Perform 'till you drop

The concert of the Belgian band "Vive la Fete" on 18.10.2013 in the paard:

Vive la Fête is a Belgian music group from Gent formed in 1997 by Danny Mommens (guitar, vocals) and Els Pynoo (vocals).

The group is also popular in the fashion world, where Karl Lagerfeld is one of their fans, and has enlisted them to perform at a number of his big shows.

The singer Els Pynoo gives all her energy in the show

 I wonder how many days she needs afterwards to recover

Without her energy the show would have been half as interesting

Guitarist Danny Mommens is of the great long-haired rock type, and so the band finished off with a couple of rock numbers, while Els retreated to recover

 Roel van Espen plays keyboards, Gino Geudens the drums and

Ben Brunin Bass

A really great show... recommend it!

Oh Mayhem

is the title of the latest, 10th album of the Indie rock band "Bettie serveert" from Amsterdam

Yesterday the band gave a highly energetic and dynamic concert in the paard 

Their name translates to "Bettie Serves", or "Service to Bettie", which is the title of a book written by Dutch tennis player Betty Stöve, who made it to the Wimbledon ladies singles final in 1977

The band is formed by Carol van Dyke, Herman Bunskoeke, Berend Dubbe and Peter Visser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A9lHpUiLZQ&list=ALBTKoXRg38BACeuHLlQXstwy3YxVuy2Fk  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAeE4z09HGQ&list=ALBTKoXRg38BACeuHLlQXstwy3YxVuy2Fk

There must be an eternal frustration of the drummer to have to stay in the background... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNZnf0Lmspg&list=ALBTKoXRg38BACeuHLlQXstwy3YxVuy2Fk

 

http://www.bettieserveert.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9bInUDpC1U&list=ALBTKoXRg38BACeuHLlQXstwy3YxVuy2Fk

 

Wait for me....

The Zita Swoon Group in the paard, 1.11.2012

Travelling to Burkina Faso in 2010, singer-songwriter Stef Kamil Carlens, frontman of the Belgian group Zita Swoon, met balofonist Mamadou Diabaté Kibié and singer Awa Demé. 

The sound of the resulting project is a mixture of roug acoustic blues and folk with the traditional ‘mandingue’ music of West-Africa. The songs tell about the problems of the modern african society. ‘Wait for me, attends-moi, Sababou’ is what the day brings.

http://www.zitaswoongroup.be/cd-2012-wait-for-me.html

This immediately became my most favorite music of the moment

And no song without the blue rabbit

Evening of the idols of the hague

On 31st of october, the paard celebrated its 40th birthday with a double concert of the 2 of the most famous music idols in town: barry hay and di-rect

Barry Hay performed with his latest band the flying V's, a band of 4 young musicians. Of course he did not forget to remind everybody of his presence, 40 years ago, at the opening evening. 

But who can better describe this evening than my friend Mike, who wrote about this performance in his column in The Hague online:

"Resembling a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Elvis, Barry Hay crooned and rocked through his set to an adoring audience of all ages. The highlight, as always, had to be his ever popular 1973 hit Radar Love.

DI-RECT present a confusing fusion of styles. Most of the band, and especially beardy front man Marcel Veenendaal come across like a classic 70's prog rock band in the style of say, Jethro Tull.

But the ace up their sleeve is the lead guitarist, Spike, who also has his own band that I often rave about called The Deaf.

His punky style is completely at odds with the others.

Although the prog rock stuff tends to bore me, my favourite songs were those in which Spike cavorted around the stage like a man possessed thrashing his raucous Fender and creating psycho-garage-pop guitar riffs as a spectacular contrast to the image and sound of the rest of the band."

The concert was opened by New Zeelander Sam Holden, who is the short list of the voices of Netherland contest

With thanks to Mike Grunfeld for the comment and the ticket

The band "nada surf" had a big success in 1996. How come, I have never heard of them?

On 17th of october the band gave a concert in the paard van troje in Den Haag.

The band around foreman Matthew Caws used to play punk, but their music now more is agreeable pop-rock for a pleasant night out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npwari81xQ&feature=related

The main attraction of the band for sure was the bassist Daniel Lorca.

That is exactly how a rock musician should look like 

And of course he did not have any problems changing a string of his guitar in the middle of a song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvNI-EKGubo

The band was supported by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, however, I could not detect any harpoons, if not one of them is his guitar.

However, his powerful and sad songs (fitting to his a bit awkward and helpless appearance on the stage), made a great impression and I look forward to see him again.

and the lonely smoker....