Patrick Wolf live @ Botanique (Rotunda)

Three stars for revelation Rowdy Superst*r and one for Patrick Wolf, who despite more than decent execution, stayed far below the standards we have come to expect from him. That's the conclusion of a fairly disappointing performance by one of music's brightest stars.

Rowdy Superst*r

Warming up for Patrick Wolf was electro-rapper Rowdy Superst*r. In all honesty, I had never heard of him nor did I not have high expectations. I was wrong to be sceptic. Rowdy Superst*r turned out to be somewhat of a revelation. Think a flamboyant mix of Spank Rock, Dizzee Rascal and Nicki Minaj and put the sum of those pople in gold sequined trainers. Flanked by two amazing female dancers he brought a show bursting with energy and eccentricity. Rowdy is a stylist - check out Cocknbullkid's video for 'Hold On To Your Misery' - and that showed during his show. It didn't take more than a couple of construction lights, two silver bazooka-like objects and a whole lot of sparkle to lift his performance up from the otherwise pretty depressing vibe hanging over the Rotunde. Not even technical difficulty could get in the way  of things - as both Rowdy and his dancers showed impeccable improvisation skills. And to top it all off, the songs were not bad at all. Ladies and gentlemen, a st*r is born.

Patrick Wolf

The last time I saw Patrick Wolf was in the fall of 2009. It was at the end of his European tour for The Bachelor and a couple of months after his Pukkelpop passage (my first PW live experience). It had been an exhausting tour, his blonde extensions looked a mess, but it didn't withold him from giving his all for the final performance on the continent. The one thing I remembered most though from that show was Wolf's genuine sadness when he couldn't play a second round of encores because he and his band had to catch the ferry back to the UK. It was epitomizing for the man's unstoppable passion, which together with his talents as a singer-songwriter and instrumentalist, make him one of the few artists that truly stand out.

At his return on Friday Wolf had reason to be joyful. His new album Lupercalia is set to drop in May and in addition to that the singer got engaged to his long-term boyfriend. Yet on stage, Patrick Wolf - dressed in a burgundy suit - seemed like a shadow of the exuberant optimist I saw over a year ago. For some reason Wolf didn't to be having the best time and evidently that had its toll on the show. The same went for his band, which looked equally distant throughout. The gitarist and keyboardplayer did their best to establish some sort of connection, but the two female instrumentalists, in charge of additional violin, piano and the necessary horn sections failed to produce a single smile and seemed to waver between being overly focussed and total disconnect.

Despite a constant quality and flawless execution, the performance – apart from having no lows - had no real highs either. The songs were sung the way they should have been, all instruments were played live, but as a whole the performance lacked in persuasiveness. Apart from an occasional 'Thank you' and two rehearsed addressals - he inserted the passages 'belgian boys' and 'Brussels' into two songs -  Wolf seemed absent and somewhat disconnected. He seemed to rush through his set, without ever truly throwing his full weight in the balance. The few up-tempo songs lacked their usual joyful exuberance while the slow songs more often than not sounded dragging, rather than emotional. The show ended pretty abruptly and without any real climax. After that Wolf returned for one – seemingly cumbersome – encore, preluded by a messy sample of ‘Hard Times’ and that was it. Afterwards the stage lights started flickering again in a final attempt to get the crowd rowed up, but it seemed that the artist had already left the building. 

At that point you can’t help feeling a little disappointed. Maybe it was the venue. With its capacity to hold some 400 people, the Rotunda is far too small to host Patrick Wolf in all his grandeur. An option would have been to go for an intimate session, preferably acoustic, but even then it is hard to grasp why this event was scheduled for the Botanique’s smallest room. A man of his stature deserves better. And maybe he just had an off-day. One consolation though: the new songs sounded interesting, giving a hopeful impression of the upcoming album. So let’s just keep it at a one-off mishit and add that even when he stays well under his own full potential, Patrick Wolf still sticks out above average purely based on talent.

Robyn live @ Ancienne Belgique (10/03)

Robin Miriam Carlsson, perhaps better known as just Robyn, has steadily earned herself a place at the top of the pop firmament over the past seventeen (17!) years. Last year she released the amazing Body Talk series, including two mini-albums and a compilation. And last Thursday she performed in the Ancienne Belgique, proving once again that she is one of the top performers in the business.

She definately didn't miss her entrance. Four men in white entered the stage and manned their intruments (synth, drum, drum, synth) while a voice started introducing Konichiwa headquarters' 'pint-sized atombomb'  (a reference to the intro of her 2005 album Robyn). The lights started flashing , the keys started to build up and under an earsplitting haze of light and sound, Robyn jumped on stage, ready take the audience with her on an electropop roller coaster. Because if anything, she was determined to get everybody in motion. Dancefloor gems like 'Be Mine', 'Indestructible' and 'Fembot' were fired of at a furious pace, while Robyn flew across the stage, jumping and spinning around franticly. But, without ever sacrificing any of her vocal quality. Where Hurts threw a dozen roses into the crowd during their gig one week earlier, Robyn shared the peel of the banana she ate after that first round of adrenaline-pop. Not that there was much time to catch our breath.

By the time she pulled out 'Dancing On My Own' (suprisingly early), she had the whole crowd with her. It was only one of many memorable moments during the show, as Robyn disposes of a wide range of simply irresistible sing-and-dance-along pop songs, which effortlessly surpass the pop-uniformity we get jammed down our throates on a daily basis. There was not a dull moment during the whole set, and Robyn seemed unexhaustible the way she kept bursting with energy the whole time. And that energy inevitably reflected on the audience, which yelled along on indestructible tracks like 'Stars 4-Ever', 'Time Machine' and 'Love Kills'. Her Royksopp duet 'The Girl and the Robot' couldn't be left out of course and Snoop Dogg collaboration 'You Should Better' was saved for the end, in a refreshing, slowed-down version.

All of that left us wanting more, so Robyn returned for a first round of encores in which she played 'Hang With Me', the incredibly chilled 'Dancehall Queen' and her breakthrough hit 'With Every Heartbeat'. Subsequently she left the stage again and was yelled back on stage for another round. And for those who figured it was too late to dance, she pulled out an exhaulted version of 'Konichiwa Bitches' out of her hat. And with an accoustic 'Show Me Love' she concluded. With a staggering 90-minute performance Robyn established herself once again as one of the greatest pop stars of the decade. When your feet, your hands and your throat are soar afterwards, you know you've gotten your money's worth.

Hurts live @ Ancienne Belgique

Harvey Quinnt

Clare Maguire was supposed to support Hurts in Brussels, but circumstances forced her to cancell a few weeks prior to the concert. Antwerp-based band Harvey Quinnt substituted for her and quite frankly, it didn't work for me. And that's not them, it's me. Although in a way it was them. In the way that they are simply not Clare Maguire. Brave effort though.

Hurts

Fishing in the same new-wave pond many consider to have been emptied by bands like Editors, Manchester-based band Hurts received mostly mixed reviews for their 2010 debut Happiness. But while musical taste will always be debatable and taking in account that the band consistently walks the fine line between heartfelt and overly pathetic, few could deny that singer Theo Hutchcraft and synth player Adam Anderson dispose of a perfectly stylized act and an arsenal of well-crafted songs. The question that remained to be answered then, was whether their flawlessly constructed concept and enigmatic presence would resound in front of a live audience. Because even the best construction will flatline when there's no connection.

The show began with an impressive audiovisual intro, during which the band formally entered the stage, opening with 'Unspoken'. Hutchcraft's twitching hand gestures looked somewhat exagerated, but other than that his vocals were up to standards. After that Hurts pulled out the big guns with album opener 'Silver Lining' and 'Wonderful Life', their biggest hit to date. 'Evelyn' and 'Sunday' marked the loud moment in the set, expressed by Hutchcraft dramatically wielding his microphone stand around. All impressively streamlined and of course that slightly killed off the spontaneity of the show. Not a single unneeded word, every outburst feeling a bit rehearsed. Sometimes Hurts got a bit lost in their self-imposed theatrics, with the bouquet of white roses thrown into the audience one rose at a time as somewhat of a pinnacle. One of the highlights of the show was nonetheless their Kylie duet 'Devotion', followed by their own cover version of Minogue's 'Confide In Me', a more subdued pair of songs. It was at these moments that you could spot the sincerity behind the orchestration. After the swelling duo 'Stay' and 'Illuminated' the lead duo left the stage, as there band stayed on, remaining there frozen until Hutchcraft and Anderson deemed it time to return (and they took their sweet time) for one encore: 'Better Than Love'. End of a flawlessly executed set without a single weak moment. Nothing unexpected either, but quality-wise there was not much to be critisized.

The main default was maybe the interaction with the audience (or the lack of it), which throughout the concert rarely surpassed a modest 'thanks very much' from Hutchcraft. Meanwhile Anderson ceremoniously accompanied him behind his piano with the air of a classical composer. Seriously, you have enigmatic and then you have enigmatic for the sake of being enigmatic. And at times it felt as if appearance was more important than connecting with the audience. That could mean two things. One, that Hurts is a pair of pretentious snobs, whose heavily new-wave inspired, almost sacral concept doesn't allow for interaction. Or, it could be growing pains that will eventually wear off as they evolve, letting loose a little their rigid and sometimes slightly pompous gestures. Their show lead on to believe that it's most likely to be the second option.

Sleigh Bells live @ Ancienne Belgique

Deathcrush

Support act was the Norwegian noise rock trio Deathcrush. Their homeland media already labeled them as 'filthy nowave for dirty sluts and horny bastards'. And sure enough, during the first song the blonde lead singer crashed into the crowd, randomly throwing herself at people, oblivious to the fact that both the timing and the ambience were keeping her from getting away with that. After a benefit-of-the-doubt start their performance bogged down in a haze of noise (not necessarilly the good kind) and store-bought smoke, to the point they actually vanished - quite a trick to perform in a room as small as the AB Club. The threesome concluded a fairly conventional show with a blast and that was once again to be taken literally as the blonde one threw herself at the crowd again. I guess it's rock'n roll and all, but I can't help but feel that it would gain some credibilty in a setting that was actually waiting for something like that. All in all Deathcrush failed to really connect with the audience (despite colliding with it). Their music is about as subtle as their name leads on to believe and their act lacks maturity. A supplementary half star though because the unintentional comic relief during their act made me smile.

Sleigh Bells

Sleigh Bells is Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss, who met by concidence when Miller was looking for a female vocalist for his new musical project. The two hit it off and the new band was born. Their 2010 debut Treats - produced by M.I.A. on whose N.E.E.T. label they were signed - made it to many a year-end-list (including my own) and their roaring noise pop with electronic and metal influences earned them a spot as one of last years hottest newcomers. As was to be expected the Brooklyn-based duo took a roaring start with 'Infinity Guitars', their second single. 'Kids' and 'Tell 'Em' continued the inferno of pop, raw guitars and electronics. In short Sleigh Bells reduces noise pop to its pure essence: noise and pop. That analysis might sound as profound as it does retarted, but it's the simple truth. With 'Rill Till' the band paused for a minute, but the song fell short of being a fullgrown cool-off song since it was basically just Krauss singing to the backtrack. It was the only soar spot in their live performance and a small one at that, because everything else was right on the mark: Krauss was in great shape, silent force Miller pushed his guitar to the limit and the energy of the show was amazing. Grand finale - of course - was 'Crown On The Ground', one of their best songs and a veritable musical cluster bomb of a track. An earsplitting conclusion to a 35-minute live show, followed by zero encores. Sleigh Bells treated us to a short, but intense live rendition of their debut album. No more, no less.