The Vantage Point Tour kicked off with a try-out-gig in Mezz, Breda yesterday evening. The Mezz is one of my all time favourite concert halls because it's small (about 600 people) and you have a great view to the stage from the whole room.
It was the second time I saw dEUS over there. The first time was in August 2004, when Tom fainted backstage and they took a five minute break during the gig. Nothing has changed since then in the Mezz. When the room is full it gets hot and sweaty.
Luckily, no physicals problem for the band this time. They entered stage around 9.30 PM and played for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. They played the complete new album and 9 old songs (setlist). A couple of old songs weren't played (Suds & Soda, Little Arithmetics, Via,....), but they will probably make a comeback from time to time.
The gig took off with a superb version of When She Comes Down, followed by Oh Your God and Favourite Game. Tom looked a bit nervous, but he looked relaxer after every song. The room went crazy during Instant Street. Lies Lorquet from Mintzkov joined the band on stage for Eternal Woman. Tom did some keys during Slow and some percussion during The Architect.
After that they screwed it up a bit. Klaas started the intro from Sun Ra but Tom apparently had something else planned. They played Sun Ra, followed by Smokers Reflect, Nothing Really Ends (with a slightly reworked intro) and Bad Timing. Is A Robot isn't my favourite song on the album, but I liked the live-version. Pocket Revolution and Roses ended the first part.
The encores where a nice climax. What We Talk About had a guitar-intro (like the acoustic version) and Turnpike still had the Mauro goes satan-part. They ended with Popular Culture, a song that has stadium-capacities.
Offcourse this wasn't the best dEUS-gig ever. But the exclusiveness makes up a lot. It was a try-out so it's normal there were some technical problems and misunderstandings. They'll have to play a couple of gigs extra before we'll see the dEUS-live-act that knocked us out in 2005 and 2006. The most important thing remains that Vantage Point is clearly a great album to perform live. And as a starter this was asking for (a lot) more....
(pic by Kevin Moens)
More:
Here's Jyves' review.
A review by Hans van den Bemt.
A review by Michael Illegems
The setlist
Leave your own reviews in the comments or on I Suffer Rock. If you took pictures and want to share them with us, just send me an e-mail.
Dutch newspaper BN De Stem has an interview with Tom.
- He talks about his relationship with time: ever since he was a child, he's been wondering how things would be in the future, and since his father died, he's been wondering how long he'd live.
- He says that dEUS is and has always been his band, but that he's always been surrounded by people who could do their own thing.
- About Popular Culture, the closing song on Vantage Point: according to the reporter it's the poppiest dEUS song ever, both ironic and dead serious in its lyrics (we are defined by pop culture). Tom says that Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are the ultimate exemple of "high culture" and "low culture" getting together.
Update: there's also a short item about dEUS' upcoming try-out concert at Mezz in Breda. Asked why they want to play there in particular, Tom says:
It's a wonderful venue. The infrastructure is excellent, and so is their hospitality. To us, it is the perfect place to test our sound and our lightshow. I remember well our concert there in the summer of 2004. I almost died on stage, it was so hot! Inside the band we always call Mezz the mussel. Because of that shape.
Nice action for people living in the Breda-area: if you pre-order Vantage Point at Velvet Music you get a transparent 7" of Slow and an album poster for free. You also participate in a contest to win a canvas with the cover-artwork signed by the band.