English glam rockers TEMPLES released their 5th full-length,
the first in 3 years, titled Bliss last June.
Brill Bliss single
A record that ventures into electronic territory while staying true to their core DNA. Exhilarating, melancholic pop melodies from late ‘90s dance music blend with
psych-tinged riffs and loops to create something fresh.
Last Thursday they landed in Brussels as part of their extensive Euro/UK tour.
As I experienced before, the band got everybody in a state of euphoric elation with
a clever mix of old stompers (Keep In The Dark / Shelter Song / Certainty / Hot Motion )
and new pop pearls (Vendetta / Jet Stream Heart / Revelations / Megalith).
Frontman James Bagshaw is a master at playing the audience. He makes us clap, sing,
yell, go down and jump up, put up our phones with the light on to create an early Xmas
atmosphere. Not one dull moment with these guys. For 90 minutes they rule the sweaty venue.
They’re 5-star entertainers who know sweepingly how to get an audience high on
delirious music. Temples entranced and spellbound throughout, and closed with an adrenaline-fueled 10-minute jam of their golden oldie Mesmerise. 24-karat bliss.
Who: Feverish Belgian 4-piece outfit built around impassioned
singer/songwriter/guitarist Ilayda Cicek. Their music is driven
by contrast: restraint against impact, melody against noise,
control against collapse.
I recall first encountering Ilayda, approximately ten years ago, alone with
an acoustic guitar, on a tiny stage. She looked shy and vulnerable, but her
set of intimate reveries and her soul-stirring voice touched my ears. Her
vocal tone, wholehearted timbre, and wide range caused goosebumps.
A few years later, she returned with a full rock band behind her; the decibel levels
went up, and their splendid 7-track mini albumFelt captured the attention of both
new fans and the media.
It featured her supreme slam dunk Leave Me Dry, still my standout favorite.
The EP was followed in 2024 by the formidable debut full-length Ayna.
Back to the present now. Early last month, the band’s
2nd LP, titled Motherland, landed on our earphones.
The record is a deeply personal one and weaves together Ilayda‘s Turkish
family roots, imagery of Turkish nature, and memories of her father, who
emigrated from Turkey to Belgium in the late 1980s.
Ilayda: “This album was born from the idea that we, as people, live with missing
pieces. Fragments of ourselves are left behind in places, people, and dreams.”
The melodically structured songs have a firm and feverish, resounding intensity, invigorated with Ilayda‘s expressive voice and amplified by her turbo sidekicks. Motherland will be here for a long time and has already drawn positive, critical
coverage from outside of Belgium.
Louder Than War (UK webzine) says: “It’s a record shaped by questions of heritage, distance and the pieces of ourselves that remain elsewhere, even as we move forward. In finding beauty within that sense of incompleteness, ILA have created an assured and emotionally resonant second album that expands their sound without losing the rawness and immediacy that made them compelling in the first place.”
You can stream the album below.
Last Friday the band had a try-out gig in Tielt (Belgium), for their upcoming
first European club tour. It had been more than a year since I saw them on
stage.
No glitches, no false starts, no hesitation. Full blast ahead with confidence and determination, although Ilayda confessed to being a bit nervous playing some of
the new songs that were integrated seamlessly into the setlist. They’re ready to go.
ILA’s new chapter, on record and on stage, has
officially started. It’s gonna be a wild ride.
The now 59-year-old Boston singer-songwriter EVAN DANDO endured a long, troubled life/career with drug addiction and mental health issues. Nevertheless, in between several collapses, he managed to create mesmerizing music. Eleven albums (from good to great) with THE LEMONHEADS, plus one top-notch solo album, the enthralling Baby I’m Bored LP.
Last year, following reports of Dando being back in healthy shape, The Lemonheads delivered, after almost 2 decades and 2 albums with covers (2009 and 2019), their first LP with new material, bundled on Love Chant. A notable and acclaimed return with a series of bona fide pop tunes.
The album’s promotion tour brought them to Brussels last Tuesday.
The first thing we noticed when Dando hit the podium was that he looked like shit, as if
he was recovering from a nasty hangover. For the greater part of the gig, while he sang and played, he was staring at the ceiling as if the lyric sheets and the setlist were pinned to the ceiling instead of lying next to him, where they had actually been placed by a roadie.
“I think I see my lyric sheets up there”
He regularly exchanged incomprehensible words between songs with
his two lemonheads, drummer and bassist, seemingly to decide what
to play next.
It all looked chaotic, but Dando never, besides a couple of hiccups, really lost control and rushed through the set like a whirlwind, like if he needed to be somewhere urgently.
And? His cranked-up guitar riffage, his reliable bandmates (who never lost an eye on him), the super setlist and the whole venue ambiance, combined for a terrifically punky rock night out.
Lots of lemon pearls such as Into Your Arms, Big Gay Heart, A Shame About Ray, Confetti,
If I Could Talk To You and My Drug Buddy, several covers (Graham Parsons’ Return Of The Grievious Angel, Smudge’s Tenderfoot and The Outdoor Type, Townes Van Zandt’s Rake, among others) and 4 from the new album (In The Margin / Togetherness Is All I’m After / Deep End and Roky).
Welcome back, big gay heart.
Big-time return on record
and on stage.
A week ago I went to London to see the fabulous THE STROKES, who delivered a fabulous show.
One of the support acts was British controversial post-punk gang FAT WHITE FAMILY, and last Monday they came to Belgium to bomb
the historic city of Brugge.
For the 15th time (the first time was in my hometown of Ghent back in 2014, with
50 people in a small club) they blew me away with a flabbergasting uppercut concert.
Their latest full-length, their 4th, titled Forgiveness Is Yours in 2024.
A stunning record that went Top 5 in TUTV’s end-of-year albums.
Now back to Brugge. The 7 manic misfits went for an insane, baffling best-of set
with, as usual, the perplexing Lias Saoudi in the middle, who’s also active with The Moonlandingz and Decius.
When he hits a stage, he always invites his demons along for a bewildering fight.
He sings, screams, howls, and wails like a possessed madman who just escaped
from a psychiatric facility.
His erratic presence, go-getter performance style, and mood-swing vocal exorcism
are overwhelming. One day his head will explode on the podium. Without the drugs, Lias‘s physical condition is as powerful as Rocky Balboa‘s one in his boxing heyday.
He’s backed by a mean killer machine, with changing lineups over the years, but flanked by his brother on keyboards and the awesome guitarist Adam J Harmer as 2 of the original members.
After 75 minutes, FWF were done. Saoudi‘s demons were floored,
and the audience needed some time to get back to reality after
experiencing the jaw-dropping extravaganza.
Best frontman and best live band of the 21st century.
Boston‘s notorious rock titans AEROSMITH (active since 1970 – 15 albums)
return to the stage for two special shows at the Hollywood Bowl – Los Angeles
for 2 concerts, on October 29 and November 1.
In 2024, the band announced their live action retirement,
because of frontman Steve Tyler‘s (78 now) vocal injury.
But Steve‘s vocal cords are obviously working okay again.
The shows will feature an all-star cast with – take a deep breath – The Black Crowes,
RUN DMC, Heart, Andrew Watt, Billy Idol, Chad Smith (RHCP), Duff McKagan (GN’R), Eric
Church, Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains), Marcus King, Mike Inez (Alice In Chains), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), Pat Monahan (Train), Sammy Hagar, Slash (GN’R), Steve Stevens,
Sully Erna (Godsmack), Tom Morello, Adam Wakeman, Audley Freed, Kenny Aronoff and
more (even more??), with Don Was serving as music director.
I wonder how many dressing rooms they need to get all those artists in.
Whatever it’ll be all about shutting up and dancing.
Cincinnati‘s rock bigshots THE AFGHAN WHIGS celebrate their 40th anniversary as
a band this year. To cement the monumental moment, they treated our ears to their splendid 10th album, named Soft Control (you can stream it below), which landed
last August and spread the festive message on their current tour.
Last night they stopped in Antwerp at the historic ballroom venue called Roma.
Two songs in and frontman Greg Dulli wanted more light in the room: “You can see me, and I wanna see you too.” From there on, it was all feet on the pedals. The Whigs went for
a best-of and 4 tracks (My Lover / Jungle Roux / The Deepest Part Of The Darkest Show / Duvateen) from the new full-length Soft Control.
After 4 decades, the Whigs still have the electrifying energy and blazing brio of
young punks. On stage (as I experienced several times before) they become a
mean riff machine. It’s amps and sirens up, exceeding the permitted volume in
decibels. Yes, the Cincinnati crew are burningly LOUD. Hells bells.
Guess what, despite the roaring racket, Dulli‘s immense voice manages to come on
top of it all. Oh my, oh my. His lung capacity is off the charts, and he obviously enjoys
it to the full extent. Even in the quieter intervals ( Algiers / My Lover / Duvateen / It Kills),
you could still hear Dulli & Co outside of the venue.
Only the greats can still make great records and draw full houses after such an
expansive career. And Dulli, at 61, and his squad are far from done. Hats off to
these always-delivering gentlemen.
SETLIST
Jungle Roux
I’m Her Slave
Light as a Feather
What Jail Is Like
House of I
Toy Automatic
Going to Town
Debonair
My Lover
Algiers Somethin’ Hot
The Slide Song
Catch a Colt
The Deepest Part of the Darkest Show
It Kills
Please, Baby, Please
Fountain and Fairfax
My Enemy
Son of the South
Duvateen Summer’s Kiss
Into The Floor
Miles Iz Ded
Brighton‘s swirling guitar pop (they call it themselves ‘wonk pop‘) sensation LIME GARDEN entered the scene in 2017 and took a long to come up with
their debut album named One More Thing,which was released in 2024.
Last April, the Brighton girls launched their sophomore CD/LP, titled Maybe Not Tonight, bursting with sing-along and dance-along pop
sparklers.
Last Tuesday, they came, saw, and conquered Brussels with an exhilarating 50-minute
set. Live, they pump up the jam and had the crowd in the sold-out club on their feet and clapping/singing in no time, with an incessant flood of excitatory tunes.
Frontwoman Chloe Howard was the magnetic entertainer in the middle. She’s blessed
with a self-assertive, strong, venue-filling voice; she plays the tambourine better than Liam Gallagher and her discofloor moves are pretty seductive.
Hard to pick highlights as the gem-packed party flow went on and on. But I’ll give you the standout cracker of all standout crackers, called 23. A funky/groovy pelvis-shaking booster, so far TUTV‘s single of 2026. As expected, it ended their glorious rave-up. An invigorating pop triumph. Not bad for a Tuesday, not bad at all.
MAYBE NOT TONIGHT
.
SETLIST
Body
Pop Star
Lifestyle
Moving Target
Bitter
Always Talking About You
I Want to Be You
Downtown Lover
Clockwork
Maybe Not Tonight
All Bad Parts
Cross My Heart
Love Song
23
In 2012, the band abruptly finished their journey following
the untimely death of co-vocalist and bassist Adam MCA Yauch
due to cancer.
At 60, former BB MIKE D is back. He returned early this year with his first solo music.
After a couple of singles and some gigs here and there, he launched his solo debut LP, named THANK YOU a week ago.
A bouncy collection of kicky hip-hop tunes without hot Beastie Boys‘ party
anthems but still inviting your body to hop around like a kangaroo.
Album artwork
Mike D: “It’s been so much fun making this music with people I love and I have grown to
really appreciate in our collaboration. And I just hope it’s fun for others and not overly serious, because let’s be real, I’m releasing this music into a very strange and dark and power-fixated world that really devalues art and feelings and compassion and empathy and equality.”
“We so much loved all three of us being in a band with each other for Beastie Boys. When Yauch died, it was an extremely sad time for me so making music was just not on the table. Then being a dad was something I put myself into and eventually I worked on the ‘Beastie Boys Book’ with Adam (‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz] and that really helped both of us as we were really able to shine a light on our past together.”
THANK YOU
.
Live, he’s backed by his band 5D, featuring 2 sons.
New dates for US/UK and Europe are below.
On Sunday September 13th, a one-day indoor festival will take place in the small town
of Oostakker in Belgium. Nothing unusual so far. But wait, here it comes. Within about
12 hours, 37 Belgian bands/acts, I repeat, 37 Belgian bands/acts will perform.
Each one of them gets 15 minutes to show what their musical potential is all about and
try to earn themselves a minimum of 15 minutes of fame afterwards. There you go, this
is a musical event of a calibre I’ve never seen or heard of in Belgium. Impressive, just impressive.
The festival is named Kill Your Darlings, after a 30-year-old rock song by Belgian brothers Soulwax (from their debut full-length Leave The Story Untold), who turned their musical direction upside down over the years, from a post-punk force to an EBM techno turbine that made them internationally famous.
But it goes further than just that. Soulwax was, a long time ago, a laureate of a Belgian showcase for emerging musicians. It was organised by a guy named Vincent Welvaert.
Today he’s the managing director of a Tourbus Agency, and operator of a multi-functional music centre calledGoed Leven (Dutch for Good Life), and he’s also co-organizer of this upcoming, unprecedented festival that shares much of the same DNA as back then with Soulwax: discovering young talent, giving them opportunities, and above all, a great love for music.
With so many Belgian bands around, picking the right ones becomes difficult. Kill Your Darlings, as they say. A nod to Soulwax, to a long-past Belgian showcase, and a lasting curiosity for what tomorrow holds.
Along Welvaert the driving force and instigator of the upcoming fest is Didier Becu,
co-founder of very popular Belgian music website Luminous Dash, which focuses
mainly on, I’m sure you guessed it… Belgian artists.
Becu is a 24/7 music junkie (like me, no wonder we’re buddies) who started to organise
gigs for up-and-coming acts in small venues/clubs/bars a few years ago. Now he goes for
a big Belgian bang.
“37 bands in one day is madness, but so was Woodstock”
Tell us about it Didier: “The idea for Kill Your Darlings originated when I crossed paths with Vincent Welvaer. Soulwax was one of the first bands he worked with. There is so much talent
in Belgium, but it is a matter of luck whether they can become your darlings or not.
My love for Belgian music began as a child by listening to the radio, to a Belgian sort
of John Peel DJ . After years of writing my own fanzines and contributing to all kinds of
websites, I bumped into Ann Cnockaert, with whom I founded Luminous Dash. After a few years, it became clear to me that my favorites had no stage, so I decided to organize concerts myself.
A circuit that resulted in this huge turning point when I found a soulmate in Vincent. We both realized that 37 bands in one day is madness, but so was Woodstock. A good fairy—whether
or not with long blonde hair—whispers to me that Kill Your Darlings will be the first of many adventures.”
Maybe this Belgian tour de force can inspire music junkies out
there, outside of our little country, to stage something similar.
