Read about the BEST concert I thought I'd NEVER get to see!
Mar 23 '01
The Bottom Line With the great selections of music and moods they already mastered in their catalog, and a genuine love for their fans, the Dandy Warhols are an incredible live performance!
I just saw the Dandy Warhols in the Ancienne Belgique theatre of Brussels, Belgium two nights ago on March 21st, 2001. It was a long, exciting, entertaining, and phenominal show all around. Unlike a lot of bands who perform live, the Dandy Warhols are willing to show a bit of personality and spontenaiety which is a rare and valuable asset when performing for fans who genuinely love (or at least greatly admire/enjoy) them.
NOTE: For a little background to my excellent personal experience, read on! If you want just the concert review, skip forward to the part headed "THE CONCERT ITSELF!"
SIX YEARS OF BUILD-UP...
I've been a gigunza fan of the Dandy Warhols since stumbling over a favorable review of their first album "Dandys Rule OK" in Entertainment Weekly back in '95. But as a band from the western half of the states without an enormous east-coast following, they neglected to play concerts in my area for years to come. I had to sit and patiently wait.
Last July, I moved to Paris for a long corporate project for which I am still working. During the second month, they came out with their newest album (and first genuine smash), "Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia." I picked it up as soon as it was available in Paris and in the meantime found out that they were playing one of my all-time favorite venues in my home state of Rhode Island. Which I couldn't attend from across the Atlantic. I had to sit and patiently wait.
THEN I found out they were scheduled for Paris. Ah-HA: I can finally see them! Oh NO! It's sold out! So Vanessa (my girlfriend from Belgium) and I suit up, show up, and proceed to look for "anyone with extra tickets." We got to see the lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor walk in with a mini-entourage, and his manager hand over three free tickets to squealing female Pariseans less than five feet away from us. We walk away crushed, and of course, "I had to sit and patiently wait." Until the next release, I assumed.
Cut to last month, when Vanessa said to take two days off near the end of March because she had a big surprise for me. Cut to three days ago when I finally found out we were going to Brussels. (But I KNEW there had to be something we were going FOR or we would've gone during a weekend, right?) Cut to two nights ago when we showed up outside a concert venue with Dandy Warhols posters smothering the entire building. Cut to three seconds later when I practically smothered her with appreciative affection and then attempted (and failed) to keep calm. And THEN cut to...
THE CONCERT ITSELF!
Ancienne Belgique (the venue) is a semi-small, rectangular concert hall with two sets of balconies framing the room and a stage at the front end. As a guess I'll say it would fit 500 people on the floor (standing room) if it were completely packed. This is the way I prefer my concerts- the smaller the venue, the better you can see them; I can't stand arena shows because you're not watching a band- you're watching a bunch of colorfully dressed dots on a stage that seems a half-mile away. NOT the case at Ancienne Belgique.
They came out on stage around 9:30 and begain with a slower instrumental that I'm 90% sure was "Be In" from their second album. They warmed up the crowd at a slow and mellow pace with their psychadelic, colorful harmonies and beautifully structured/textured music from the beginning. Once we were ready to pop, they kicked into their latest hit "Shakin'" and the crowd went wild for the first time. (Keep in mind, American friends- I've learned by now that many Eurpean concert audiences are much more "polite" and calm, even at significantly harder shows like Limp Bizkit for example.)
I'd like to go through every song with a blurb on them, but this critique is already probably going to be my longest so... Over the course of the next 2 hours plus, they played most songs from their new album AND their second ("The Dandy Warhols Come Down"), along with "Dandy Warhols TV Theme Song" (my favorite from the first album) and "Genius." They worked the entire, sold-out audience like an ocean with their music- calm, peaceful, yet constantly flowing like the tide-gone-out, and then crashing hard and fast like the waves at high tide during their more upbeat, recognizable tunes like "Bohemian Like You" and "Get Off."
But the best parts were Courtney and company's impromptu moments. Zia (the keyboardist/bassist) was apparently enjoying Begium's fine beer selection for a long time before (as well as during) the concert and had to "use the little girls' room" three times during the show, at which points Cortney would talk to us (literally), and these were the moments that people were entranced. The first time (early on) they had just finished playing "I Love You" (also from "Coming Down") and he explained that song, "Whipping Tree," "Green," and "Every Day Should Be a Holiday" all concern a woman he cared greatly for who left him for the bassist of Guns N' Roses! For Zia's second and third "breaks" he played impromptu covers with only his guitar playing as accompanyment- a song by Kristen Durst, and then one by Brian Jonestown Massacre respectively.
At another point Cortney commented on the Belgian soundman who seemed to feel a bit awkward addressing them in English "but he's doing a great job." A bit later, Zia congratulated "the entire country" on their newly-acquired freedom to smoke pot. And finally, the "encore," in which they explained that yeah, they could leave the stage and go smoke for a little bit while we screamed in the dark for the next 10 or 15 minutes, or if someone in the audience were willing to contribute, they'd just have it on stage while we waited patiently for a little bit. And as I'd thought I'd have to do for years to come until I could finally see them in concert, I and the rest of the audience "waited patiently."
They finished out the night with the explanation that they were playing Amsterdam the next night which prompted "Country Leaver" (because Amsterdam is featured in the lyrics) and another which might have been "Boys Better." I know they played that one, but I'm not sure if that was their last one; as I warned early on, I'm already a bit hazy on every detail due to the intense enjoyment I felt throughout the ENTIRE show.
Finally, some personal notes:
It's easy to be "an obnoxious American" in Belgium and use it to your advantage. The five of us attending the concert together got there late, and it was incredibly easy to squeeze through the front of the audience to get incredible positioning for the show, MUCH unlike any American audience.
Along the same lines, Cortney "spoke to me" twice because the rest of the audience is so polite and sedate (at least for the first hour). At one point he mentioned Kim Deal who's a portion of another title, "Cool as Kim Deal" which I immediately screamed out. He replied "Okaaaay..." and started the song! The second was explaining they were about to play a song from their first album (which is NOT available in Europe, incidentally) concerning television and I screamed out the correct title again, to which he replied, "Well someone knows... and they're getting rowdy!" before playing! Then again, Vanessa insists he was singing "I Love You" directly to her, but at least his responses prove he was "talking to me" whereas her claim is still strictly theory.
Finally, the fact that they're a "new smash band" after their third album in a country other than the one they originate from put a slight damper on the show for a hardcore fan as myself. I looked around several times to see virtually all of the audience was unfamiliar with even early "hits" like "Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth." But for once when it came to the Dandy Warhols, *I* knew everything that was sang and enjoyed it all while the majority of the audience, holding out for the next radio-saturated hit, had to do exactly what I was doing for six full years- they "...had to sit and patiently wait."
LAST NOTE... HONEST!
If you made it through this whooooole critique, thank you greatly. I turned a concert review into a personal soapbox of my experiences concerning Dandy Warhols and I appreciate it greatly if you appreciated my babblings in the least. You're either a fan or the Dandies or perhaps you're thinking you might be. I swear- if you go to one of their shows expecting anything like I described above, you WILL be a fan!
Incidentally, I'm currently looking for anyone who has a set list of the show I described above. If I can come up with it, I'll tack it on here for completion's sake.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
adamldemarco
|
|
Member: Adam DeMarco
Location: San Diego, CA
Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
I'm a consumer. I consume. I offer the results here for your consumption.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.