Tame Impala at Forest National Brussels

I remember years ago watching the highlights of Pukkelpop festival on tv and a weird band came by. They were dressed in their best Olivia Newton John outfit, ready to give aerobics to the people on the field. If my memory isn’t failing me that band was Tame Impala. Now we’re about 5 years later and instead of playing the smallest tent at the festival and walking around freely on the festival without people throwing themselves at their feet they are bigger than ever. With their latest album “Currents” they even got airplay on the commercial radio stations. They came a long way and yesterday they played an almost sold out show in Brussels. After apparently smashing it at Pukkelpop, without any spectacular outfit choices, they came back to convince the people that couldn’t make it last summer.

Opening that night ware fellow Australians Jagwar Ma. You could describe them as the rebellious little brother of Tame Impala who stole their record collection but still wanted to be different so they threw in an extra dose of electronics. They trio already scored high on some indie list with their debut album a couple of years ago but playing for such a big crowd who is unfamiliar with your work can make everyone look bad. Opener “Man I need” was supposed to be the start of a great dance party but i wasn’t. They had 45 minutes to convince the crowd but Belgians are difficult people to please. Last two songs “Come save me” and “The throw” got the ‘ooh yeah I know that song’-nod from the people who took their time to look up some songs before coming to Forest National. Anyway, I’m still waiting for their next album and look forward to seeing them again in a more intimate setting. Until then I’m just going to polish my dancing shoes.

My expectations for the night weren’t that high since I’m not too familiar with Kevin and co.’s discography. I’ve known them from their first album, back to their aerobics time, but  never got into them besides the basic ‘knowing the singles’ kind of thing. The green gun sight came on the screen, the lights went out and the crowd went mad. For like 5 seconds and then the lights came back on. A joke once in a while is appreciated but you honestly can’t play with people’s feelings like that! The last roadie in white lab coat ran off stage and then we knew it was really time for the show to start. Take 2: lights out, crowd cheering and our favourite Australians of the moment walked on stage.

After the intro hit number one “Let it happen” proved to be a good song for the next karaoke night. Followed by other sing-along hits “Mind mischief” and “Why won’t they talk to me?” it was going to be a promising night with a lot of confetti. “The moment” kind of disappeared into the big venue and before we realised what they were playing the song was almost over. Maybe they sound tech people still need to get used to playing in bigger venues as well? “Elephant” was supposed to be my highlight of the evening but sounded chaotic. Watching the visuals and dancing along to some unrecognizable sounds in the distance was not how I imagined it.

Their latest album “Currents” is by far the most popular album they have and we can see that in their setlist. Songs like “The less I know better” has been played a lot on the radio and the ‘ahahahahaaaaaah’ from “Eventually” or the chorus from “Cause I’m a man” were catchy enough to sing along. Eventhough we sometimes just want the people next to you to scream a bit less, definitely in such a big venue where the sound floats off before it hits you.

For the rather short encore they opened with “Feels like we only go backwards” from their previous album “Lonerism”, which can be classified as a golden oldie. The last 10 minutes of doing weird dancing and trying to look cool ended with “new person, same old mistakes”, some of you might know it as “Same ol’ mistakes” from Rihanna’s newest album. Not the end I expected but oh well, I’m not going to complain. I had a lovely evening with some nice looking people and now I don’t have to spend an entire fortune to see them play at Rock Werchter festival this summer. Only pro’s if you ask me!

Albums of 2015

 Coming back or going solo

Blur – The Magic Whip

The Libertines – Anthems for Doomed Youth

Albert Hammond Jr. – Momentary Masters
Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love

jennylee – right on!

Every year there are some bands who decide to pick up where they left of and make a new album. Some people do the complete opposite and take a break from their band to work on their own projects.  

This year we got the honour of welcoming another Blur album in our life. We all know Damon Albarn was busy with being Damon Albarn, Coxon did some other music related things, Alex James went back to his farm to make some cheese and the drummer probably did something as well. It took them 12 years to get back in the studio and make some great music but the result was worth waiting for.

Another band we were happy to see again on stage were The Libertines. Problem child Peter Doherty got reunited with his best friend Carl Barât and for once it didn’t look like they we’re going to ruin eachother again. Gunga Din, the first single of the album, is another great classic and songs like You’re my Waterloo prove that they haven’t lost the talent of good songwriting over the past years.

Besides that Albert Hammond Jr. proved again that he doesn’t need his friends from The Strokes standing next to him to make an amazing album. Even on stage we can see that he earned his place in the spotlight as frontman of his own band. We can almost call 2015 the year of great comebacks when also Sleater-Kinney decided to drop a new album. Our favourite threesome of screaming ladies proves with No Cities to Love that girl power will never die. Who even needs the Spice Girls for that anyway? Talking about girls, Jenny Lee Lindberg aka every art boy’s dream girl, took a break from Warpaint. On right on! she basically still does the same thing but not as good. Oh well, I can’t really say bad things about Jenny Lee but let’s keep it at “It’s just not as good as Warpaint”.

Dancing queens

Florence and the Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool

Marina and the Diamonds - Froot

Grimes – Art Angels

Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

Now over  to my all-time favourite category. They all have a very secret weapon: two X-chromosomes! Please don’t let this turn out into a ‘female artists are just artists as well’ kind discussion and let me have this one.

Obvious number one here is Florence Welch and her machine. People who’ve known me for longer than 1 day know that in the magical world I live in everything that Florence does is amazing, so is the new album. An album dedicated to her demons, which shows us that even you can overcome your darkest times. If you want a 100 pages long essay with other reason why Florence and the Machine is amazing you can contact me.

Maybe not in the right category but we take Wolf Alice in their Moaning Lisa Smile music video to explain why they deserve the title of dancing queens. Their debuut is a mix of grungy screams and poppy tunes which do make it hard to not move. 

Other queens in the list are Marina Diamandis, also known as the queen of glamour. In this new area she dumped her image of heartbreaker and turned Froot into an emotional ride to show us how it is to be a strong independent woman! Claire Boucher is named queen of weirdness this year. Her experimental songs never disappoint even when the twist in it is sometimes a bit too twisty. Last but not least we have Courtney Barnett, our queen of honesty. In her Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit she takes us on a journey to painfully true situations that everybody has once experienced in their life. Maybe you should just sit, think and listen to her amazing songs. 

Young and British

Drenge – Undertow

Gengahr – A Dream Outside

Peace – Happy People

Palma Violets – Danger in the Club

Swim deep – Mothers

When you live on the other side of a huge puddle of water you start thinking that everything that comes over must be pretty great. In Belgium being an young and British band has turned into a success formula with the cooler kids (including me, an actual adult). 

For Undertow the Loveless parents decided to adopt another child so now Eoin and Rory are joined by their new brother Rob who can play some bass. Besides that not much changed within the band, their sound is a bit more grown up but still haunting and they are still very tall people.

In 2014 we had Superfood and Childhood at the top of this list, this year only one new band caught our attention: Gengahr. Their unusual mesmerising sound makes it hard to put a label on what they do. Do they make you want to crawl under a big duvet, listen to their soft music and pretend everything is okay? Yes! Do they make you want to do weird dancemoves that you might have stolen from Lorde? Also yes! Other good thing about this band is that they just are the loveliest people walking on this planet.

Peace was still In Love in 2013 but they became Happy People in 2015. Chilli Jesson, Sam Fryer and the two other bands from Palma Violets who's names have nothing to do with food gave us a lesson in what and who can be dangerous when you go out to a club. Because sometimes living on the edge needs some safety tips. Swim Deep did something lovely for their Mothers. What a bunch of nice guys they are!

Heartbreakers of the year

One Direction – Made in the AM

Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon

The Vaccines – English Grafitti

Years & Years - Communion

Justin Bieber – Purpose

For this category we can bring out the big clichés and let my love for commercial popmusic take the lead. I’ll still have to throw in some real ‘quality’ artists to keep up my credibility as a self-respecting music lover but come on it’s 2016 now, we don’t have to be ashamed of liking One Direction anymore.  

Speaking about One Direction, 2015 was really their year. After the tragic departure of Zayn Malik our mourning process wasn’t even done yet and the rest of the band announced that they we’re going to have a break. They might have taken the heartbreaker thing a bit too literally? Anyway, before they left to hang with the Kardashians (How could you Harry?) they still dropped a pretty great album. Over the years their boyband bubblegum pop lost a bit of the pink sticky chewster. Still poppy though, still very poppy. 

Tobias Jesso Jr. is the very tall man that came out of nowhere this year with a great album to accompany you on a night of crying, being lovesick/homesick and overall pretty miserable. Apparently he is besties with the Haim sisters and wrote a song for Adele, who brought us another fun album to have a cry to. Let’s move on quickly now before I drown in my own tears.

Self-proclaimed handsome man of the year, Justin Young, and his vaccinators are already on their third studio album. It wasn’t as short as the first one or as angry and filled with teen angst as the second one. It was a new sound but still kind of the same as we have heard before. I guess it’s kind of hard to really change your sound when you have the same voice. Besides that awful joke they did a great job to mix their upbeat songs with a handful of slower ones. If you already thought All in White was great for your imaginary wedding you should listen to (All Afternoon) in Love. A true heartbreaker!

About Years and Years we can say that it sounds way better on the album than it does live. They were the BBC sound of 2015 so let’s give them the joy of selling out huge venues. It’s just that I’m going to have dance parties on my own with the actual album instead of being bothered about how bad they are live. I couldn’t even afford to buy tickets for Justin Bieber so I put ‘Sorry’ and ‘What do ü mean?’ in my Sandy’s swaggy dance hits playlist as well. Please knock before entering my room! Knock hard! Only enter when I say something in the lines of yes! That makes it all less awkward for the both of us when I’m breaking out my moves in front of the mirror. 

Also worth mentioning

The Maccabees – Marks to Prove It, Foals – What Went Down, Tame impala – Currents , Spector – Moth Boys, FIDLAR – Too, The Garden – Haha, Girl Band – Holding hands with Jamie, Ezra Furman - Perpetual Motion People, Slaves - Are You Satisfied?, Only Real - Jerk At The End Of The Line and many, many more ….