I hadn’t listened to any new Hooverphonic album since the President of the LSD Golf club, which is also one of my favorite Hooverphonic albums, but I had somehow lost track of them. So when I saw the show in Luxembourg announced I just got a ticket, and went without much of an expectation. And well I’ll pick up the recent albums soon as well. What a gnarly show it was! There was no opener, but none was needed, at 9pm, first the 10 piece string orchestra took the stage, followed by the rest of the band who were welcomed by loud cheers! They started off with In Wonderland, and that is exactly where they managed to take me by the third song, a totally stripped down version of Vinegar & Salt with nothing but guitar, and a few strings, sung by Litlo Tinz (I think, I suck at names), so male vocals, and it was I think the best rendition of this song that I have heard to date! Next they dove into the President of the LSD golf club release with Stranger which essentially made my evening by the fourth track. They kept on pulling out all the stops, from the most popular tracks to some lesser known ones, some presented in such new ways that you might as well have heard them for the first time, which is to me always gnarly if a band that’s been around for 20 years keeps on reinventing itself and taking their music to new levels! Further highlights for me included God’s Gift, We all float, Jackie Cane, Mad About You, 123, Sometimes, Badaboum, and You love me to Death. The evening was characterized by a crisp sound and atmospheric light show, so kudos to their crew as well! Not an easy feat considering the relatively small size of the stage at den atelier and 17 people on stage. The vocals were along with all of the music, just mindblowing!
They essentially went through their entire career with a 24 song set (setlist below) that lasted for about 2 hours, and in my opinion could not have been any better! Well with the exception of the as usual fairly immobile crowd. Granted they cheered as if they were a few thousand in number, but they just don’t dance! The band was not very talkative with the exception of Alex Callier on bass, who was practicing his French, as his Luxembourgish is already perfect. As far as on stage feeling goes, it looked like everyone had a blast, and they even seemed to enjoy the out of tune Happy Birthday that the crowd sang for their twentieth. I for one am looking forward to seeing them again hopefully soon, and in the meantime I will catch up on listening to their releases since the President of the LSD golf club.
