Busy

It's been a busy week.

Last thursday Loney, Dear played in Utrecht. His performance suffered from the same thing as the the last one I saw; the supporting act was better. First time Patrick Watson opened for him and left me pretty breathless (I hadn't heard of him then), this time Neonbelle opened for them and again they proved to be quite talented.

Then it was time for STRP on friday. STRP is a festival where technology and art meet. Which meant there were different installations (a lot of interactive videogames and light installations) and some music shows in the evening and DJ-sets all through the night. Unfortunately I was only able to see Apparat & Band and Roisin Murphy play (had to miss Soulwax, Modeselektor and Goose among others).
I wasn't all that impressed with Apparat who started a bit...lackluster in my opinion. Apparently it was a subtly built set and it got a lot better, however by that time I was gone to see Roisin Murphy. Roisin presented herself as a more intelligent version of Kylie or Madonna even. Highlights were of course 'Movie Star' but there also was a song from her previous record (I assume) that was very trance-inducing and 'Dear Miami' and 'Primitive' worked rather well live.

Sunday iLiKETRAiNS ended my busy weekend. I was surprised to see they were a lot younger than I had imagined since the singer has a very low voice I associate with people like Nick Cave or Lou Reed. They played their set well but played only two songs from their EP Progress/Reform which is a lot better than their current cd which features two many bleh songs and isn't produced very well. The visuals were nice though; a projected chessmatch to the drum of 'a Rook House For Bobby' and a very psychedelic everchanging rorscharchtest.

Next up: The National


Entire EP! Neonbelle - In a Cabin With... (free download)

Roisin Murphy - Primitive (mp3)

iLiKETRAiNS - A Rook House For Bobby (myspace)