Belgium. Ah, Belgium.
Who knew I would find you so damn charming?
Who knew it would rain at least 7 times today?
I left my hotel and took two different trams to get to the venue. I, alas, rode the first tram without paying for it. This is not something I am in the habit of doing (in German, it’s known as schwarz fahren). But I made up for it on the second tram by buying two tickets instead of just one. I’m like that, me.
When I got to the venue it was raining chats et chiens, or whatever the French turn of phrase is. And no one was there. But there was a cafe, and my ass found its way atop one of its barstools. There was a man and two women inside. I drank a coffee and had a nice chat with them. The bar was affiliated with the venue, and there were photos of many artists on the wall, including John Cougar, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and beaucoup d’autres. One of the women, Marie-Therese, was the owner. The other, Francoise, was mopping floors. I learned that she had run up her electricity bill at her house and they just turned it off. She was very sad and I think was crying a little, and Marie-Therese was helping her formulate a plan to get it turned back on. That warmed me, the one woman comforting the other. We should all be so kind and encouraging to one another. Behind the bar, Marie-Therese’s son, a 36 year old man named Xavier. We talked about music, Club Med (for whom he used to work), Dublin (where I go tomorrow), and how he thought I resembled Alanis Morissette (um, I don’t). Marie-Therese asked me what I did for a living and I made that queer face that we all make just after people ask us what we do and just before we summon the inner fortitude to speak the words "I poem." But I was not ridiculed. In fact, she said that she knew when she saw me I was a poet or an artist (must have been my purple hat). I felt a little justified as she spoke, for I’ve not been really presenting myself as anything but a wannabe teenager lately. I stayed in the bar until 3 or so, but promised I would return after the show.
I went back around to the front of the venue, and saw a woman in a purple coat who I met before the Paris show. Her name is Sandra and she is Belgian. We walked over to the band entrance, but we couldn’t get close because there was a gate. We saw the supporting act drive through though. Nick and the boys were already inside.
After a bit our crowd of two expanded to five. It included me, Sandra, Yuka, a Japanese civil servant who has been to nearly 40 Nick gigs, Ava, a girl from the Netherlands who won her tickets on the radio, and Jean-Baptiste, a piano tuner from Bretagne who had a pair of delicious hazel eyes as glass-clear and sweet-seeming as a throat lozenge.
… forming a queue in the rain…
Later, a girl I met at a show in San Fransisco arrived with her boyfriend. I’d seen her at nearly all the other shows I’ve been to, but I hadn’t heard from her in a year, so it was very nice to catch up. Her name is Eva and she’s a German seminary student who starts her internship year soon. Her boyfriend, Arne, was tall and they seemed happy together.
And others. Hannah, a femme-Flamande, Hannah’s friend (name not caught), Wilfried who lives in Luxembourg but goes by the name Sam (he works in a bank and wore banker-chic eyeglasses), Thomas, another German who runs a Nick Cave fan site in Deutschland, a couple of Canadian boys studying in Brussels, and, yes, some other Americans, though I didn’t catch their names. This was the first time the two Flemish girls had seen Nick.
I have to say that as much as I liked the Paris concert, this one out-did it on all counts. The sound was fantastic. Nick was in possibly the best mood I’ve ever seen him in, and he played and sang and danced like the devil was chasing him.
…I get a little giddy when he does the big hands thing…
… I, too, dig the digging of Lazarus, digging…
No set list for Jillie tonight, but the two Flemish girls got one, and I took their picture.
…Flem-Fatales…
After the show, I went back to the bar with Yuko. If you’re ever in Brussels, take the number 92 Tram all the way to the Forest National and find the Club des Artistes, 22 Avenue du Globe and ask for Xavier or Marie-Therese. They are terrifically nice people.
…me and my new Belgian, Xavier (I look a little spooked in the picture, though I wasn’t)…
The taxi ride back to my hotel had the driver advising me that I needed a Belgian lover. Dunno where that came from but… ok.
He also said that he was free.
God Bless Belgium.
Read installments one through three here.