tickets here
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 have rarely looked forward to a new album as much as to the new Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs.