Born To Run...And Run

By Tom Pinder

Clad in black shirt and jeans, guitar slung over his shoulder, Bruce Springsteen works the crowd like a presidential candidate, reaching down from the stage, shaking hands, addressing members of the audience directly, smiling at everyone he can make eye contact with.

When he reaches over into the crowd to personally hand a guitar pick to a small boy sitting on his father's shoulders, there could be no better front-page moment. The boy's face, caught in close up on the giant screens at each side of the stage, is a picture of disbelief - this is clearly the most amazing gift he's ever received.

Springsteen is a master of public relations, and visibly loves being surrounded by his adoring public. If Barack Obama still needs a running mate for the Democratic ticket, he could do a lot worse than the bard of New Jersey. By naming his latest album Magic, Springsteen could not have made a more appropriate choice.

For an artist with such an admirable back catalogue, the tracks showcased from 'Magic' sound remarkably fresh and urgent. Springsteen would never settle for trading on past glories. His message is loud and clear and delivered in his trademark righteous roar. 'Radio Nowhere' laments not only the decline of American radio, but also the lost soul of the nation. 'Livin' in the Future' attacks the erosion of civil liberties in the US. The title track is an even stronger condemnation of the direction his homeland is headed: "There's bodies hangin' in the trees / This is what will be."

Springsteen is too much of a showman to let the mood dampen, however. This is an E Street Band concert - which means there's going to be a party. He marches around the stage, grabbing cardboard request signs from the crowd - let's play that one, and that one, and yeah, let's do that - which adds to the pep rally atmosphere. He's having a great time, all the band are, and he hardly stops grinning, whether he's addressing his congregation or sharing his mic with Little Steven.

"The E Street Band: always ready...most of the time," he quips when waiting for a guitar to be plugged in. Then it's off again, rocking out with 'Spirit in the Night' or 'Because the Night' or 'Mary's Place'. The arena loses focus until it's just a Jersey bar-room. Even from up on high on his stage, Springsteen still manages to be a man of the people. He may have everyone under his spell, but this is one deity you could have a beer with after praying.

After an encore pause that could only be described as rapturous, Bruce is back, bellowing out 'Born to Run', 'Thunder Road' and 'Glory Days'. Any satellites up there must be picking this up - it's impossible not to. Springsteen turns down the volume but not the energy on final song 'American Land', a fiddle-driven roots song from his Seeger Sessions CD. Both a celebration of the working man and a denouncement of the American Dream, it showcases the true magic of Springsteen: even when he's debunking myth, he's still busy building his own.

Bruce Springsteen played Antwerp Sportpaleis

Live And Not-So Dangerous

Tom Pinder checks out The Teenagers

If there ever was a band who personified the new way of making and marketing music, that band is The Teenagers. Not for these three Parisians the traditional apprenticeship of rehearsing for years in a garage and touring incessantly in the hope of being spotted by a major label talent scout. The Teenagers went down the MySpace route - and 70,000 friends and 200,000-plus plays (per song) later, they were being hailed as one of the bands to watch for 2008. They were even signed without ever playing a gig.

Frontman Quentin Delafon has boasted in interviews that the band has never had to really rehearse - and that may go some way to explaining why their live performance is so disappointing. They rattle through their chaotic set in little over half-an-hour and, despite the intimate setting of the Botanique's Rotonde, the band manages to seem distant.

Delafon, guitarist Dorian Dumont and bassist Michael Szpiner are joined by a drummer and keyboard player, but rounding the band out to a five-piece adds little substance to the sound. Whether they are victims of a shoddy PA or whether they are just too cool to care, The Teenagers, tonight a least, never come close to matching the heights they reach on their debut album Reality Check.

A large part of their appeal comes from their clever character-driven lyrics, commentaries on an adolescent life that is partly imagined and partly lifted from SoCal teen dramas and Bret Easton Ellis novels. Delafon delivers these stories in spoken, accented English, breaking into outright song only on the choruses. With much of his vocals indistinguishable, the humour and the fun of The Teenagers are lost.

The crowd swarms the stage for Homecoming, grasping frantically at the chance to take part in a mass singalong of a chorus that just happens to feature the English language's two most offensive words in one simple sentence. An explicit and perverted update of Grease's Summer Nights, Homecoming has made The Teenagers' name notorious in some circles and certainly serves to avoid any confusion with Frankie Lymon's Fifties crooners. While it may still be love at first sight for the cheerleader in this song, her male counterpart is under no such PC delusions, and is quick to get what he wants. "On day 2 I fucked her and it was wild. She's such a slut."

Lyrics like this have led to accusations of misogyny, but such narrow-minded reactions are missing the point. In fact, on final song Sunset Beach, the tables are turned. Guy picks up girl at a party, sneers inwardly at her inane conversation while salivating over her body, takes her home, then kicks her out after sex (by asking 'Do you want to have a shower before you leave?'). As he passes out drunk, she gets her revenge by stealing his cocktail shaker and electric guitar. So the last laugh of the evening goes to the girl. Unfortunately however, with the majority of these lyrics buried beneath the band's bouncy synth pop, any such subtleties seem a long way away.

Soko It To Me, Baby

By Tom Pinder

First to take the stage is New Yorker Jeffrey Lewis, backed by his band The Jitters. Lewis has been knocking around the anti-folk scene for a while, quietly gaining attention for his smart, wordy lyrics and lo-fi style.

His last album though, 12 Crass Songs, got him a whole lot more attention, with a host of music magazines including it in their 'best of 2007' lists. Faithful to its title, the album features Lewis's reworkings of 12 songs by eighties anarchist punks Crass - and it makes up much of his set tonight.

He opens with Do They Owe Us A Living?, where keyboard player and girlfriend Helen Schreiner chips in on vocals and runs through underground classics such as banned From The Roxy and I Ain't Thick, It's Just A Trick. In Lewis's hands, the anarchist anthems take on a rambling storytelling quality that manages to enhance rather than diminish the impact of the lyrical content.

Songs like Big A, Little A with its 1984-influenced lyrics have not lost their relevance over time. A commentary on Thatcherite England, it works equally well in the days of George Bush's Patriot Act: "From God to local bobby, in home and street and school, they've got your name and number while you've just got their rule."

A cartoonist as well as a musician, Lewis has drawn comic strips to illustrate some of his self-penned songs. He treats the crowd to one such strip, accompanied by an a capella rendition of a ditty about a severed hand and a schoolbus full of nuns. All in a day's work for Lewis.

Next up is Soko, or to give her her full name, Stéphanie Sokolinski. The French 22-year-old is already a sensation - with hits on her My Space site in their hundreds of thousands and a number one song in Denmark to her name - and she is still yet to release a record.

Accompanied by a plastic lamp in the shape of a cat and a guitarist named Jim, Soko strums sweetly on her ukulele and launches into her breakthrough tune, I'll Kill Her. Like all her material, it's in English and, like all her material is one part alluringly sensual and one part off the rails. A gentle song of regret at being jilted, its chorus suddenly reveals the lengths to which she will go to atone for her loss. When the crowd laughs at one of the funnier lyrics, Soko is caught out and starts laughing herself, losing her place, her voice cracking for the rest of the song. It adds to the informality of the performance; Soko talks continually, breathlessly between songs, fidgets around the stage from drums to ukulele to keyboard, and - given the personal, intimate nature of her songs - it's almost like she's playing to a few friends in her apartment.

She can switch from coquettishness to rage in a blink and has the audience completely in her power. She shares her likes and dislikes, her relationships and her problems and makes you feel completely at ease, even when she is doing her utmost to shock. If her naïveté is beguiling then her confidence is mind-blowing. One minute she is a seductive Amélie Poulain, the next a raging maelstrom of a Björk. Her final song, I Will Never Love You More is a childlike list of her favourite things, coupled with an assertion of her independence and the realisation of her own power.

Headliner Adam Green, another New Yorker, is definitely up for a party. From the evidence, it looks like it started several hours before he took the stage. Although he stumbles around the stage, knocking over his mike-stand on countless occasions, it must take a lot more than simple inebriation to keep Green from putting in a top performance. His speech may be slurred, he may ramble between songs, he may even sway from loving the crowd to telling them to fuck off, but his vocals are flawless. He is clearly in the zone.

Bounding around in a tasselled jumper, striking poses best described as interesting, Green the entertainer is like an indie Elvis auditioning for Saturday Night Fever. With a voice so rich it must surely be bad for you, he belts out song after song of surreal lyrics and infectious melodies. The influences range from rock 'n' roll to jazz to swing to glam and everywhere in between.

As a show it's like Meatloaf, without the extra pounds and the motorbikes. Green's crooning is complemented perfectly by the big vocals of his backing singers and the varying instrumentation of his band.

His songs burst with imagery and bizarre rhymes that are audacious enough to take your breath away. The music is barely enough to contain his ideas; the stage is barely enough to contain him.

Little Miss Uninspiring

By Tom Pinder

Devotchka have been getting a lot of good press since they wrote the soundtrack for Little Miss SUNSHINE, Jonathan Dayton's Academy Award-winning movie about a dysfunctional family on their way to a children's beauty pageant. This reviewer for one thought it was a fantastic movie, so when I saw that Devotchka were coming to Brussels, I had to go along and pay my respects. It was only when I got to the AB that I found I had no recollection of the soundtrack. I could remember scenes from the film vividly, but the music? I couldn't have told you a thing about it. Little did I realise I was falling into a trap, assuming that just because I enjoyed the film I would be similarly inspired by the band who scored it.

Can you imagine a Kevin Costner fan snapping up tickets for a Bryan Adams concert circa 1991 and waiting breathlessly for the moment when the piano chords of Everything I Do would ring out and their hero would emerge in his Robin Hood costume and shoot some arrows into conveniently placed tree trunks? Such dreams are made to be shattered.

And so it was with Devotchka. Although their mix of indie rock, country, Eastern European folk and mariachi should have been a winner, there was something lacking. A band combining all these styles (and playing accordion, fiddle, tuba, upright bass, guitar and theremin) should not have to work too hard to keep your interest. But somehow they fail, plodding on and on, never rising to the heights I had projected on them.

Pace changes are few and far between, with the majority of songs melting into one long gothic dirge. Nick Urata's voice certainly has a gypsy waver to it, but too often it comes across as a Chris Martin-like whine. In fact, the only memorable moment is the first time Jeanie Schroder emerges with her tuba, its bowl garnished with paper flowers and fairylights. By the end of the show, it's just part of the scenery. And writing this now, I can still picture scenes from the movie. But the music? Completely forgotten it.

Devotchka played Ancienne Belgique.

Guns n Poses

By Tom Pinder

Velvet Revolver take the stage with all the confidence expected of a rock supergroup: almost half an hour after their scheduled appearance time, leaving the lights dimmed for almost five minutes while NWA's 'Straight Outta Compton' booms out and the band members gradually emerge one by one. The tension in the room is so thick by this point that it's getting difficult to breathe, and by the time Slash's unmistakeable silhouette looms out of the dry ice, we're all almost suffocating in a cloud of young male testosterone.

Their casual entrance sets the tone. The whole evening feels strangely detached, as if the band is playing behind a giant pane of glass. When they throw plectrums and drumsticks towards the crowd at the end, you could be forgiven for expecting them to bounce right back. Communication with the audience is minimal.

The set is five-songs old before Scott Weiland announces that they are Velvet Revolver and they play rock 'n' roll. While undoubtedly true, it does little to set the pulse racing. Were it not for his wonderful voice (and his recording history with Stone Temple Pilots) it would be easy to dismiss Weiland as just another Hollywood-scenester clad in tight black leather blouson and skinny jeans, with large sunglasses, taut, tanned face and perfect hair. He takes off his sunglasses and removes his jacket to reveal an expensive- looking, striped golf jumper. When he picks up a megaphone and sings a few lines, it could be to save him the effort of raising his voice.

Even if he wasn't standing next to Weiland, Duff McKagan, with his trucker cap, sleeveless leather jerkin, tattooed arms and frizzy hair would look like he should be begging for change in a Greyhound station. The ex Guns n Roses bass player was one of the last people to see Kurt Cobain alive, when he sat next to him on a flight back to Seattle when they both skipped rehab. Tonight he's constantly climbing on top of his guitar monitor to look out over the room, like a dog raising itself on its front legs so it can see out of the back window of a car.

Judging by how spaced McKagan sounded in the BBC documentary on the last 48 hours of Cobain's life, perhaps he's checking to see if the crowd are still there.

In contrast to McKagan, Slash - dressed in his GnR outfit of top hat, sunglasses, cigarette and mass of hair - stays at the back of the stage. The first time he strays out of the shadows he is caught, seemingly unwittingly in the spotlight, hunched over his guitar like a vampire backing away from a crucifix only to be vaporised by a sunbeam breaking through the dusty curtains behind him. Every time he comes forward, he is hidden by the mobile phones that shoot up from all over the crowd. The constant chewing of drummer Matt Sorum, who completes the trio of ex GnR men, adds to the languid nature of the show. Coupled with his gum, Sorum's baseball cap gives him the look of a high school sports coach. Though parents would no doubt be displeased if they turned up to collect Junior from baseball practice and saw coach wearing a cap emblazoned 'FUCK'.

Halfway through the set, Velvet Revolver treat the crowd to some tunes from their past lives, Weiland singing Pilots' classics Vaseline and Interstate Love Song. By now the next stage of his disrobing is complete - the jumper has been thrown away to reveal a sharp black shirt and tie. Then comes the moment the room has been waiting for. McKagan picks up an acoustic guitar, Slash wields a double-headed axe and Weiland whistles the intro to GnR ballad 'Patience'. Put a bandana on him and he could be Axl.

After the applause dies down, Weiland remarks that it's cool to see so many fans in the room. As opposed to the casual observers who must wander in to their rest of their gigs, obviously.

The band show just what a well-oiled rock machine they are on Fall to Pieces when Slash comes to the front, the mobile phones shoot up, and he treats us to a five-minute guitar solo masterclass. The testosterone cloud becomes a fog. Weiland stands back, out of the spotlight, shirt open all the way, tie loose.

When the band come out for the encore, Slash too has lost his shirt, which means that more of his chest is on display than his face. As a rendition of Stone Temple Pilot's breakthrough hit 'Sex Type Thing' fades into Velvet Revolver's breakthrough hit 'Slither', McKagan climbs up on his monitor. The crowd are still there. Weiland does his megaphone thing again. Coach Sorum keeps on chewing.

Velvet Revolver played Ancienne Belgique

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