quote:

And you were right Sweenie, it was great that we could all stand up and run to the stage. It makes a difference! Thank you Neil for that.

If I read all those great review it really sounds like a great night out. Think you guys had a bid of the Copenhagen gig I heard Martin and Lamb talk about. I`m glad Neil pointed out that standing up is OK and people felt the difference...

quote:

Originally posted by jean-marc:
Sorry for my English, I hope everyone understands.
Crowded House are magic!
http://www.lesoir.be/culture/musiques/le-bon-souvenir-d...7-10-20-556377.shtml

Your English is fine, Jean-Marc!

And thanks for the Le Soir Review; lovely. I really like the conclusion: "En deux heures, Crowded House a prouvé qu'il n'avait pas changé. Qu'il était resté ce groupe super sympa ..." (In two hours, CH proved it hadn't changed. That it had remained this super nice group)

"super sympa" -- I think that should become their catchphrase!

quote:

Originally posted by jean-marc:
Wonderful concert : 2 1/2 hours of great pleasure with super musicians and Neil at the top of his form, so happy to play in Belgium.
Here is a link ah a belgian paper "Le Soir".
The conclusion of this article is : "Crowded House stayed this nice band, aching for sharing their nice songs with sobriety and love of nice job wich make them precious".
Sorry for my English, I hope everyone understands.
Crowded House are magic!
http://www.lesoir.be/culture/musiques/le-bon-souvenir-d...7-10-20-556377.shtml

Thank you for that article, jean-marc!

They mention an additional guitarist, but no mention at all of Matt! They are talking about CH being a trio... hello??

How could they have been present at that gig and not mention Matt?? He was such a huge part of that gig!! Boggles the mind..

The Brussels gig, a.k.a. the 'best of' show.

Just arrived back from an enchanted weekend in Brussels. Everything said before in this topic is true: the energy, the almost perfect set-list, the audience's singing etc.

The best part of the evening was, indeed, when Neil said everyone could stand up (somewhere before 'Silent House'?) and come to the front. We (me and a good friend) were sitting at the top of the first tribune, somewhere to the left (luckily not in the higher galleries), still an awful end away from the stage. When Neil gave the signal, we had a short but useless debate: we finally rushed down the stairs, with a lot of other people. Before we knew it, we were standing almost in front of the stage! We already had an adrenaline rush, from the running down the stairs, which was augmented by the positive vibrations in front of the stage. Everyone was singing and dancing like there was no tomorrow. A strong contrast to earlier that evening, when we had to squint our eyes to spot Mark Hart (that guy seems to be unnoticeable sometimes) and we were sitting next to some old geezers who were shivering during a rocking version of 'In my command'.

For us this (the standing up and rushing to the stage) was good, but there were other people who couldn't appreciate it: I saw a couple with children evacuating (I guess they couldn't see it anymore) and a small woman that had to stand on her chair to see the stage. She was still dancing frenetically, until the security guy came and told her to stand with her two feet on the ground.

We all sang our lungs out! And most people noticed it was difficult to clap and sing simultaneously ;-).

They pleased a lot of people with this setlist. Still strange they didn't played the second single, She called up. I wished for Private Universe and got it at the start. My friend hoped for Nails in my feet, so we shouted for it, but alas...

The best part of the evening was the last part of 'Heaven that I'm making', when Neil's perfect voice soared echoing to the top of the hall, only accompanied by soothing notes from his Wurlitzer. And 5000 (6000?) people, after some excercise, singing:

and This Heaven That I'm Making
It Can't Come Quickly Enough
And The Big Wave That I'm Taking
Feels Like I'm Just Waking Up

Crowded House made heaven for us that evening! I couldn't get tickets for the Amsterdam shows, but this was, I guess, much better: a vibrant concert, AND a very nice weekend in Brussels.

Did some of you see the guys in Brussels that day after? We were sitting in a bar, and I couldn't help but hoping that they would just walk in and we could buy them a drink. Now that would have made it perfect! ;-)

No unfortunetly we didn´t see them either. We hoped for it too as we were walking around Brussels the whole day. We kept our eyes open. Maybe they saw us and ran away.

Wow

You guys deserve to get Crowded House back again really soon - they were some consistently fabulous reviews (lots of detail. I love detail ).

So glad everyone is enjoying themselves. Reading all these fab reviews kind of makes you wonder why CH broke up in the first place.

It was my first CH show ant it was great with so many people singing so sweetly on FSIOD , FAYT or Heaven That... it was beautiful.

To SUzanne; sorry for teh late reply. My hostel closed at 1 am, so I had to catch the bus!

Thanks for telling me! Can't have you sleeping on a bench in the park in Brussels!

I'm glad you enjoyed both gigs so much, Bruxelles et Paris. Was Paris your last?

There was a nice review of the show in newspaper De Standaard of today - I'll do a write-up in English later in the day. I even think there was one in De Morgen as well, I'll check it out and will report back.

The benefits of the digital age: apparently there were some very friendly people who were able to hold their cellphones still (they must have been meditating Nepalese monks, because I had a unexplainable primordial urge to dance and sing) and record some songs.

The good stuff on YT:
Into Temptation, Don't dream it's over, Weather with you
World where you live
Distant sun

Thanks guys! Is there more footage? I saw a lot of cell phones!

There's a couple of photos and a review in Dutch here:
http://www.proximusgoformusic.be/nl/item.php?text_id=204032

It was a breathtaking gig, one of THE best I've ever been to in over 27 years of concerts ...

How about releasing the European concerts on CD or as digital downloads just like the American shows ?

Would love to hear this one over and over and over and ... :-)

Hey fannn, that's a great idea. Is anyone listening out there?

OK, as promised, here are the two reviews from newspapers De Morgen and De Standaard. Glowing they are, glowing ... Disregard any imperfections in my translation pls.

De Morgen – 19/10/07: Crowded House relives moments of glory

Crowded House presented a marathon-performance with lots of hits in Vorst Nationaal

You never know with come-backs and reunions of golden oldies. Is it a case of “let’s grab some cash before we retire” or is it an honest attempt to make a musical difference?

As far as this question is concerned, you could say that Crowded House’s is one of the best reunions in recent years. Their CD Time on Earth is a fun pop album with some exceptional songs and the show in Vorst Nationaal was pretty impressive.

During this marathon-gig of over two and a half hours, Crowded House pulled out all stops in order to make this a swinging AND emotional show. But Belgians will be Belgians of course, so Neil Finn had to tell the respectful audience that it was really quite alright to get up. From then on the chemistry really worked it’s magic. A sea of people gathered in front of the stage, Finn took off his jacket and songs like “Into Temptation” or “Don’t Dream it’s Over” did the rest during the one and a half hour that followed.

Crowded House was at its pinnacle in the 1980ies and that was clearly demonstrated by the fact that there were hardly any music lovers present who were younger than 30: only real fans who belted along the old hits word for word. And Neil Finn gave them what they wanted and often left the work to the crowd: it was spine tingling.

Also noticeable was how well Finn and bass player Nick Seymour were getting along. This used to be different. The renewed enthusiasm yielded some great moments, like when Finn improvised a gospel mass with the audience playing the role of choir.

Matt Sherod, replacing Paul Hester who committed suicide in 2005, delivered a strong performance. His pleasantly varied and (sometimes a bit too) strong drumming, sometimes turned ‘pop’ into ‘rock’.

Crowded House effortlessly convinced us of their earnest come-back and underlined this with a head-butt of a show.

The only minus was that the gentlemen of Crowded House overstayed their welcome a little: two encores of four songs each, if you please – but who can blame them? They had to restrain themselves for so long.

***********

De Standaard – 19/10/07: Crowded House plays best reunion gig of the year.

There’s life again in the House!

It was an emotional moment when Crowded House stepped onto the stage of Vorst Nationaal on Friday night. Eleven years after the split and two years after the suicide of drummer Paul Hester, the New-Zealand band received a heart-warming welcome.
A band that has the luxury of starting a show with two of its best songs, closing the set with an hour of encores and casually throwing in ten or more classics in between, can’t go very wrong. Indeed, Crowded House effortlessly fulfilled all expectations, profiled itself as the missing link between the Beatles and Coldplay and had – as usual – a couple of jokes up its sleeve to lift the sometimes melancholy mood.

Nevertheless it took the band a few moments to grapple with the acoustics of Vorst Nationaal, so that Private Universe and FSIOD didn’t sound their best. [Sweenie: Cherry Ghost struggled even more with the acoustics and sounded terribly fuzzy – they were good though!]. However, by the time In My Command came along, they’d nailed it and you heard a band that played with the drive of a bunch of young punks, all wailing guitars and exploding drums. It was a sit-down concert, and that was no picnic in a room where the chairs at the front didn’t even offer the arm-and-leg-room of a Ryanair flight. Just as well that Neil Finn soon told fans to ignore the security and get up. That was the pivotal moment that promptly and completely destroyed the last remainder of the barrier between audience and band.

The set – almost entirely consisting of greatest hits, interspersed with material from the new come-back album Time on Earth – was a wet dream for any Crowded House fan, and the requests that were shouted out from the audience, Better Be Home Soon, Mean To Me, were tasteful additions. DDIO brought a lump to many throats and WWY was belted along with gusto.

OK, you could argue that the show rattled a little in places because of the improvisations, but that would be ignoring the spontaneity of the band, and – even more importantly – the magic of the moment. Bass player Nick Seymour and multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart were grinning like Cheshire cats, new drummer Matt Sherrod rolled his sticks as if he used to work on the Muppet Show, and Finn himself sang perfectly. And every single one of them stood with visible pleasure in the spot where they should have been standing long ago: on the stage and close together. In a nutshell: the best reunion gig of the year.

Thank you Sweenie for this huge translation!

What a glowing review, and how right they are!

What great reveiws, and what a faultless translation - thanks a lot - wish I could have been there.

WOW! You´ve got a great press in Belgium. Couldn´t agree more with whats in it.

Thanks sweenie, I had read the review in "De Morgen online" and wanted to translate it here, but you've spared me the effort. Nice to read the one from "De Standaard" too - I couldn't get that for free in the online version.

Seems like we were so lucky in Brussel to have this fabulous gig!

Absolutely awesome reviews Sweenie, thankyou for transcribing them.

At the local Flemish news station :

http://www.vtm.be/asx/vtmnieuws/index_opgeknipt.php?20071020_195103_3G_VORST

Many thanks Sweenie for the translations! I saw the article pop up in google, but one has to log in to be able to read it - so many thanks for placing it.

And Stanne: wow, very nice fragment! Very nice of you to post a direct link to it!