10-03-93 Belgium, Gent, Democrazy
22-02-95 Netherlands, The Hague, Het Paard
18-04-95 Netherlands, Apeldoorn, De Gigant
05-06-95 Netherlands, Landgraaf, Pinkpop Festival
25-06-95 Netherlands, Rotterdam, Nighttown
02-07-95 Belgium, Werchter, Torhout/Werchter Festival
08-07-95 Belgium, Dour, Dour Festival
26-08-95 Netherlands, Dronten, A Campingflight To Lowlands Paradise Festival
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Supporting Bettie Serveert
I saw dEUS's third gig ever. It was here at the Democrazy in Gent as support act for Bettie Serveert. Nobody heard about dEUS before, but I guess everyone liked it. Not much to add, maybe one interesting thing to add to your page : it was one of the only times they used a setlist ... and I took it with me afterwards. These are the songs :
Via
Lover Lover
Nevertheless
Violins
Manhattan
Joker
L'Amour
Dea
Engine
As you see, some unknown songs and some Leonard Cohen covers ...
Christophe Demunter (cdmunter@eduserv.rug.ac.be (till October 31st))
Support: Evil Superstars
Evil Superstars as a support act was very nice. The nearly did not fit between dEUS' instruments on the rather small stage. Het Paard is a cute small room, which could be a small version of the Noorderligt-hall in Tilburg (my hometown); there is room for approximately 500 people. Tom gave some hints during their performance from the front of the audience. Maybe he told the singer that the synthesizer was not very usefull, because this instrument could hardly be heard. The performance lasted for 35 minutes, after which dEUS started their show at 22.15h.
The dEUS show was perfect from beginning 'til end. This time there were no long breaks, guitar tuning parts en blown up amplifiers. The show started off with a jazzy intro by Stef, which was followed by Via, which in my opinion formed a strong start. A few stupid dodos didn't get it, because 15 minutes later, they asked for Via.
The rest of the show was a concatenation of the more familiar songs and hits; in between four or five new or unknown songs were played. Especially My Wife Jan (from Beefheart?) made a good impression.
I think almost the entire album Worst Case Scenario was performed, but not Shake Your Hip and Dive Bomb Djingle. Suds & Soda was done somewhere near the beginning of the show, but without the second part. This second part finished of the encores, after Tom thought he was done, because he had already put his guitar down. Before this, Secret Hell was done in a very special rendition, because of Tom's second echo-microphone. Jigsaw You, also played somewhere near the start of the show, sounded very different from the version on the album, due to the increased guitar influence.
After 52 minutes, the first set was finished, but the boys of course returned after a short break. This was a bit awkward for Julle, because he had some difficulty leaving the stage due to his broken ankle; just when he had left the stage, he had to return immediately because the rest was on stage again. The entire show lasted for 70 minutes.
Conclusion: a very good show. Until now this is the best dEUS performance I have witnissed. And right now, I'm wondering if there will be a better show by any artist this year.
Unfortunately My Sister = My Clock was sold yet.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
Support: Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung
Because the concert would start at 10.00pm I didn't expect to see a support act; especially when there were no extra instruments and standards on the stage. But at once there was music coming from the stage where 4 guys had taken place. In the next 25 minutes Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung from Antwerp performed a very original 'classical' concert with violin, accordeon, bass and clarinet. A few songs were covers, such as Break On Through by the Doors and the crowd really got warmed up when they played Suds & Soda. At 11.12pm Tom, with his usual beer and cigaret and his hair dyed red, came on stage and was joined by the rest of the band. They started with a strong new song, called Ferocious. After this the party really got started with Via. Although all of the 'hits' were played, this was a totally different concert from the one I saw in Den Haag a few weeks ago (february 22). This time there were a lot of new songs, very different in style. There were e.g. some songs that are potential hits, and others had that smooth and jazzy sound. Especially one song, that was done by Stef, showed influences from his other band SKC Moondog & The Beat Band. It was clear the band was really eager to play, which which turned out to be logical, since Barman told us that this was their last (Dutch) appearance before the summerfestivals. There was a lot of chatting between songs. For example, Jigsaw You (the guitar-driven version again) was preceded by a story about the song being very popular in Albania. On the charts it was no. 2 behind Zombie by the Cranberries. Tom sung a part of this latter song in a hilarious way. At another moment he told us that the new CD (My Sister = My Clock) will be released within two weeks, which is great news! This time Shake Your Hip (in the first encore) and Dive Bomb Djingle were played. During the latter song the violin player totally went bezerk. Wearing strange sunglasses and a TOOL-hat, he screamed the 'That's the price you pay'-part. It was not really clear to me if he had learned something from the singing lessons during MTV's Most Wanted three days before. That dEUS had fun that night was proven once again when they came back for a second encore, in which they performed Let Go (I believe). Unfortunately Mute wasn't performed. At about 0.30am they left the stage, and after 40 minutes or so Tom joined the remaining audience and chatted for a while and signed some posters. It is difficult for me to make a comparison between this concert and the one in Den Haag. There were only about 7 songs played in both concerts, which resulted in a very different show. This only shows the diversity andoriginality in dEUS' performances. Although this last show was very driven and convincing, I'm not able to state which of these last two concerts was the best. But what I can say is that these two shows were better 'organized' than the former shows. I've seen them 5 times now, but during the first 3 shows last year, there were a lot of unnecessary breaks and long pauses. Now it is less chaotic.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
Festival show. Line-up included: Spearhead, Live, Bettie Serveert, Faith No More, Biohazard and many more.
At 11.50 am dEUS started their show, this time without the little jam, which isn't very suitable for a crowd of this size (30.000+ people). Instead they opened (as in Apeldoorn on march 18) with Ferocious. If I recall correctly, this version was stronger than in in Apeldoorn, because this time tension was built up and the song climaxed in the 'Ferocious, ferocious'-part, whereas in Apeldoorn they started off forcefully right away. A lot of crowdsurfing was going on during this song, but it increased during the second song Via and even more people landed on my head, because at this time I had been able to get to the second row. Via was played in the normal way, without extraordinary additions. The pit cooled down a bit when We're Going Out Tonight was done. I can't recall exactly in which order Shake Your Hip and Suds And Soda were performed, but after this (maybe I'm forgetting one or two songs) I can reconstruct the setlist based on radio- and tv-broadcasts. The Supermarket Song, a catchy intermezzo, was followed by the typical Stef-song Mr. Death Won't Get Me. Again Stef was clearly in perfect concert-shape; his flexible fingers manipulated the bass-strings in a very smooth way. After this the climax of the performance followed: a truly magnificent version of Worst Case Scenario, as I've never seen it before, was done. There was a lot of improvisation, which resulted in a beautiful rendition. Stef participated by singing one verse simultaneously with Tom. W.C.S. was followed by a completely new (at least to me) song, which is called Twenty Something. Tom urged the audience to watch the start of this song closely. Rather ironically, because apart from the first forceful notes, the rest of the song was rather modest and quiet. It was (of course) a wonderful song, during which Rudy participated on a small mouth-organ, which he got from his wallet. After this a sensitive rendition of Let's Get Lost was done, which is in my opinion a risk during such a monstrous festival. But it worked out right, although some morons didn't understand it: even during this modest song there was some crowdsurfing and a-rythmical handclapping going on. At the end of Let's Get Lost the planned time was almost exceeded, which Tom clearly didn't like. With an angry posture and madly waving his arms he made clear that he wanted to perform another song. And he was allowed to do another one, which of course was their latest hit Hotellounge. The song was started with Tom shouting something like 'Aoh! Festivals! One more song!' into the microphone. This time the french verse was left out, but instead there was a lengthy intermezzo with guitar and violin, during which the picture was on Klaas and Rudy.
Conclusion: this was a well-performed show with very few erroneous moments. No guitar-checking breaks between songs or blown amplifiers this time, only Tom's distortion microphone was malfunctioning a few seconds. Although the enthousiasm wasn't very apparent, the band was driven, which was visible in Tom's behaviour before Hotellounge. Unfortunately no songs on My Sister = My Clock were performed, but probably these more experimental songs would not be very successful in front of this hit-oriented audience. Hopefully dEUS will perform these new songs at the gig in Nighttown in less than three weeks from now.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
They started of with Ferocious. I'd heard this song before and thought it was a dEUS song but Tom said it was by Queen or Def Leppard or something. The crowd was really wild. At the front it was so tight it was almost impossible to move. The other songs they played were: Via, W.C.S. (first draft), Mr. Dead Won't Get Me ('cause life suits me just fine), Let's Get Lost, Supermarketsong, Suds 'n Soda, Hotel Lounge and a new song called Twenty Something. Before they were to play their last song someone told Tom they were only allowed to play one more song. Tom seemed a bit upset about this and shouted something about playing on festivals. Then they played a very long version of Hotel Lounge. It seemed like they were really havingfun playing, and they were one of the most popular bands at the festival. Supermarketsong proved to be a real song and not just some experiment they tried at their London gig. Twenty Something was also good, with Rudy playing some kind of mouth organ at the start.
Jorg Schellekens (jorgs@knoware.nl)
Support: Stephen Duncan & ...
After an unplanned sightseeing tour through the harbours of Rotterdam and the center of the town, where many of the roads were under reconstruction, we were fairly in time to see yet another dEUS concert. The tropical Nighttown was completely sold out for this in-between concert of the Antwerp band, that seem to play almost exclusively at festivals at this time. The disco, which appeared like a strange concert hall with its rather diagonal placingof the balcony and the stairs, was packed with sunny-dressed people, who wanted to join in on a little piece of the dEUS-hype-pie. A big part of this audience was not very kwown with dEUS' music and jumped, crowdsurfed and stagedived at very strange moments. But that doesn't matter, as long as you are enjoying yourself :)
Between 21.00h and 21.35h some guy called Stephen Duncan, having a Maynard James Keenan (from Tool) hairdo, performed which I would like to call a 'concert solleile'. This because of the summer-oriented music, that would fit perfectly at a Spanish or Mexican fiesta. In this temperature (25+ Celsius) this was a good choice of the organisation. Very nice, but unfortunately I didn't like this live muzak a lot. I expected more from a band with a line up of contrabass, violin, vocals/guitar, guitar and drums. Nearly nobody in the audience was very enthousiastic, except for two persons, that were positioned in the right-front of us. And indeed, these two persons were Tom and Stef; again they were watching their own support act. Especially Stef liked this performance according to his swift moves. Nearly nobody recognized the Flemish couple, until some youngsters to the left of us remarked that that guy really resembled the singer of dEUS a lot :)
After a short break, Tom, Stef, Julles and Klaas came on stage at 22.10h; Rudy had more trouble getting on stage; especially for him, a chair was placed at the right side of the stage, on which he sat during the entire show. Tom said that Rudy had had some accident, but I think this was much baloney; an explanation of this will follow shortly.
First of all, the setlist:
Ferocious
Horror party jokes
?
Jigsaw You
Worst Case Scenario
Twenty Something
Let's Get Lost
?
Great American Nude
Mr. Death Won't Get Me
Wake Me Up Before You Sleep
Via
Supermarket Song
Morticiachair
?
Suds And Soda
Shake Your Hip
Hotellounge
---------------------------
Secret Hell
Gimme The Heat
Dive Bomb Djingle
This time they didn't start with a short impro, but Ferocious started it off again. I did expect such an improvisation, but they chose the Deaf Leppard song; at least, this is what Tom told at Pinkpop (does anybody have more info about this?). I doubt this is true, because the name of this band appeared again later on in the show, when Tom drew attention to the 'forcefull' Deaf Leopard-opening of Twenty Something. What a joke...
For the first time I could listen to a live song from My Sister = My Clock, i.e. Horror party jokes. A string of bells, hanging from Stef's microphone, tingled away during this song. This turned out to be the only song from the mini album, which is a pity, but very understandable, if you take into account that the album is finished in five days and does not contain many real songs.
After this a completely new song was performed, which didn't sound very strong at first hearing, in my opinion.
After another electrically rocking version of Jigsaw You, one of the evening's highlights followed, i.e. Worst Case Scenario. This version was again slightly different compared to Pinkpop, due to the improvisation at the end of the song. Stef joined Tom singing the first verse. Amazing: the more I hear this song, the more I like it; even after I've listened to WCS so many times.
After Twenty Something, during which the people in the pit jumped at the strangest moments, and an ordinary Let's Get Lost, another new song was done, but it could also be regarded as an extra long intro to Great American Nude. And again Stef did some weird dancemoves before playing his bass again.
The typical Stef-song Mr. Death Won't Get Me ('Cos Life Sure Suits Me Fine) was the next one, which was done in a most beautiful way by the bassplayer with the utterly flexible fingers. This proof of pure audio esthetics was continued in Wake Me Up Before You Sleep; this was performed solely by Tom. Stef listened to this sweet ballad lying on the stage and also Rudy was very quiet during the song, but that seemed to have different reasons: the further the concert progressed, the more I got the impression that Rudy was totally pissed. I questioned what had happened: had he tripped over something and did he use the alcoholic medicine as painkiller or was the above average C2H5OH consumption the reason of him stumbling over something? I think we will never know... What I certainly could observe, was that someone was really unlucky with the fact that he had joined a band that once in a while produced a lot of noise. More than once Rudy buried his worried face deeply into his hands.
Unfortunately for him, he had to get active again, because 'his' song followed: Morticiachair. And despite of the ethanolcontext, he did extremely well. Not one dissonant could be heard.
After another new (at least, to me) song (wow! the third one already) and the audience's favourite Suds And Soda, the pit got really active again during the ultra-short Shake Your Hip. Again the intro of the song was longer than the song itself.
Hotellounge finished off the first part of the show, during which Tom was constantly complaining that it was too hot on the stage. This time the french verse was included, but this couldn't help me from getting the impression that the Pinkpop-version of the song was better. Funny was the fact that Stef made the audience stop their idiotic handclapping at the beginning of this beautiful song.
After a short break Secret Hell popped up again, but this time the distortionmicrophone-trick didn't work out right as it did in Den Haag earlier this year. After this things really got 'funny': it was clear there were another two songs planned. This caused a shockreaction by Rudy, who now was in some sort of darkened world. With a glance of disbelieve in his eyes, he seemed to ask if 1 extra song wasn't enough. During the last three or four songs Rudy almost didn't add anyting musically; he just sat there and looked terrible. He managed to produce a few strokes on his strings in the Violent Femmes-song Gimme The Heat (a perfect choice by the way), but was it.
Before the last song, a roadie had a small talk with him, after which Rudy left the stage in a Shane-MacGowan@Pinkpop-like manner. His guitar was taken by Stef, who is lefthanded, so he had to play the guitar upside down. This resulted in a strange effect, but nevertheless this was a great effort. Dive Bomb Djingle ended regretfully in a stupid way, with a lot of slamming on guitar and drums.
Taking the entire concert into account, I can state that this was the best of the seven dEUS-concerts I've seen, if only the musical aspect is considered. The band's concentration and eagerness was very clear. Tom talked a lot less between the songs. This was one of the longest dEUS-shows I've seen until now: we could enjoy approximately 100 minutes (it was finished at 23.50h) of what God is playing on his heavenly stereo :). All in all a perfect show on a perfect night.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
The starting time for the concert was 21:00 And at about this time the support act started. I forgot what they're called, but it was a 2-guitar, drums, contrabass, violin line-up. I think they were from England but i'm not sure. They were nice but the crowd didn't really like them and theirmusic wasn't like dEUS at all, so it seemed a strange choice as a support act. A few minutes after 22:00 dEUS appeared on stage. Rudy was limping and had to sit down on a chair the whole concert. Tom told the audience that Rudy was injured. It looked real serious 'cos they were checking on him very often. (I've seen dEUS talk to each other during and between songs before, to discuss what they were going to do next but this looked really different.) When they played their last songs Rudy was already back-stage. After the show Tom asked for a special applause for Rudy. The first song they played was Ferocious, which seems to have become their standard opening song. After that they played The Horror Partyjokes. They didn't use any special instruments or things but it sounded great. I don't remember the exact order in which they played the songs but here's an attempt-at-setlist:
- From w.c.s.: Let's Get Lost, w.c.s., Via, Shake Your Hip, Great American Nude, Jigsaw You, Suds & Soda, Hotellounge, Morticiachair and as encores Secret Hell and Divebomb Jingle
- Other songs were: Ferocious, The Horror Partyjokes, Supermarketsong, Wake Me Up Before You Sleep, Gimme The Heat, Twenty Something, Mr. Dead Won't Get Me, Niche
I was really suprised that they played songs from the '2 meter sessies' (Wake Me Up... & Gimme The Heat). They sounded good electric. Wake Me Up... was performed by Tom alone. Niche was also performed electric, so without the piano on the original. They played one songs i'd never heard before but halfway this song Tom said Jigsaw You and they started playing that one. But it really sounded like a new song and not just some new intro for Jigsaw You. Divebomb Djingle was great, with Jules playing a glass-bottle-and-stick and Stef playing the guitar. It was a great concert (if someone has a recording, please mail me) and the band seemed to be enjoying themselves, except for Rudy. Well let's hope he's well again in time for t/w. To everyone who's going there: Have fun, and please write a review!
Jorg Schellekens (jorgs@knoware.nl)
Festival show. Line-up included: PJ Harvey, REM, Belly, Offspring, Morphine and many more.
After a good show by Senser, we had to wait a short while to see the Antwerp band once again. Again I was expecting a lot of this concert. The show started with some sort of deja-vu. Last year, at my first dEUS-gig at the Dour Music Festival, I saw Tom perform in a dress. This time Klaas, Tom and Stef had planned a similar act. Klaas was wearing a silver skirt with a bikinitop, Stef was dressed in a tigerskin-dress and Tom was wearing an old-ladies' apron/dress. This caused a somewhat puzzled and hilarious reaction amongst the audience.
Before extending on the events during the show, I will give the setlist first:
Little Ghost
Via
Horror Party Jokes
Morticiachair
Twenty Something
Worst Case Scenario
Mr. Death Won't Get Me ('Cos Life Sure Suits Me Fine)
Suds And Soda
Supermarket Song
My Wife Jan
Hotellounge
It was clear that Rudy had not come over his leg-injury yet, because he was sitting during the entire show again. This time he seemed much more at attention, maybe because of a smaller alcohol consumption. He did look a little pale, so there was still something wrong with his health. I was surprised by the fact that they opened with yet another new song from My Sister = My Clock. This was the first time I could experience Little Ghost live. This very modest hymn was a daring opening song, but it turned out to be a success. Stef was able to give an impressive version of this song, because the audience was quite attentive and relatively quiet.
As usual, the uptempo Via followed, which caused much activity in the pit. There was a lot of continuous crowdsurfing in Belgium, too. Sometimes this crowdsurfing is a bit irritating, especially if you are rather tall. The transformation of Little Ghost into via formed a nice aspect of this song.
After a tremendous rendition of Horror Party Jokes, Rudy showed to be in a good shape during Morticiachair.
Twenty Something was introduced to be a song on the new album. Tom told us that this new album would be released in may of the next year. Tom seems very content with the (non-)Def Leopard-like opening of Twenty Something, because this statement was again part of the introduction.
A beautiful version of Worst Case Scenario followed, but again Tom's second microphone did not work in the right way. Unbelievable that they don't seem to be able to tackle this problem once and for all. During this song dEUS was accompanied by an extra keyboardplayer. I noticed this instrument before, but I didn't pay any attention to it until now. This extra (and to me unknown) person was introduced by Tom as DJ Crying D; later on this guy would play a more important role. The addition of the keyboardsounds was not really necessary; sometimes this instrument was even somewhat disturbing. It didn't really fit in the ordinary dEUS line-up. Nevertheless, Worst Case Scenario was the highlight of this dEUS-gig.
After this, Stef was able to get his act together again during Mr. Death Won't Get Me. Earlier in the day, I had read in some sort of festivalnewspaper that his second band was now being called Moondog Jr. This caused a content feeling, because I remembered that this band is planned to appear at the Lowlands festival in august in Holland; dEUS will also play this magnificent festival, by the way.
Suds And Soda was characterized by much activity in the pit. Again the keyboardplayer was added, and again this sounded superfluous. Although I would like it if this song was excluded once in a while, it is very logical to play it at such a festival, where the audience is waiting for known and easy-to-interpret songs.
During Supermarket Song the additional bandmember played a more prominent role. The guy's name appeared to be David, and during this song he added his vocals through Stef's microphone. Sometimes both Stef and this David-person were screaming together into this microphone.
Supermarket Song turned out be a bit of a mess, but My Wife Jan was really chaotic. In this festivalcontext My Wife Jan is a good choice, but this time it was too chaotic. Nevertheless, the band really seemed to enjoy themselves.
Again Hotellounge finished off another dEUS-show. The concert started at 12.45h and closed at 13.40h. Before Hotellounge, Tom made it clear again that he would like to play on and on, but he was allowed to do this song and no more. This time Hotellounge had a very strange ending. I did not hear this version before. The music was totally different, and only the words (partly in French again) could be recognized.
Although Belgium's current top act (it was a long time ago that a Belgian band was this high on the festival bill) appeared to be a big success amongst a big part of the audience, I was not really enthusiastic about this show. I don't know what was wrong, but there was something missing. Although the setlist was rather nice, this was one of the less satisfying dEUS-gigs I attended.
I didn't expect to ever say this, but there was an other band that was much better than dEUS: REM rocked in a BIG way! In my opinion they were by far the best band of this festival. Other good acts were Senser, Morphine, P.J. Harvey and Belly.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
Festival show. Line-up included: Salad, Biohazard, Suede, Public Enemy and many more.
Again, I will start with the setlist before going into detail.
Clever White Youth
Via
Horror Party Jokes
?
Worst Case Scenario
Little Ghost
Suds And Soda
Morticiachair
Twenty Something
Let's Get Lost
Mr. Death Won't Get Me ('Cos Life Sure Suits Me Fine)
Jigsaw You
Hotellounge
Shake Your Hip
--------------
My Wife Jan
I had to leave Shed's Seven's very good show early to get a good position for the dEUS-gig. After 15 or 20 minutes dEUS got on the relatively small stage. Again a keyboard was set up; more about that later. There was a chair for Rudy again, but this time he hardly used it. He sat down for one or two songs, but he did the rest of the show standing up.
So, at 22.25h they started off with Clever White Youth, but not before Tom spoke to the audience in French. My French is not that good, but I could understand that he said he had some difficulties with speaking French. But I could understand it (at least, that's what I think), so I think it was ok.
Not wearing a dress this time, as he did last year at this great festival, he was talking a bit about last year's performance and some other festival, I think.
During the first song the audience got really heated up. Especially on this tropic day, where at 14.00h the temperature reached an overwhelming 37 degrees Celsius. Crowdsurfing got really heavy during Via. I've been to several concerts, but until now, I didn't experience such a chaotic pit. Crowdsurfers were pushed up with much force, and mostly they landed feet first on top of somebody's (sometimes my) head.
Fortunately dEUS was the headline act at this festival, and therefore performed during the evening, because otherwise many people would have fainted because of the combination of the heat and the activities in the pit.
At the start of Horror Party Jokes things eased down a little and I had achieved a position in the front middle at the fence, so I was able to see things perfectly.
After a new song, which I think I've heard before, a great and sweaty version of Worst Case Scenario followed. After this, a keyboard player joined the band during the beautiful Little Ghost. Again, the crowd was relatively quiet and really listening. Not David (DJ Crying D), but some other guy played the keyboard, which in my opinion is still not necessary. I think I saw that David-guy on stage just before the concert on stage, but I'm not sure of that. The unknown keyboard player also joined in on Suds And Soda, which still remains the audience's favorite. I'm curious if this addition of keyboard sounds is permanent; to be honest: I hope not.
It was a bit dark, so I couldn't really see in which shape Rudy was, but I think he was rather ok again during Morticiachair. As I've said before, he hardly sat down, and he didn't seem to have any problem with his leg injury anymore.
This time, Twenty Something was not introduced with the Def Leopard-stuff, but Tom announced that it was a new song. He did this by interleaving the same sentence in three languages: "this is a new song", "dit is een nieuw nummer" and "cet est un chanson nouveaux" (I may be wrong on the French). So he said something like: "this-dit-cet, is-is-est, a-een-un, new-nieuw-chanson, song-nummer-nouveaux." During Twenty Something I looked around a bit, as I did most of the time to see if I could expect some idiotic crowdsurfer in my neck. As earlier during the show, I saw almost nobody sing along, which surprised me, because I thought that dEUS was really popular in Wallonie.
Let's Get Lost followed, which turned out to be a good choice, because the dark evening had fallen over the small village of Dour. During this song, I came to the conclusion that the Werchter-show was not that great, partly because dEUS performed in day-light, and most of the songs really come out best, when performed in (semi-)darkness.
During Stef's great performance of Mr. Death Won't Get Me, the keyboard player came on stage again. Again, the audience in my neighborhood clearly thought that they were listening to a completely new song.
At the end of Jigsaw You, there was some improvisation by Tom and Stef, but apart from the added guitar noises compared to the album, there was not really anything special about this great song this time.
Hotellounge was planned to finish off the show. This time, a rather normal version was done, where they performed a very special Hotellounge the week before at the Werchter festival. In the french-speaking part of Belgium, Tom chose not to sing the French verse, but this time Stef did some lines with a sometimes low and mostly high voice. Stef put on his shoes again, which he took off at the start of the show, and the planned show had ended.
But after a short discussion, instant improvisation lead to the quick Shake Your Hip, and after a short break and lots of cheers of the audience, they closed a great performance with My Wife Jan. The show ended at 23.30h.
This was the fifth time I saw dEUS perform at a festival (Dour '94, Lowlands '94, Pinkpop '95, Werchter '95, Dour '95), and from what I remember this was the best of them. The shows from last year suffered a lot from technical problems (by the way: this time there were some problems with Stef's microphone at first) and the Werchter-gig was also not really great. Maybe it has something to do with the great distance to get there for me and the fact that we made an entire festival weekend out of it this time, but somehow this Dour-show was more appealing than Pinkpop.
Nevertheless, I prefer to see the Antwerp boys in club concerts, because everything is much smaller, and their shows ask for small places and crowds.
For me, dEUS was the number one of this relatively small festival. I prefer such a small festival to a really big festival like Werchter or Pinkpop; I think there were as few as 8000 people. Other good performances were done by Caspar Brotzmann Massaker and Natty (U) Beavers (both on Saturday, the day that Biohazard gave a funny, but not very good, show again). On sunday other highlights were Public Enemy (good show but I have my doubts about the musical aspects), Silmarils (although a lot was nicked), Suede, Shed Seven and Salad (although the combination of Salad and daglight is also not a big success).
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
Festival show. Line-up included: NOFX, Dog Eat Dog, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, Bettie Serveert and many more.
Rather unfortunately an illness, which had bothered me for some weeks, took hold of me again right before my jubileum dEUS-show; this would be my 10th dEUS-gig. Afterwards I realised that the band following dEUS would be Sick Of It All, a funny and appropriate coincidence. But there must happen a lot before I would miss a dEUS-show, so I got to see it anyway.
In the following hour, dEUS once again did a great and astonishing performance. Tom announced that this would be the last show for a rather long period of time. He said that there would be a new album out in may of next year. Surprisingly he told us explicitly that this was also the last show for Rudy, who didn't look very fit again: his right wrist was packed in a bandage and a mitella was hanging round his neck. This last announcement puzzled me: did this indicate that Rudy was glad that the tour was over now (which would not surprise, taking into account his behaviour of the last few months, or was there more going on and did he decide to leave the Belgian band? Of course I hope it is the first alternative.
(Later addition: As we all know, one or two days after the festival it got clear that the worst case scenario had taken place and that Rudy had indeed decided to leave the band.)
Supposedly because this concerned a finishing concert, the band made an inspired impression, which resulted in a very good performance (although I have seen them even better once or twice). The following songs were played in a rather extraordinary set:
Clever White Youth
Hotellounge
Morticiachair
? (a new beautiful song, which resembled Mr. Death Won't Get Me a bit; Stef played an important role in this song, too, and the entire song sounded a bit Moondog Jr. inspired.)
Via
Worst Case Scenario
Twenty Something
Horror Party Jokes
Suds & Soda
Supermarket Song
My Wife Jan
Let's Get Lost
Mr. Death Won't Get Me ('Cos Life Sure Suits Me Fine)
Jigsaw You
I did not observe many interesting or special things during the show, partly because I was not very far in front of the audience due to my condition. During the more familiar songs, a big party was going on the pit and there was constant crowdsurfing going on, even at moments when the music was almost quiet.
Let's Get Lost was played in its entirety (probably because of the noise in the filled Alpha-tent), but at a rather natural-sounding break the band continued with Mr. Death Won't Get Me. Apart from this combination, my personal favorites were Worst Case Scenario and Horror Party Jokes.
At the end of the show, Rudy, with his bandaged wrist, seemed to be not that much injured, because he managed to swing his instrument in large circles through the air (no pun intended :) ).
What I missed here and what I enjoy at other dEUS-shows, were the extra things during and between the songs, i.e. the short speeches, experiments and improvisations. Because of this lack, I experienced the show as a bit less charming; but this does not mean that this was not a qualitatively strong show. Unfortunately only one song of My Sister = My Clock was played; the fragile and emotional Little Ghost would have pleased me a lot. I think Jigsaw You is not a very logical last show of a set.
Paul van Gorp (paulvg@win.tue.nl)
At 18:15 the band appeared on stage in the main tent, called Alpha. By this time the tent was filled with a really huge crowd. I think that the only other bands that came close to this number of people were Dog Eat Dog and Foo Fighters. Rudy was injured again: his right wrist was in a bandage. But nothing was said about this and he seemed fine. They played a 12 song set and here's an attempt-at-setlist (the order is not correct though):
Clever White Youth / Morticiachair / Jigsaw You / Via / W.C.S. / Suds & Soda / The Horror Partyjokes / Hotel Lounge / Twenty Something / Mr. Dead Won't Get Me / My Wive Jan / Supermarket Song / Let's Get Lost
They opened with Clever White Youth, which was a cool replacement for Ferocious. Tom told the crowd this was the last concert this year, and that they were gonna record a new album. This seemed a real emotional moment for him because he thanked the audience for this year, and he said "this is for you" and they played Jigsaw You. The Lowlands was a perfect place to do this, because last years Lowlands was their Dutch breakthrough. Everybody looked okay, except for Klaas who seemed angry and frustrated. But i didn't really see the reason. They didn't finish Let's Get Lost for some reason (I think it was because the crowd was too rough and noisy to play that 'soft' song) and instead they kicked into My Wive Jan. There was almost no improvisation and they played it safe with all the singles and the fast songs. But at a show like this that's probably the best thing to do. The lyrics to Suds 'n Soda were changed in a very small way by Stef who decided to change this years very last 'Friday!' into 'Thursday' which was really cool. Twenty Something and Supermarket Song were improved and now seem likely to be on the new album. It was a nice show, but not the best of the four times i've seen them live now. However they are improving their festival playing 'cos it was much better than the Pinkpop show. There's not very much more to tell. It was a normal but real good show. The festival was just fantastic, the atmosphere was just unbelievable. Some of the other things i really liked were: Dog Eat Dog, Heideroosjes, NOFX, Soungarden, Bettie Serveert, Foo Fighters, Beck and of course Moondog Jr.
Jorg Schellekens (jorgs@knoware.nl)