Major Tom's Oddity: December 2008

1 sigur ros - heineken music hall (& at rw and pp)
2 neil young / radiohead - rock werchter (+ the national, zita swoon, beck, mark ronson, grinderman, band of horses, justice)
3 gutter twins - pukkelpop (+ bloc party, editors, two gallants, blood red shoes, mgmt, elbow, the whip, mercury rev)
4 elbow - paradiso (& virgin megastore, new york)
5 tellers - girls in hawaii - bibelot (& girls in hawaii at gentse feesten and de nachten)
6 raconteurs - melkweg
7 zita swoon - paard / maanrock
8 last shadow puppets - paradiso (+ those dancing days afterwards)
9 swell season - crossing border (+ stef does bob dylan)
10 gotan project - hallen van schaarbeek

should have been on this list: deus in paradiso, stuck with the flu at home then, and leonard cohen, stuck at a conference abroad then, and massive attack, stuck with chimai vant schaap then ... and portishead, stuck somewhere sometime then

nice building, a covered marketplace, currently without subsidies for own programs, but luckily well suited for concerts ... today gotan project, surprising with an early start (20:00 doors open and about half an hour later already playing), and with fast food quite slow tonight just in time ... they started, dressed in black, behind a video screen showing nice visuals and sometimes a couple dancing tango in front, but this did not work entirely, as with a live show you want to see some live action, which was hard now ... after some songs they changed to white, with the screen behind, a better configuration ... what followed was the same superb music, now supported by the visuals, sometimes including guest musicians (calexico for amor porteno and two rappers for mi confesion), otherwise images of argentinean landscapes or people dancing or windmills turning ... the mixture of lounge-beats (once even didgeridoo-like) and bandoneon (and grand piano, strings and guitar) works great, with the melancholic voice of the singer on top of that ... the belgian audience was (surprise there) not really shaking that much, but apparently they liked it and applaud long (this one couldn't stand still and always cheers loud), so after the first encores, we got some more songs: 'c'est vote, on jout des autres' ... isn't that great, music is/as democracy ...