17/07/2007

Au Revoir Simone

Rain poured out of the sky tonight, but I still took my bike to see a concert at Boomtown Festival, which is part of the famous city festival Gentse Feesten in my hometown.

Three beautiful young women, surrounded by synthesizers and other electronic instruments, appeared on stage. They looked somewhat frail and you would get the impression they were just three students doing well at university, spending whatever's left of their time just singing and making music. Still I thought they had a certain sparkle, that made them stand out and that would make my radar bleep whenever they enter the room.

Au Revoir Simone , a Brooklyn based female trio, had to open this night of the festival for The Frames. I had heard some of their songs (of their new album, The Bird of Music) on the internet and I really liked the new 80's sound of their pop songs, with their voices floating on top of it, so my expectations were rather high.
They opened their set with a beautiful Sad Song, while it had stopped raining... Unfortunately, the sound with the second song was not very well balanced, so their voices were hard to hear amidst all the music their appliances produced, but sound quality improved throughout their show (which lasted about 50 minutes). They celebrated the repair of their drum machine with champagne, telling us how Belgium and Belgian geniuses had saved their tour. One of the best songs of the night was a song I think was Dark Halls (I'm not familiar enough with their material to recognize every song, but I'm quite sure of this one after relistening to it at home).

They ended their show (while rain had once more started falling out of the sky in amounts you would sooner expect at waterfalls) with two songs that had a slower tempo, one of them being The Way to There, in which you could once again enjoy the harmony of their three lovely, almost angelic voices.

Soaking wet after having showered in open air like this, I nevertheless went home feeling great, having heard a good performance by a band I hadn't heard of one month ago...

You can listen to some of their songs on their MySpace and here's a song that they offer on their website (from their debut album Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation) :


Buy their records here

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