cactusfestival - 06.080707

friday - mintzkov opens, and opens good ... the singer looks like he partied the whole night before, as did b, but the songs weren't tired or tiresome, best songs are those where the base-player sings along, which she should do more often ... after some good flemish stew the soulsavers feat mark lanegan, i doubt whether a soul can be saved by that voice, but the music was ok, and mark's voice, yeah, dark en deep ... a small gesture with his hand towards the audience and ... gone ... next cake, we had the company of some die-hard (space)cake fans who follow them around and took us to the third row, where we had a good time ... no setlist, very fun music, little hits (i didn't recognize more than two songs), but great atmosphere ... and, sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell! ... during the waterboys we visited the tea-tent, and only near the end we arrived back at the stage, too bad, because their music sounded really good, still some time to party on the final songs ... and to party after ...

saturday - only two bands today ... first some longer-than-planned terrace sitting, sightseeing of bruges, getting lost in the labyrinth of loppem, and the first mussels of the season (yummie!) ... after these mogwai, the start was rather melodic, near the end the heavier songs came out ... a good digestive ... then the gotan project, finally the opportunity to see them live, and here the setting was already ok, a stage with a rather small audience in a park (the concept of the festival, more space around the stage than in front) ... genial ... the band in white suits and dresses, nice visuals, and the bandoleon with a beat underneath ... it works out great ... fusion kitchen is in, fusion music as well ... now i saw them live, still have to find a party where their music fills the dancefloor ... i bet you look good on it ...

sunday - buffalo tom, as with the name, the gig was ok, i remember the line 'just a little haiku to say how much i love you' ... being a songwriter, you can come up with funny things, maybe i should consider a change of career ... next tom mcrae, with only acoustic guitar, cello and piano, 'i will depress the fuck out of you' he promised, but the music sounded too good to do that, he could even come back to play one more ... afterwards we looked for three men in black getting drunk, but no sign of them ... then gabriel rios, not really entertaining, some good songs, but when things get started it slows down again, the best thing were all the laser pointers which started appearing ... who the **** sold these today? nobody, it turned out ... they were part of the flaming lips show ... and what a show that was :-) , confetti, big blue balloons - i managed to catch three, and could have had more if my company let me - aliens on stage, a drummer who looked like straightly escaped from madhouse, a huge video screen, a singer appearing in a big balloon above the hands of the audience ... and great music ... before the yeah yeah yeah song, their own (little) protest song, he was talking about us politics and said 'imagine bush is the ruler of your country' ... somebody replied, bwa, we're stuck with yves leterme here ... you see, there's still hope ... the pointers were part of a laser game in the middle of a song, reflecting the red beams back to the audience ... balloons kept falling down, but all the crazy things happening on stage were never hampering the music ... at the end, everybody left with one big smile on the face ... so people, go, enjoy, and smile !!