Front 242 live in Brussels, Belgium - 15.9.97 :
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Support act _Ozark Henry_ could be described a an mix between industri-metal in the vain of the _Young Gods_ and _Kong_, dark triphop à la _Tricky_ and guitar-goth (They played a cover version of _Joy Division_'s Isolation). Their set was very dis-structured, lots of tempo changes but left a very nice impression for ...
_Front 242_ !!! The boys came back to Brussels, the start of it all ... The venue was small (approx. 1000 people) but nice with great sound and lighting. As for the tracks, they played every track from the _Live Code_ album plus _No Shuffle_ and _Body To Body_. As I read in various interviews, all the tracks were "industrialised" and "techno-ed", some tracks like _Welcome To Paradise_ and _Masterhit_ became 4/4 anthems while _Headhunter_ and _No Shuffle_ got a more electro-ish feel to them. Four constants governed the show : the incredible density of sound layers (more is more ?), abundant squelching analogue synths (sometimes reminding me of the _Chemical Brothers_), Richard 23 (looking like Keith of the _Prodigy_ on steroids) jumping around the stage for 90 mins, and guitar-feedback-samples. Personal highlights were _No Shuffle_ (very unrecognisable), _Soul Manager_ (extremely dark) and the noisiest electro jam I ever heard that turned into a wicked noisy version of _Punish Your Machine_ as final track. All in all, the 5-piece (4 on stage (two singers, a keyboard player and a drummer) plus one at the mixing desk) delivered a strong performance which in some ways reminded me a lot of _Meat Beat Manifesto_ live (yes they also were leather trousers ... ;-)) especially adding the live drummer. I'm still wondering what the role of F242 is/was in the development in electro/idm and it seems that the _Prodigy_ watched them well during the time they remixed F242 (guitar-samples, strong presence of "vocal" figures, ...). Anyway, I (and my left ear still ... nice thread) had fun and if they come to your town, go and see them, ...
dv8
PS : The T-shirts they were selling looked absolutely fantastic !
PPS : Check out Front 242 on the WWW :
http://front242.home.ml.org
or
http://www.front242.com (official webpage - from 1.11.97)
PPPS : Sorry for the possible lack of list-content but I thought some of you might be interested.
PPPPS : I heard that Squarepusher again cancelled his concert which makes it the 3rd time in as many months that he cancelled a show in Belgium. Doesn't he like good beer or is he just afraid of us ?