Weapon Of Beauty

One of the good things of living in a town the size of Antwerp, instead of living in small places like Zoerle-Parwijs or Ober-Schnauzer-Am-See, is the fact that sometimes you get the chance to witness some special gigs.
The secret gig that dEUS played many years ago as ‘The Royal Wallonian Jazz Research Institute’ in the now defunct Cartoons pub comes to mind. Last night it was Admiral Freebee (aka Tom Van Laere) who played a secret gig as ‘We Are You’ at the tiny Homey Bar. This time the secret had been kept so good that there were only about 30 or 40 people. The only hint about the true identity of We Are You is in a photo comment on the Admiral’s MySpace where ‘We Are you’ is mentioned as a new improv rock band featuring Tom Van Laere, jazz drummer Eric Thielemans and blues man Roland van Campenhout. No sign though of Eric and Roland last night, as this was a solo outing of one man, a couple of acoustic guitars and a loopstation. 

In the dimly lit pub with a tiny 2 square meter stage, it really felt like he was playing in your living room. The Admiral immediately stated his intention of only playing new songs from his yet to be released 4th album. And that’s exactly what he did for the next 90 minutes. The only recognisable tracks were Bob Dylan cover ‘The Man In The Long Black Coat’,  old live favourite ‘Breathe In Breathe Out’ and a snippet of ‘Blue Eyes’. 
I’m afraid he didn’t give any song titles. The only one I do remember is ‘The last song I sing about you’. As you can guess from this title most tracks were the usual love-gone-wrong-songs, but there were also some really great moodier and darker songs. One of the lyrics mentioned “I don’t write hooks”. If you listen to his previous records, you’ll notice that this statement is not exactly true, but it does hold some truth when it comes to the new songs. Although the stripped down acoustic renditions may be somewhat misleading, there’s some clear signs that this new album might be quite a move from the previous ones. The witty one-liner lyrics are still there but the need to entertain with over-the top tracks has been replaced by more introvert classical Bob Dylan-style tracks. But don’t think he lost all the craziness as throughout the gig he entertained the audience with some hilarious raunchy spoken-word skits. These helped with digesting all the new material and creating a real laid-back atmosphere in the pub. Short and simple conclusion: excellent gig. 

Recordings for the new Admiral Freebee record started this summer. It should be released somewhere in 2009.