Pearl Jam and Wolfmother - Antwerp

I'm like a zombie at work... but I'm a really charged zombie. I spend the whole day working like a trojan and wanting to tell everyone I interact with that I saw Pearl Jam last night and I'm going to see them again tonight.

Mowgli and Luke are heading off to Antwerp on an earlier train to ensure that if there is any special bit for Ten Club ticket holders that we are getting in the front tonight. This means that I'm getting the two hour train to Antwerp on my own. I roll up in a ball on the seat and try to get some shut eye before I arrive in Antwerp... I wake up with half an hour to spare, and start the ritual of necking cans of red bull and liquid meals and getting togged up... I get a few looks as the rough looking guy sleeping in the fetal position, turns into tartan clad, wide awake Pearl jam man.

By the time I get to Antwerpen Berchem, I'm so excited that I just have to get a taxi to the Sportpaleis. The taxi driver says "Pearl jam" when I get in, I don;t even have to mention the Sportpaleis. Either Antwerp is dead mid-week, or this event is going to kick off.

I meet Luke at the door, and he hands me my ticket... Now I'm ready to rock.... I'm really excited tonight.... I think yesterday, I was tired and had too much admin surrounding the gig. The 2 hour sleep on the train has done me good.

We walk in to the arena, and it’s a much nicer sight than the previous evening. Although it's large, and will hold a lot of singing lungs, it's intimate, we can be right down the front quite easily. Mowgli is already kicking of the audience and has found some Australians to chew the fat with. Mowgli and I leave Luke with them, as we head off to get in the beers.

After asking for about 397 different belgian beers of the bar, we settle for the Bastard Love Child of Tennents and La Chouffe:



We spend a while wandering around and getting acquainted with the venue and our fellow concert goers for the night. We come across some scousers. We start talking to them, cos the guy has got the coolest suit jacket I have ever seen. His Girlfriend made it:



I told her she should start selling them on ebay, so if you see them there, then it was my idea.

We generally wander around until wolfmother take to the stage. Last night I didn't say much about wolfmother. Truth is I've had the album for about 6 months, an they really really Rawk! Anyone who's a fan of meat and 2 veg rock could do worse than go out and buy this album:




Having seen them the previous evening, it's good to be up close and to get a good look at what they do. What they do is provide a great live act over some rocking tunes. They have a really fat sound for a three piece, with Chris Ross moving between bass and organ duties. He actually plays organ in a way that would merit the invention of "air organ"... never residing to be upstaged by the not so inanimate object that he's playing:



In fact the two legs of the organ are rarely on the ground at the same time.

What's wonderful is that the pearl jam fans seem to have taken the band to their hearts and rock out to the whole set, with most fans knowing a fair percentage of the words. We're lucky to be standing with some Australians, so since wolfmother are australian, we suggest getting a sing song going that will make them feel at home. The ozzies respond with a tuneless chant, of "c'mon lads, show's yer tits. Get yer titz out son... c'mon", hilarious....







Once Wolfmother have left the stage, it's a case of waiting and keeping the energy and excitement up before the boys take to the stage. We wave the Saltire, and Mowgli starts a chant of "There's only one flag in Belgium":



It's soon joined by some guys at the front flying an Irish tri-Colour, so we sing "there's only 2 flags in Belgium"....

Pearl jam wander out on the stage to rapturous applause, as always there's little said by eddie or anyone else, they just start a bit of Pink Floyd- Interstellar Overdrive... a little more raucous than the subdued start of last night...It's the same start as Reading... and it fades away into Corduroy.... The clapping starts to the riff and and then the real gig starts as soon as Matt hits that first note, and the band join in.... and then it just kicks off "The waiting drove me mad".... maybe a dry joke relating to Pearl jam's never having played in Belgium.

It's much better being at the front, and its actually not crushed at all, just comfortable and 1 metre away from your idols.

Ed alters the lyrics and says "Can't buy what I want because it's peace... can't be what I want because I'm peaceful"

Once the song breaks down, we get our first mike wails of the night, I love the Vitalogy period wails, they are so bluesy that you can almost smell the dust. He really lets rip.... and we all know he's just warming up.



There's no stop and they are straight into Animal from VS. If Ten is the holy grail, and Vitalogy is the album that opened them up to experimentation, then VS gets lost in-between as an album full of amazing songs. It does in my mind anyway. Daughter and Rearviewmirror are obviously constantly on set lists, but animal's one I often forget about.... and how can you, it has some of the fastest Mike lines in their canon...

It's a pretty in your face beginning, and they don't let off. It's straight into Hail hail from No Code. Probably my favourite album if I have to decide. The band are on fire. Matt's ride cymbal kicks in at the chorus, and you know that they're upping the ante an playing a little faster than they should be. It's pumping along with the adrenalin flowing through our hearts...

They're just not going to let up tonight.... Ed with an Ebow in his hand, means that it's World Wide Suicide next, a classic, and it's only been out 6 months:



The band seem to clearly enjoy the new stuff. Mike dances and shakes a groove all the way through... he seems to have specific actions for all the different parts of the song... and side by side with World Wide Suicide comes Severed hand. It sounds like a foot to the floor simple rocker, which it is, but there is a ,lot of complexity in what they do. The trick is to make it sound simple. I suppose thats why the band has been around for so long. Their new stuff drips with both simplicity and professionalism. Mike still gets a chance to twiddle his way out of the song, which the rest of the band are a rock solid back bone providing the groove.

Back to vitalogy, and we get the moody Not For You.... I love the grimace sing that Ed does on this song. He's got an issue with a few people and he isn't afraid to put it in a song. You would not want to make an enemy of this man. Although Not For you isn't fast, it's loud and churning with attitude, and balls. Thats 6 loud rockers that get the heart pumping, with no pause... no hello, no nothing... just rock, this case Bluesy rock of the Vitalogy nature same as corduroy. When it ends... Ed starts a little arpeggio and lands on a tag of Modern Girl by Sleater Kinney:



It's beautiful. Maybe Ed knows that if you hit hard with 6 rockers, and then go delicate, that it makes the light and dark so wonderful. I don;t have time to ponder. They continue the delicacy with In hiding, my favourite track from Yield.

I love this track. Loads of fans go on about Yield as being Pearl jam's best post Ten album. While I like all the songs, in places it's a little light. This song was the one for me on that album, the note Ed hits in the chorus, can't be done without feeling the music, and the meandering soloing of Mike just carries so much Pearl jam history in it. I can't put into words, but this song was raw Pearl jam DNA oozing out of it. The really old school stuff. Only Pearl Jam could have written this song in my mind for some reason, and now almost 10 years later, I'm standing watching it ive for my first time with Matt classing up the place and driving the whole thing along... The whole thing meanders off and then there's no pause for the "eddie eddie" chants before we hit full pelt again. This time it's back to the new album... unemployable.

The band are the tightest they've ever been on this new stuff, it all seems to gel so well. Every component of the band has their own parts intertwined in the music. Whn it finishes, the band are back to "eddie eddie" ....

Ed responds with a "Goede Abend"...Ever the poet – Eddie says “finally we're here.. we finally landed and thank you for being here to catch us”

Ed says that he's completely fluent in Dutch and French, but that since Belgium can't decide what language to speak, he'll just use english...

Now we ebb and flow into Given to fly... for some reason the song always makes me feel at home with the boys, most of the songs are a secret among those in the know anyway... but this song feels like it's just the fans and the band against the rest of the world. I love the way it closes, it always brings a tear to my eye, there's memories locked in the outro... I don't know what they are, but like smell they can zone you straight in on an emotion.

hee hee....a wicked laugh from everyone present and we kick into evenflow... we're off!!!!!

It's all just foreplay before mike....

Then bendy bendy bend... and matt definately kicks faster as the solo starts... long solo notes getting slightly higher and more furious... like the whoel things going to explode, then tremolo picking and down a wail of notes... then stone stops the riff and mike just lets rip, i can never tell if he's twiddling or bending, but neither can he.... the band explode and groove around mike, who's off in a world of his own.

Always one to mix it up, we get the behind the head soloing here instead of during alive:







we return to an augmented groove on the riff, and mike sounds like he's killing the guitar... we noise solo for a while and then wiggle down the way with a little bit of whammy bar into some furious tremolo picking that rises and heads for a climax, of twiddles and something resembling the riff, then he really goes for it, and the whole thing breaks down... then stops in a watery noise.....

.....we get what is now becoming standard, a drum solo from Matt:



I don't know what it is, but listening back to the bootlegs of these concerts, Matt's drumming sounds so fresh... some of the songs are just a few clicks faster, and he feels like he's doing the impossible, putting even more into it.

He's on fire!!!! He rattle around the whole kit constantly getting this really sold juicy noise out of his toms... I can't help feeling that this is the closest I'll get to making up for not being born before Bonzo died....

The band kick in and you smile and laugh again.... It's just a simple sing song to end the song now.... our last little flair of mike comes at the outro....

Ed dryly introduces us to Matt Cameron after evenflow, and then introduces us to Mike who is going to start the next song...

It's Present Tense. I get a look from Mowgli. He knows it's one of my favourites. There's a delicacy and innocence to both the lyrics and the guitar. The guitar is beyond heavy, but it sits alone and you almost feel sory for it. I love how the guitar is set with the tones low and you can feel the body of the guitar and everything that contributes to this human sound. Eddie's existential lyrics pick up and Matt and then Stone join in to the groove, before it settles on a really slow heavy dirge which seems to ask such primordial questions, that I worry when listening to it that we might not want to hear the answer. The song then suddenly changes.... into a arpeggiatted theme(that is always riddled with mistakes), before the band kicks together by jeff and seems to culminate for the guts of these existential questions. I always feel confused after it. Did we just hear some answers? We get another elongated outro, where there's some wonderful guitar moments from Mike, Stone and Ed. And thats why No code is my favourite pearl jam album...

Unrelenting... Ed kicks off the whimsical by evolving into Do the evolution. It's a foot to the floor number. It seems so long since we've heard one, but Evenflow and Present Tense will mess with a man's head. Ed says we'll continue with the evolution as he kicks into another new cut; Big wave.

It doesn't sound new, cos it just kicks off and locks into place. This new stuff was just made to be appreciated live. They sound like they've been playing them for years.

If there was any suggestion(there wasn't) we were getting bored with rocking, Ed solves it by kicking into the one song that I can play in any weather on the guitar. Elderly Woman behind the counter in a small town. Mowlgi and I have our moment by shouting "I just wanna scream Ahoj!!!"

From here, we continue with the sing songs and head into Jeremy.... It's great singing along to a song you;ve sang along to for 15 years with another 15,000 people.....

They're playing so much from ten these days... Why Go? is no longer a tour rarity. I've seen it live 3 times now.

It's amazing to watch mike wail away on the solo!







After Why Go? Someone throws a T-shirt on stage for ed. It says. "we played Belgium for 4 hours".. he suggests that they owe them 6, an that you can't have 6 hours without a ukelele song. As always, Ed gets the words and the music wrong a few times..... But it's still wonderful.

From here, it's a straight kick into black. It starts... and I realise it's the first time I've heard it live. It sounds almost unreal like it's not happening..... It's an emotional rollercoaster of a song. It's the most real song on Ten. Fine, alive and evenflow and all the rest, rock, but black is so heartfelt. I am singing along with every word, and it's like an out of body experience. By the time Ed is singing " I hope some day you'll have a beautiful life...." I'm no longer there, I've drifted to a higher plain. I don't remember it. I was so lost in the music that all memory had just turned off. I was just zombied standing with my eyes shut letting the music envelop me..... doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

doo doo dee doo dee do dee do

I open my eyes.... I'm not the only one.... 15,000 people are singing along...... but the audience just won't stop singing. The band jam over the 15,000 strong chorus... "we belong..... together"



The band stops..... but the audience have no intention of stopping. Ed eventually has to join in with them.... He's astounded.... They only stop when he starts playing Betterman... playing.... not singing... the crowd do that for him.... Two of the great emtional sing songs back to back!!! Only when the band kick in do we drop back down to reality for a second.

We're well into the gig and the energy is immense, the crowd are just on fire.... I never expected this from Belgians!!!! I don;t really know what I did expect, but they are putting their all into it. The boys meet them at every step of the way.... Black into Betterman into Crazy Mary!!!! Another never-heard-live-before favourite of mine.... Now that they have Boom, this Victoria williams cover gets played a lot more often. It's a good sing along and another camp fire song of mine, but no one knows it outside of the Pearl jam fan base, so it never goes down as well as I feel it should.

Come the solo, boom goes for it.... only to be joined by Mike, then they trade off licks for about 10 minutes. It's such a great moment. A simple little song by a sweet little lady, has been made into one of the most amazing rock trade offs I've heard, while Stone Pummels three chords on an acoustic for 10 minutes.

Mowgli gets up on Luke and my shoulders and does his flash. He has one of my socks on his cock, and he takes it off and throws it at Ed. we get no reaction... maybe its getting a little old.

From here... I could just go home now.... but Comatose keeps us up and announces that we're approaching the end of the show.... They rip through it like it's a reset button, clearing us for the encore which is bound to be truly great....

They kick into Alive.... Always a pleasure, never a chore... a sing along with a mike solo..... as would be expected the belgians are in fine voice when it gets to chanting along to the solo. Mike gets up on a speaker cabinet, and Luke manages to catch one of his plectrums, which is better than Mowgli who only managed to recieve a jeff plectrum on the chin.

The solo last for what seems like ages. When it finishes, mike is still twiddling away, like the duracell bunny he is!!!

Eddie gives a heartfelt thanks for the support that the audience has shown to a bunch of scrappy americans.

I get yet another new experience tonight, Indifference. The bass starts it off and I get chills, then mike just plays this reverby night time guitar. It's timeless. And I get to float on the moment some more. I don't think much can top this... Normally after alive, it should be yellow ledbetter or rocking in the freeworld and then home....

It just gets better and better... Eddie announces he's doing a a duet with the singer from wolfmother. CAN IT BE???

IT IS!!!!!

Hungerstrike by temple of the dog. It should be Chris Cornell. The song's only been performed live about 5 times or something, so you'll understand that the tears are running down my face as the opening lines are being sung.... It doesn't get any better......

BABA O'REILLY

I couldn't have dreamed for a better setlist. Two tambourines fly in from right of stage and Ed kicks off the Who rocker by banging two tambourines together like they;re plates at a greek wedding!!!! Now I'm crying and jumping.... and singing....

It's at this point that I agree with Mowgli that my hat shoul go on stage. Mike Picks it up and sits it on his amp..... My hat is famous!!!!!

Andy from wolfmother and Ed are going for it... both of them trying to brust tambourines over their head.. and both failing... It feels like such a feel good freee for all... The band are having fun and so are we... There have been a few treats tonight... And it can only go one more place....

we're all doing funny dancing to the outro of mike soloing and our wristbanded hands are held aloft:



"We don't say goodbye in the US, we just come toa country and occupy it"

"we'll see you next year"

We close the night to Yellow Ledbetter as always.

For some reason you never tire of listening to mike wail... and wail he does... he plays a little run that I don;t recognise in the middle of the solo. He had been practicing it at the end of alive.... who knows.... we close with mike being beautiful and a crowd clapping in unison.

When they go off. Mike doesn't take my hat, so I tell one of the roadies that someone stole it off me and threw it on stage and that I need it back. I think about telling the same story about my sock, but I think it's a litle less believable.

What a night!!!!!

They played for close to 3 hours. We missed the last train to AMsterdam by about 2 hours.... the next train to Amsterdam is about 6.30..... the three of us hang in Antwerp and slowly make it to the station. We are high on happiness.... we talk czech to a polish dog, get a bottle of red wine, ad walk along the longest underpass in the world:



We stagger into Amsterdam at about 10am...... having had a few hours sleep on the train...

Next gig..... Barcelona...

Brussels, Skating and Winter

I've not been posting recently.

I've not been up to much... my social time is spent in the gym, and my onyl travels have been to Brussels and back several times. I've basically had nothing to say. I;ve been working lots and waiting for the sun to arrive so that people can start living again.

I think I've been to Brussels four times already this year..... Usually, I arrive late the night before a meeting and leave late the next day after a meeting, so I get know chance to se anything other than boring concrete European COmmission buildings.

Our plans to visit more abbeys didn;t come to much, as I;ve not had time to do the research required to find out which abbeys are further north than Brussels.

I did get the chance to wander one of the weekends and see the grand place:






I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how ornate it is.

Then I stumbled on the Manniken Pis:



I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how small it is.

One good way of getting through the winter, is to do things that you can't do in the summer..... so me and Family Bulgaria head off to the Jaap Eden outdoor ice rink:





The last time I went Ice skating, I was about 14, and I wasn't any good then. So it was no surprise that I had forgotten everything as soon as I stepped on the ice.

I got led round like a little kid, while the little kid(Obi Wan), is working on his somersaults and tricks...

The problem I appear to have is that the more steps or glides(is that the terminology) you take the faster you go. But it requires confidence in not falling on your ass to take long strides, so I am taking around a 1000 steps a minute and flying round this loop, almost falling down with every step.

I make it round twice with assistance, and then go for a seat. I was going to go to the gym this morning, but it seems that this was a good alternative. You tense every muscle from two to tit cos you are ready to fall all the time, so the sweat is dripping off me.

Now I decide to go off on my own:



This basically involve three moves. Move one, I do very apprehensively, if move two goes right I get get more confident and mess up move three.. I then nearly fall, swear loudly, take lots of little steps(getting faster) until I regain my balance and return to the explorative first step. This results in something like this:

schhhhh, schhhhh, oooops, SHIT, sch shh schh, Schhhhh Schhhhh FUCK!!!!!

And people do this for fun!

I can't steer either, so I am careering round the track, trying to avoid, children and hoping that their english isn't good enough to understand my periodic reflex swearing.

I make it round once, and stupidly decide that since I seem to have developed a rhythm(The swearing is essential), I will continue instead of trying to stop.

This is a mistake... I am still at the stage where every distraction cause me to nearly fall over. If someone speaks to me... I'm gone, if someone touches me, they'd better be ready to catch me... if I see a nice bum. I'm tripping..... Luckily, I only fall once.

The problem is that once I've fallen I have no idea how to get up. I'm like a baby Giraffe... I can get my feet and hand on the ground flat, but I have no idea how to get from there. If I move I'm gonna lose my footing.....

I kind of scrabble about and do a couple of non gracefully jumps, until I;m still again... Then I'm off.... I make it back to the cafe and have a well deserved diet coke.

I check my feet and realise I have blisters the diameter of a golf ball on the inside of each foot......

It was a fun day.....

In general at the moment, I feel like I'm waiting around for the summer to arrive. The seats are outside the bars waiting to be filled, but its too cold for anyone other than a stupid scotsman to sit on them an enjoy a Witbier...... The gym gets me through the boredom..... maybe its my lack of travel beyond benelux for 2 months.... but I can't wait for the adventures to start again. I've managed to make it almost to April without any adventures... a few nice dinners, a few good gollem sessions, but the year is still in front of me. I'm bursting full of energy and I want to expend it!!!!

Paris to Brussels

The day of the conference is very long and boring, not helped by the fact that there is a star wars exhibition on(But closed on a monday), which tempts me with childhood enthusiasm to go up and sit in an X-wing:










It's away from the centre of paris, so gives me the opportunity to see another area, but generally it is a long day of meetings. We're even too tired to find a decent restaurant at night and eat somewhere near our hotel...... It's an early night before we get up early to drive to Brussels for a lunch meeting... It seems like less than a fortnight since I was last here.. Luckily we are soon out of Brussels and heading back to Amsterdam with Camp Freddy radio entertaining us..

We are almost across the border when we make a piss stop at what appears to be the most inbred service station:



My boss become obsessed with driving deeper into the surrounding villages in order to see either bestiality or incest..... but really just to have a break from the monotony of the motorway.....

Eventually we give up and get a map out to work out where we are, and how we get back to the motorway...


We are in Oostmalle. Now to someone who knows his belgian beers, a little dutch and rudimentary physics, its not to far a jump to guess that Westmallle is probably to the west of Oostmalle(Oost is dutch for east). Westmalle is a beer...... We are now driving west in search of a Brewery:



On our way to the brewery, we head into a supermarket. We now have a new hobby when heading home from Brussels; heading into flemish supermarkets to buy cheap belgian beer. After purchasing some beers and some glasses, it's off along the road to find the brewery:



Unfortunately, maybe due to the time of year, there is no obvious visitor centre. What I do notice is a sign for trappist abbey cycling routes......

We head back to the Motorway, and travel back to Amsterdam as my brain fires off on possible plans for adventure and mayhem on a Belgian beer cycling tour......
Hmmmm beer:

Brussels

Another Sunday working...... We're on our way to Brussels....

I've spoken about Brussels before. It's a lovely city etc.etc. but all I ever do here is go to boring meetings in boring buildings and stay in boring hotels. That is if I have the time to stay instead of driving there and back in a day. Luckily this time it's a 9-5 meeting, so it's pretty important I'm awake.

I've decided that rather than hang about hotels bored watching my laptop and considering going and sitting in bars alone in strange cities trying to get a finger on a non existent pulse, I'm going to try to book into hotels which have a gym where possible.

Brussels is the first opportunity of this so far this year. I find a good deal at the Bristol Stephanie on Ave. Louise:



It's a lovely hotel - very plush, and it has a fitness room, a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a sun bed, a masseuse and a swimming pool - I think I may have finally found a Hotel in Brussels that can make me look forward to meetings in this concrete village.....

So Sunday night, after driving down, I go an chill out for an hour in the fitness room.. It's a far cry from Squash City, but it serves its purpose of giving me a work out while listening to badmotorfinger:



I'm alone, so I decide to give thee running machine a whirl. They always scare me and I would hate to skite off one of them while it's running. After a 10 minute jog, I realise that its a good hard work out and I may start using the running machines at Squash city.

After the Gym, we head off to find some food. Ве еат at what I would have to describe as the worst restaurant I've ever eaten in. I don't rememember the name, but I remember where it is and won't be back. The 12 euro starter of spicy gambas consisted of 4 frozen prawns with a tin of tomatoe soup poured over them and a sprinkling of chili powder. The only redeeming factor was getting to wash the bland mediocre food down with a Chimay Blue:



With this, it's off for an early night before the usual day of boring meetings followed by a drive back....

On the drive back, I introduce my boss to Camp Freddy radio:



He like's Dave Navarro's dark and sarcastic humour as much as I do which should make commuting to Brussels more fun.

By the time we make it back to Amsterdam, we have time for a few beers before bed and work in the morning......

Billy Corgan in Gent

I’m in Belgium for a conference. Amazingly I’m not in Brussels this time, I’m in a University town called Leuven. Half way through the conference, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is playing in Gent. I was originally meant to go and see him in Amsterdam, but work meant that I have to make trip to Gent half way through the conference. Usually I moan about Brussels and how its boring for meetings, so this time I’m seeing a little more of Flanders.

Leuven:










Its pretty nice. The university started in 1425, so it’s a very old little city, and the students mean that it’s quite lively. The conference is in a castle, although it looks more like a very old country house, complete with moat and Gardens. Leuven centre is full of little higgledy piggledy red brick buildings. It all feels very old. Tonight I get a walking tour round the centre so, maybe I’ll learn more and have more to tell. My only fact at he moment, is that The KUL(Katholieke Universitiet Leuven) had a bit of a revolt when they got fed up with their lectures being in French and not in Flemish. They threw a wobbly and the upshot was that the new Leuven University was created as the French part. The anecdotal fact is that they split the library between the two universities, A-M in on and N-Z in the other – Genius, collaboration for eternity.

But I’m in gent now. I’ve been to Gent once before, in 2002. Its really beautiful, very old historical, and manages to make its canals look so pretty and appealing. Just looking at these ramshackle ancient buildings leaning into a winding canal makes you want to drink a good Belgian beer. But I’ve seen Gent, I have the photos, I’ve had the tour:









I’m here tonight to see one of the musicians I most respect in my music collection.

Billy Corgan was the singer, guitarist and writer of the Smashing Pumpkins. I consider Gish, Siamese Dream and MellonCollie and the infinite sadness to be one of the greatest runs of albums I’ve ever heard. All three are complete classics. To grab a cliché, “They Rawk!!!”. Theres lots that rocks, though. The reason for these albums staying “up there” in my often played albums is that there is a good bit of intelligence in the Rawk. The composition of the music is genius, I consider Billy Corgan to be as adept as most classical composers. I have often used examples as an argument of my music being as intelligent as music I have studied.

After that there were several more Smashing Pumpkins albums. They were damn good albums, but as follow up to the first three they seemed lackluster. I listen to them less often, but when I do listen to them I enjoy them. Maybe I was that little bit older when I first heard them. Maybe there are less memories of youth and teenage years engrained on the vinyl tracks (Sometimes literally) of the first three albums. Ironically, I probably enjoyed Machina II the most, which wasn’t an official album, but disseminated through the internet and allowed life. Genius again, and I’m sure it took some of the shine(read sales), off the inevitable post break up greatest hits album.


After Smashing Pumpkins, there was Zwan. This was a light side project sounding band, album and tour. It never felt that great for me. I couldn’t see much to like in it apart from Billy Corgan’s voice. I listen to it every know and then, and given the sorry state of music, it is growing on me, but you have to try hard to get the good pumpkins stuff out your mind.


I saw the Pumpkins on their last tour. Bearing in mind, there had been 2 albums which I didn’t like that much, I thought that Billy Corgan had lost his edge, his intelligence, his drive etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. They started, dressed in pink, playing acoustic renderings of some of there songs for about 45 minutes. It was interesting, but not “The Pumpkins”. It was in quite a large venue, so it kind of rattled around and had no punch, no power. Many people left early. The smashing Pumpkins left the stage, and a lot more people went home. Then the drummer came back on. Jimmy Chamberlain, had been a heroin addict and had been kicked out of the band to clean up. This was his first tour since kicking the habit and replacing it with what I can only assume was a rigid routine of weight lifiting. This skinny junky had been replaced by this hunk of muscle. He came back on stage and a spot light hit a new kit which was on the stage.(Previously he had a cymbal and a snare drum). He start playing under a spot light on a kit that would make Kiss look subtle. This was RAWK. The the previously pink dress clad corgan came out in a ankle length leather dress thing. Black eyliner and they launched into classic pumpkins. They then played for what seemed like hours(Bearing in mind this was the encore to a 45 minute gig), there was soloing in unison between James and Billy iron maiden styleee, the scream in bullet with butterfly wings had so much reverb and delay and overdrive that it nearly took the roof off. Oh and Mellisa Auf der Mar(Bass), was a sexy bass playing red head, who over played her role just enough to be cheeky, which was just the cherry on top of the cream

All in all it was one of the best gigs I’ve been to(I’ve probably been to 150-200)

So it is with this in mind that I was wandering through the winding streets of Gent wondering which of the many buildings which said vooruit on them the vooruit concertzaal(Concert hall). I eventually found a little stair which went down to the canal where there were a suitable number of Black clad teens to suggest that one of the greatest genius’ of 90’s rock was about to play. I wandered down and went in. It was quite a strange venue. The hall is just a standard theatre, but there are windows at the back, so in the European summer evening, there was daylight.:





A strange thing for a concert. As usual I had arrived far too early. I’m always guilty of doing this. It’s the 14 year old kid in me who’s scared to miss some wonderful moment by arriving late. As a result, and especially in the case of coming alone, I had a lot of sitting around to do watching the crowd and the goings on.

It was a very mixed crowd. A lot of older people, mixed with younger people. A lot of couples. The smashing pumpkins are really good, but they also have that goth following so it’s a strange audience.

The first band on were called Gliss. They were interesting I think Billy Corgan(If he chose them), had decided to give us some old school pumpkins style acid fuelled psych rock. Three piece who started with a drum machine. Girl on Bass, and two guys. The girl on bass, did a kind of “I’m on acid, look at the pretty flowers” dance while she played. At first(There supporting billy corgan – I’m insanely jealous), I thought it was pathetically fake. Then I wandered if she actually was on acid. They had a great light show. Very simple, but spot lights at there feet and a black back sheet. So they had these long silhouettes of themselves at the back. Quite simple, but quite effective. There sound was quite heavy, reverby loud guitar, layers etc. Quite pumpkinsy, but with a more modern British influence(I don’t yet know if thyey are US or Uk – or something else – from the accents I think they are US – wifi is down – I’ll google later. After the first(maybe second) song the singer/guitarist moved to the drums. I used to play in a three piece with a singing drummer, so I found this quite interesting. It worked quite well. It completely changes the dynamic of what you are watching, which is interesting. The other Guitarist then swapped with the drummer/guitarist. This is a little too simple to be interesting, but it does give me something to watch, which is different from usual with a support band. They are pretty good – I’ll listen to there CD later and see what I really think. Eventually they had moved around in just about every combination. The strangest combination was that the girl settled on the drums for a while. I’m not being sexist, but this is a very strange event. I’m not saying women can’t play the drums, just that not many do. Although she hits with her arms(As opposed to her wrists), and holds the drumsticks tight in the middle, she did a damn good job, and proved once and for all, that the acid bass playing was due to watching D’Arcy(Pumpkins Bass player) in too many videos and not to a dodgy Mushroom pizza before the concert. I don’t know how long I could cope with the swapping about if I saw them again, it kind of challenges your idea of how to rate a band, when nothing appears to be their core instrument. But certainly one of the more interesting support bands I’ve seen.

So then there was the inevitable wait while they set up the various equipment for Billy Corgan. I took this time to sit around and listen to the Flemish accents in an attempt to further my Dutch.(I didn’t get very far.)

I went back into the auditorium, and low and behold, it wasn’t the normal roadies. A normal roadie requires a faded guns n’ roses or iron maiden T-Shirt or a Beer belly. Most of the roadie activity was in setting up a 20” iMac on the stage. The iMac was actually part of the stage furniture.

So after a long wait. A curtain gets taken down at the back of the stage which reveals what looks like a concave tiled toilet wall. This is then turned on, and starts a kind of gridded 8-bit colour light show. On comes Billy, wearing a cap that looks like a gendarmes, and a black jacket. He plays the first song hidden under this cap.

The light show is quite impressive, and the sound is a very dense electronic sound, thicker than the pre release single and the examples on billy corgan’s mysapce. It makes for quite a heavy electronica. I originally didn’t like what I hear of his upcoming album, I couldn’t hear much guitar. But having seen him live, there is some pretty rocking guitar, which I’ll listen out for. Its just in a slightly different context.

There was a guy who near me almost immediately started to heckle. He was shouting that it was a boring. But from the first chord. That’s a real passion. Paying money because you know its not the pumpkins and you want to go and complain. That’s how good those early albums are. People are so pissed off that there wasn’t more. Maybe a 4 album run of supreme genius would be possible, but how long could it go for. You eventually have to move in a direction that some people don’t like.

Anyway. The band was comprised of billy on guitar and vocals. Two keyboard/synth players. One who also worked the loops and sounds coming from the iMac, and one a woman who also handled backing vocals and dancing around a little. And to the right was a man playing electronic drums. It took me a little while to get used to some one playing drums standing up.(I didn't go to many concerts in the 80's)




I had to drive back to Leuven, so all the way through was about ready to leave. But I stayed, not because I never leave concerts early, but because it was genuinely quite enthralling and good. At one point, Billy Corgan did an acappela song(well acappella to a simple loop.), I think he felt people were getting restless so apologized for not playing loud music anymore. So the heckler, asked for his money back. The Dutch and I presume Flemish have a word for this; “eikel”. It means heckler or something like that. Billy’s response was that if you want loud rock music you should go off and make it yourself, which I thought was a great response. He’s on his particular musical trip at the moment, if it doesn’t fit with yours, find something which does.

After this, as if on cue, the music seemed to get angrier, the visuals depicted fire, and Billy was getting pissed off with the microphone.(Or taking out his pissed off ness at the heckler) The irony was that, while not the 120 Decibels of a video I’ve seen of the pumpkins, it was a very loud dense sound. What I think the nay sayers wanted was fast. The sound is dense slow dirges.(But not that depressing) There was a lot of guitar. Billy Corgan proved he could still noodle with the best of them.

I can’t comment on all the songs, cos I don’t know the names of them. They were a little samey. But I would say the same about Siamese dream or gish if listening to it for the first time. Its an interesting sound, It also includes a Bee Gees cover, which is beautiful and sad.(It’s a very different representation!!!). I’ve always wondered how much of what Billy Corgan does is tongue and cheek. There are many songs he could cover, but for some reason he found(Or I think injected), beauty into this Bee Gees song. I wonder if Barry, Brian, Bernard, Maurice(I have no idea how many there are what they are called) will ever appreciate what an honour this is.

So all in all. Some very well crafted music, with dense slow progressions. Its rock but not as we know it, and I think its pushed the envelope too far for most people.

Photos to follow – if they turn out – I forgot the battery for my digital camera, so had to use one of those disposable cameras.