GIG REPORT

16/09/1989 - Vort'n Vis - Ieper: Chronic Disease - Brainless - Silly Old Fart - The Dirty Scums - Belgian Asociality

PYROBOLUM # 1 (BEL) - eind 1989

Originally these were the bands expected to be showing up in Ypres: Chronic Disease, Brainless, The Dirty Scums, Scraps, Belgian Asociality - wow man what a hell of a Vistival ! Unfortunately Scraps cancelled as they have some problems with the line-up (however they're working on an LP). Soon enough rumours went on that Dreadful (ultramegatrash from the UK) and another Britband were to be replacing them. Of course it was just another fart in a bottle. Well, it's just a statement: great gig apart from some fucking police bastards ...

Ar 3.30 pm Chronic Disease from Brugge started: appropriate hardcoretrash with a lot of instrumental breaks, fucking great vocalist and quite amazing songs - they're sure a lot of late Ripcord-influenced, bits of Heresy, Doomish Hippietrash, Discharged, ... Still very original and a cool Chaos UK-cover (Fuck your Nationality). I must state this is one of Belgium's best current bands without being deathrippingslaygrind or such. Waiting for their demo !

Brainless from Holland somewhere: simple, rude hardcore Cryptic Slaughter-like and predominant crossover tunes.  They did remind me a lot of bands like Excel, Attitude and Hate Crew in fact. A pretty funny show I enjoyed quite well (what a very idiot guitar player !) but if you know their demo's titled "To beer or not to beer" you know enough I guess: lovesongs, songs about potatoes, beer, beer and beer, Crumbsuckers-shirts, metalheads, etc. Who will show them the way ?

The unexpected Silly Old Fart gig didn't quite work out: indifference, even apathy, a shitty mess - vocal Vinnie taught so in fact. I really like this band you know, but every time again something's turning out bad on their gigs. At least they want to create a very personal (farty ?) sound - I hope they feel still motivated ...

Dirty Scums forever !! Waaaaaarrgh these guys really deserve a memorial statue or something - OK, you can't say they are the spirit of Belgian HC, they don't want to be it anyway. These halfwits just care about making lotsa fun, enjoying the audience thru the everlasting Ramonessymphonia and their almighty sing-alongs ("We hate cops"). You can't take it ill of them not being Active Minds: Scums are Scums and their pretentions are nicely restricted which I like a lot. They are much more REAL than certain HC-acts.

The same goes for Belgian Asociality I guess: changing the world (or the scene) is not of their interest. This is not a great band but still they're really worth seeing as they are an ultimate ambiance-band. By the way, their price: 7.500 BEF, 5 crats of Jupiler, 10 free entrances and enough food ...

Like I said, great gig actually, apart from those drawbacks:

1) Some moments I really thaught this had to be some kinda Metallica-gig or something. I know this may sound purist or elitarist or such but however I don't think these moral (?) metalinfluence is making any approval to the scene in general. I even saw a fat bastard walking around with swastikas and other fascist crap, provoking everyone ... What a scaring apathy towards one's attitude ! I'm sure this is the main reason why HC has a lost a lot of its credibility: indifference or fear. What a movement !

2) Police Bastards ! The first time, the cops arrived in the afternoon, they said music had to be put quieter - this while only some hundred meters furtheron Ypres was celebrating "LEETS", an annual festival with the established pop- or chanson-values. No complaining of course as it is the city's organisation (much louder thou). From then on there were regular police patrols. At 9.30 pm they dropped in again, warning us and saying that we had to stop while  most of the audience was still waiting for Belgian Asociality. We had a license that night so those cops could not stand any reasonable ground: they just wanted to fuck up our night while nothing really rotten had happened - they even threatened whith closing it down. Finally they agreed with us gigging until 10.30 pm "to avoid nuisance by noise". Complete bullshit of course: moneymaking rockstar Peter Koelewijn played till 1.30 am ! Thus Belgian Asociality stopped in time: the party continued inside (open air-gig you know). But this Anarchy & Peace only lasted a few hours: at 0.30 am cops popped in for the last time - there was too much dirt in front of the place ! Obviously just a frustrated (and ultrastupid) reason to close things down for the rest of the evening ! These fascist motherfuckers (just doing their jobs, that's true) could not bare the idea of young people not marching in line. Well, we know this vistival was some kinda boycot against the LEET-stuff - or just simply applying the law of "something else" but is this enough reason to be jerked out by the cops ? Police, system, repression, censorship ... These are all big words but in a way they can be easily linked up with what happened in Ypres.