GIG REPORT

The Dirty Scene Tour - 21/12/2002 - JH Alfa - Brakel: Mise*en*Scene - The Dirty Scums - The Thirsty Scums

OWN REPORT - 23/12/2002

Brakel, the fourth gig of this Dirty Scene Tour from which we have at least eleven more gigs to go. Brakel is situated in a region where we had almost never played before. We passed some places well known for their beer like Ename and Mater, and we also passed some villages with strange and funny names which seems to be a kind of normal in this region. Or what do you think of names like St.-Maria Horebeke and St.-Kornelis Horebeke ? The day before the gig, Brakel hit the national news with a robbery on a local post office, but we don't think this had somethin' to do with our Dirty Scene Tour.

We quickly found the youth centre and we immediately felt and saw this was different from the other youth centres where we had already played in this tour: there were big posters on the outside and the inside announcin' the gigs of this evenin'. Yeah, what is expected to be a normal thing to do sometimes seems a very hard job for some youth clubs. The pub itself was a nice and comfortable place to be. What a difference today with the youth clubs I visited when I was 16 in the holy year '77 ! This youth club however still had to do something with '77, 'cause the wall next to the stage was completely covered with posters of a.o. Sex Pistols, Clash, ..., and they played good music too. (Shit, while I'm writin' this report I hear on the news that Joe Strummer, former bandmember of Clash is dead. Back in the days we used to play their classic "Garageland", and in the Miscellaneous-sexion of this site, you'll find a video of "Tommy Gun".) A week before, we had done a bargain by affordin' us a second hand monitor includin' an amplifier. An ideal piece for a drummer who sometimes has to suffer from a bad sound quality behind his drums. A disadvantage of course is we now have to carry more stuff in and out the rehearsal room and again in and out the van. Anyway, when we started soundcheckin' it was quickly obvious that the soundquality in this pub was really very good.

In the mean time we met some gentle people of the youth club itself and in the upcomin' crowd we noticed friends, members and ex-members of the bands W.R.3, Funeral Dress, Crimson Brothers, Anarcasticats, ... Even Mokka, member of the Smurfpunx-collective in the eighties was there. He figures on the picture of the cover of our first LP released in 1985. Smurfpunx was a collective of some guys organisin' gigs (also some with The Dirty Scums) and releasin' international compilationtapes (we appeared on "24 Love Songs"). Mokka now still regularly organises concerts, but always forgets about us, haha. There was also this metalhead who played with his band together with us on a contest in 1990. In the same contest also played Get Stuffed, the band of which Keez was part of in those days. Well, back to the matter, for this evenin' everything went well till now: an announced gig, nice pub, gentle people, good crowd, ... We started unpackin' our stand and also sold quite easily some stuff, even some vinyl, and that's no more evident these days.

A bit after 9 pm, Mise*en*Scene started their set and they played a very good gig. The sound was excellent, a part of the crowd was participatin', the singer did a good job, ... It was their first gig after the release of their split/mini-CD and it was one of their best gigs. The CD contains four songs of M*e*S and four of their Finnish friends The Divisive. They told us they sold 17 copies of it afterwards ! They moved a lot on stage, somethin' of which I'm a bit jealous: movin' on stage while singin' and playin' guitar is rather impossible. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed the gigs of Game Over so much, I just had to play the guitar, so I could walk and dance on stage as I liked. Shortly after the gig of M*e*S, one of their females became sick. Pregnant ? We swear we didn't do anythin' to her, guys ! As she didn't get any better, they decided to leave home before our gig started. That was a pity.

Anyway, we played a good gig on a fuckin' too hot stage. Just like with M*e*S the organizers put some Christmas-bonnets on our heads, but it was too hot to keep them up for more than a couple of songs. The youth club itself had an own light-plant with a dedicated operator, which made there was quite some sphere on stage and in the pub. Zjantie didn't miss a single intro now with the newly bought monitor and played well. He had paid me a visit the same day shortly after noon in a rather drunky state of mind. You should know that Zjantie plays in a fanfare too. They sometimes have to gig for stupid feasts in the mornin' and this had been the case the day of the gig. This always goes together with the drinkin' of gins and liquors, so you get the picture. But he was obviously good recuperated. While havin' a small pause to drink a beer on stage, the forementioned metalhead asked himself loudly if this was what they had to do now: waitin' at us drinkin' a beer. "If we have to wait for you ...", I replied. He immediately went to the bar and ordered for us three pints in 50 cl glasses. Well that's an attitude ! It tasted so good in that big glass that I drunk halflitre-pints for the rest of the evenin'. After three quarters we finished our gig and were quite content.

The gig of The Thirsty Scums 15 minutes later was even better. A few people had already left the pub, but almost completely the rest of them participated, not in the least because a lot of them were Ramones-fans. What a difference with the Lendelede-gig ! One of our friends in the crowd announced us the name of his new band: Senomar (which is Ramones spelled backwards). Yeah, it felt good to be on stage, but it was fuckin' hot with these spotlights shinin' on our heads. Once the gig was at its end, we were tired and we were thirsty as hell.

It was a lot of work to pack everythin' in again and the music changed from punk to techno or somethin' like that. We sold some more CD's and drunk a lot of beers, but after some time we were so tired of this music that we asked if it wasn't possible to put something else on the stereo. And they did. They even turned some Dirty Scums- songs and other good stuff. We enjoyed ourselves and the other people a lot and had fun till the early hours in this sociable pub with sympathetic people. Girls to remember: the one with a T-shirt tellin' "I'm not a bitch, I'm the bitch, and for you Miss Bitch !", and the one I danced with, a young nurse but she didn' want to practise things on me. In total we sold a fifteen Dirty Scums-CD's and two Dirty Scums-vinyl albums next to some other stuff. This may seem not that much, but is really not bad at all. When we arrived home and had put all the stuff back in the rehearsal room, we ate some pancakes at 6.30 am before goin' to bed. Drunk rate had been very high this evenin' (tits rate was rather low) and at 2 pm this afternoon I was expected at a Christmas party (which is only an excuse for drinkin' more beers) !

Dirty Pik