You shouldn’t try to drive in Brussels – or if you do, you should remember beforehand that there’s no such thing as “signs” in Belgium… Otherwise, you will end up somewhere in Brussels, without the slightest clue of where you are and where you want to go… well, at least the sun was up. =;-) And as I ended up on a parking spot about 10 meters from the entrance of the club, I’m not gonna complain. *g*
So I had some time to visit Brussels, and then the concert started. I missed most of Micke from Sweden this time – hey, who would assume that a concert starts at 8 o’clock already?!? I thought that was when the doors opened… uhem. And I was wondering why there’s so few people there… =;-)
But obviously there wasn’t much new, just some rats again… *g*
The setlist was fairly similar to the one from the Cologne concert: KGB, Container, Bøn fra helvete, Veterans klage, Ompa til du dør, Senor Flamingos adieu, Blitzregn baby, Kontroll på kontinentet, De involverte, Jævel av en tango, Dr. Mowinckel, Katastrofen, Di grind, Dieter Meyers Inst., Maestro, encore Gypsy Finale.
The audience consisted mainly of Danes and Swedes, so of course there was a lot of cheering and singing along, which was really great. The venue was really big (and it looked even bigger, because the ceiling was extremely high). The walls were covered with tiny lights, looking like a sky with stars, and of course there were some comments from the stage about that. The Jackal just deemed it impressive, and Hellraizer had the feeling he needs to ask Han Solo to put on the “overdrive”. Which didn’t work, though… =;-)
Also, the venue was very professional, the band was obviously impressed by that. And with this equipment, the sound just had to be good, it’s impossible that it could be bad. OK, I was completely satisfied… *g*
At the very beginning, they got a painting of a man with gas mask from the audience, which found a special place just in front of the drum set at once.
Elvis was there again today, and while he was busy working on the stage, the Jackal explained how they got to choose him – they wanted an Elvis-lookalike, and he googled all possible lookalikes worldwide, and then they auditioned about 958 of them, it took one and a half weeks! And he was the best lookalike they could find. There was another one in Asia which was even better, but he had the wrong color… So they took this one, and anyway, they wanted Elvis from his “bad” period… =;-)
It took some time till they finally got started with Dr. Mowinckel. The Jackal announced it with “the guitar player wants to sing a song for you now” – but then he didn’t show any signs of wanting to start the song. So Hellraizer was standing at the mike waiting… And after he told his Han Solo story, still nothing was happening. At some point in time then finally the Jackal decided to walk over to his barrel, just to stop again after hitting it twice… Hellraizer: “That’s very unprofessional!” But then they actually started, yeah!
When it was time for questions, some people started to ask for songs – with the result “no, we can’t play that, we would need about 2000 studio musicians for that!”. After a while, Killmaster put an end to that by pointing out that it is “time for questions”, not “time for requests”. But the next real question was blocked with “no musical questions, please”, so the only remaining question (“I always answer three questions!”) was “How big is it?”. Comment by the Jackal: “Was that Danish?” The answer was simple, however – as long as his tie. “Oh, and your’s is probably like the other part of my tie, only half the size.” Hellraizer: “Which is still not bad…”
Then there were a lot of short details inbetween that I wanted to remember but forgot almost completely. What I do remember is in the middle of Dieter Meyer, just after the quiet part: “Now, was that beautiful? Yeah? OK, let’s ruin it!” – and then they went at the barrels. And towards the end: “Say yeah!” – “YEAH!” – “So, what do you say next?” – “Hell yeah!” *rofl*
Oh yes, and then there were the rats… *lol* Mink had one on his drum set, so during the introduction, he not only played on tingetang and ashtrays, but also squeaked with his rubber rat. And not only during the introduction, but at all possible and impossible occasions… *lol* During one song, when the Jackal was singing all alone in the end, it was squeaking from the back of the stage (the Jackal afterwards: “I could swear I heard a rat somewhere!”). According to the Jackal the rats suddenly showed up since they are touring with Micke from Sweden…
Finally they managed to “catch” it. Killmaster killed it stagily with his barrel-stick, while the rest of the band screamed : “No, don’t kill it!!!” *rofl*
So, that’s the upside, a really great concert. Not quite as terrific as Cologne, but I didn’t expect it, and this was surprisingly close to the Cologne concert!
But there’s a downside, the concert didn’t end very positive… Killmaster tried to throw his Firebird to Elvis, but as Killmaster threw it much too short, he didn’t have any chance to catch it. So it just crashed down on the floor… I really hope it only looked that bad and this doesn’t mean it’s the end of the firebird – but I don’t have much hope, honestly. =:-(