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What a fantastic idea: a midwinter kick off mini festival to get the Lowlands juices flowing! That’s exactly what LLaunch was all about last night at Paard, a prelude to Lowlands 2010. Kudos to the organisation for creating that Lowlands feel, from the banner and greeting committee outside to the artwork and props inside. Oh and my ultimate geek moment: we got a llaunch bracelet! True to the usual Lowlands routine I’d lost half my friends after 15 minutes, who all spread out to check different things and texted me all night for directions. Some things never change.
The evening started off with the delightful Selah Sue, a young Belgian girl with candyfloss blond hair who manages to belt out some impressive heartfelt Jamaican jams on her acoustic guitar. Just a shame the newly arrived llaunchers were so excited they chatted straight through her set. If you’ve never heard of her be sure to, a sight (sound) to behold. Fyah Fyah!
Then we peeked in at Holland’s latest rising star in the singer songwriter department, the boy you could have sat next to in maths for years without noticing, Tim Knol. I couldn’t find anything to fault him or his solid band, and if Dutch grown rootsy Americana is your cup of tea you’ll be more than satisfied by what he delivers. I guess I was just getting too excited for Blood Red Shoes to really take it in myself.
Apparently Blood Red Shoes called the organisers beforehand to check if thy realised their music was rather loud and if that would be ok, what a charming notion. Although there were definitely some who might have been unpleasantly surprised by the sheer blast force of the band, namely the first 4 lines of small young girly girls already firmly positioned for Florence + The Machine, next on the line up, as Laura-Mary herself also comically remarked.
Their set was a mix of new material from the upcoming album Fire Like This and the tried and tested songs from their first album. Most of their new material seems to depend on the same successful formula of kinetic drums and guitar, alternating vocals and short punctuated verses well fit suited for anthem like yell-alongs. This is what attracted me to the band in the first place, but I’ll be interested to hear if there is some more variation on the new album. There was definitely one track taking a different, more subtle and mood building approach with Laura-Mary on vocals, sadly I didn’t get the title.
After everyone wiped the blood red sweat from their brow and enjoyed a beer or two it was time for the band that completely bowled me over at Lowlands last year: Florence + The Machine. When Florence herself came on stage, sadly dressed a bit less vampy than usual, hordes of little florences in front of me squeezed each other’s hands and giggled with excitement, “there she is!!”. She had them at hello.
Having seen her two times before I would say it took her and the band a bit more time to get into the swing of things, but later she explained that it was only the first date of this tour. She played quite a similar set to Melkweg a few months ago, but you can tell they have really worked out the preferred way to play the songs. My Boy Builds Coffins is the best example and now easily outdoes the album version as far as I’m concerned. Towards the end the band seemed to be feeding off the energy and warm response from the room and the encore was the the icing on a great gig and a wonderful evening.
Our lowlands-posse spent the rest of the night dancing their butts off to the great tunes courtesy of the Lowlands dj’s, with every track they put on I wished it was August already! Just waiting for that paycheck to come in and that Lowlands 2010 ticket is mine.
Photo thanks to Diana Broeders
As we walked into Het Paard last night it was practically empty. Are these the only 12 people that got tickets for the concert we wondered? By the time support act The Postmarks started playing we might have made it to 20. They played a suitably sullen few songs until for some reason the lead singer cheered up and the band made us all come closer to fill in the big awkward gap. Much better.
By the time Bell X1 took the stage the room had just about enough people in it to not be embarassing. Thankfully, what we lacked in numbers we made up for in enthusiasm. There was a warm reception for all the songs, particularly from a small but noticeable Irish delegation of ladies. The band played a diverse setlist, making sure to play their better known material such as Flame, Bad Skin Day, Rocky Took a Lover and of course their modest Talking Heads soundalike hit The Great Defector. Even the song that first brought the band to my attention: Eve the Apple of my Eye.
I went to this show because friend and Bell X1 advocate CoR invited me. I know and like a few of their songs, but was never properly grabbed by the Bell X-bug. I would have to say that this remains the same after the concert. In a way that’s odd, because I can’t fault the band. Paul Noonan has a good voice and puts his soul into his performance, the band is solid and their songs are decent. Maybe it’s a classic case of “It’s not you, it’s me” for me and these Dublin boys.
I really enjoyed the show all the same. The intimate setting was a nice change from some of the overcrowded sardine tin concerts I’ve recently been to. Highligts for me were the frenzied performance of Tongue, and Noonan’s very impressive attempts to speak Dutch! Hoofd, schouders, knie en teen!
brokenbranches 
