Fri 2 May – Les Nuits Botanique 2008

A bit late and hugely hangover I arrived at the Royal Circus Hall in Brussels. This could be the beginning of an interesting story, but it isn't. Anyway, I didn't see Sara Lowes play, but I wonder if she even played as they took a very long time setting up the instruments for Tindersticks. Well that's kind of understandable seen as the band consisted that night of about 13 people (I forgot the exact number, but it was a lot).

They started to play the new album in the exact order, which annoyed me a bit, but around the 6th or 7th song they inserted some older tunes. All sounded quite dandy, especially new personal favourites like "Come Feel the Sun" and "The Hungry Saw" (in the second part). The weird distorted guitar in "Mother Dear" was also impressive.

Nearing the end and during the encores they played some more classics like "She's Gone" and "Her". Oh and before they'd already done "Tiny Tears".

Overall it was a quite good gig. Stuart's voice sounded fab, even if he said he'd been smoking too much. He didn't say much else besides that by the way, but I guess that's in the style of the band. Still I'd liked them much better when I saw them a few years back in the AB. Like they said in my local newspaper, Dickon Hinchcliffe gave them some more edge and spunk, which was lacking now. The songs were played with vigour and craft, but felt just a little soulless sometimes.

They're still one of the best bands around, though.

Tindersticks