Soundchecks, drumsticks & water bottles

25 April 1999 was probably the best day in my life - ever! - because everything went just right! Kula Shaker was coming to Ghent to do the first gig of their European Tour and I was excited about that for about a month before the actual gig. I just hoped that nothing like last time in Brussels would occur. :-) The doors were due to open at 7pm and we left here extremely early to make sure we got a good spot. We arrived there about 4 hours early and we also the only ones there. Feeling slightly silly that we came so early, we sat down by the water and waited a bit. Then we took a quick peek into the venue (the doors were open!) and saw the roadies setting up all the gear. Fabienne and Benny (the two friends that came along to the gig) had to go to the toilet and we just walked into the venue and went there. Nobody said a thing. Then we went outside again and sat down by the water again and all of a sudden, Benny said, 'I just saw somebody with long hair enter the building'. (Benny wasn't a big fan...until last night!) and then we saw Lonz, Pauli and Dodge enter as well, and we were sitting at the wrong place! Bugger.

Some time later, we heard the soundcheck starting and we figured that it would be the band themselves this time so we went into the venue again and nobody told us to go away. There was a very groovy jamsession going on with Lonz, Jay and Pauli and we just stood there and enjoyed it. Then after some time, Paul comes out of the room and headed towards us. We stood there totally bewildered and looking at him with wide eyes. Fabienne was grinning like mad and I just couldn't talk anymore. Paul asked us if we came to listen to the soundcheck and I nodded 'yes'. And then he said that by listening to the soundcheck you can tell a lot more about the band than by listening to the gigs. He said, 'I have heard soundchecks by Placebo and Boyzone (?!) and they were really good.' And nobody said a thing. Me still stunned and Fabienne still grinning. And then Paul said : 'Do you speak English?' :-))) (which made me come alive a bit!) I said, 'yeah! I thought the soundcheck was pretty good so far!'. Then Paul went outside and said that it was a lovely day and I asked him if he minded if we took a picture with him. He said, no, not at all. I said 'I'm a very big fan of you!' (doh! I can still slap myself for saying something that stupid!) And he said, 'aaah, that's so nice!' And I was grabbing for my camera that was stuck in my bag, and I couldn't get it out and I feared that he would get bored and walk away so I decided to make some conversation and I asked him if he knew David Clark and he had to think quite hard and didn't seem to know who I was talking about so I told him, you know he works with Jay's mum, and he said, 'Oh yeah!' after thinking some more. 'you know, he's mad!' I started laughing and I said, 'He's nice...nice but mad!' and Paul said, 'you're very right!' LOL Then we took the picture and he really held us very close. :-)) Then he said that he was off to get something to eat and that we could stay and listen to the soundcheck.

What struck us was that everybody seemed to be hugging each other a lot. Paul was hugging the lights person, then the lights person was hugging another roadie etc. But after some time, we got thrown out by this extremely tall guy from the venue itself (so nothing to do with the band) and we went for something to eat. After eating that shoddy breadroll, we came back and these two girls were standing there and one of them seemed to have a problem with her hair, which made her the butt of our jokes for the rest of the day. She was constantly holding her head with her hands and that and it was really silly to see. We also could still hear the soundcheck going on inside, they played Great Hosannah, Jerry was There, SOS and some other songs.

Just before 7 pm, people seemed to be arriving quickly now and then a bit after 7pm we were let into the venue. After quickly glancing at the t-shirts and seeing that they had a wonderful selection of very lovely t-shirts we ran inside and managed to stand at the front row in between Crispian and Lonz. We were later joined by two press photographers and from what Benny told us, also somebody who was filming the whole thing.

There were again all sorts of people there, from young to old and everybody was cheering and singing and it was a brilliant atmosphere. To be honest, it was in fact the best crowd I have known at any gig! Behind us, there was this really nice man who said some nice words to me after the gig. The support act was Furslide and they were crap. They consisted out of 1 girl who sang and played guitar and then a bassplayer who seemed to have a toiletproblem (when he played he looked as if he had trouble going to the toilet! LOL) and a drummer who acted like Animal from the Muppet show! She broke a guitar string and had trouble hearing (?) her guitar and the sound was just too loud and then Fabienne and I started to laugh and couldn't stop and she noticed and looked very odd. After one song there were already some people booing! They played about 30 min and man, we were glad that was over and done with!

Then they set everything up for THE band and while we were waiting, Erik (the other Belgian on the Kula list) found me (how did you do that with all those people and with me standing on the front row?! hehe) and said hello but we didn't really had the chance to say much. During the preparations on stage, the crowd was constantly chanting 'Kula Shaker, Kula Shaker' and yelling and cheering. Finally, at 9.30 pm they entered!!! I was grabbing the stage like mad and was prepared to be amazed. And man, I was amazed. This was - without a doubt - the best gig I've seen in my whole life. Crispian was wearing his 'mirror shirt' (as worn on CD:UK) showing his bare back (hmm) and his lovely wide grey-white trousers (as worn on Jools Holland) plus his trainers, Jay had some dark clothes on and was wearing glitter make up above and under his eyes, and he was also wearing red converse trainers, Lonz was wearing something dark as well and Pauli was wearing a simple white t-shirt. Crispian was constantly shaking and jumping and going mad!! As did the audience. He said 'merci' a couple of times and did some semi-elvis impressions. He was all in all in terrific shape and looked more wonderful than ever!!! The vitality just oozed from him and everybody had to go along in it. He apologized again for skipping Belgium quite often in the past (we forgive you!) and during the gig he said 'this is the first night of our European Tour!' (YEAH!) 'You may have noticed that we don't really know what we're doing.' He also came to the very front to play his guitar and kneeled down and such. At a certain moment he kneeled down in front of me and stepped on my bag that was lying there (sporting Mina's fabulous badge!), so now that bag is the 'mighty bag'. :-) He also spewed on my hand during singing. <grin> He then kneeled in front of the hairproblem girl and her friend placed her hand on his head and shuffled through his hair, much to his amusement. :-) At the beginning of the gig, he quickly glanced at my self-made Kula t-shirt which was cool!

OK, they started by playing Hey Dude, then Hurry on Sundown ('this is a really old song, ollllld song!'), 303, then 'something from Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts', Great Hosannah which was bloody brilliant!, Mystical Machine Gun, during which he forgot the lyrics of the second part and just sang 'turn it up turn it up!', SOS. Then Grateful When You're Dead / Jerry was There, I'm still Here, Into the Deep (with the Narayana part), Hush, Shower Your Love, Tattva, Hollow Man (Not too sure if these last ones are in the right order) and Smart Dogs. Then they went off, but the people in the venue were totally going mad so they returned pretty quickly. The intro of Radhe Radhe started playing (yay!), they kicked off with Sound of Drums, then Timeworm (so beautiful!), Last Farewell and finally Govinda. I just wanted it to go on forever although from all the dancing and shaking, I became slightly dehydrated. Crispian's voice was just fantastic all night long (maybe to do with the fact that it was the first date of the European tour) After they finished playing, (and Crispian saying 'Au Revoir') they came to shake hands and I got a sweaty handshake from Jay. Benny called Paul over to shake hands and he came immediately! LOL. He smiled at the three of us and went off. Then the setlists and drumsticks were given and the roadie came to us with a drumstick and somebody from behind wanted to snatch it away but the roadie said, 'no! It's for them!'. :-)))) We really had to hang on tight to it because everybody wanted to grab it! In fact, he had given it to Fabienne but she then gave it to me (I'm eternally grateful, dear!) and I walked around with the drumstick and got lots of jealous looks! The nice man behind me asked me if he could touch the stick and was examining it very closely! He then noticed my Krisna scarf and also told me that he thought I did some nice dances during the gig (oh, the embarrassment!) and then told me that Krisna will protect me. I don't know why he told me that, but it was very kind and always nice to know! Went then to buy some t-shirts. Got the light blue skinny one and the black one with a faded Om in the background. Also bought the tourposter.

We quickly drank something and then rushed out to the artist entrance to see if they would come by there. Everybody was just totally high on Kula and totally amazed by it. I don't think anybody was expecting something THIS good. At the entrance, we had to shift places a lot because of the instruments being loaded in the truck and I was standing there with two t-shirts over one arm, my cd and pen in one hand, my poster and drumstick under one arm and my camera in the other hand. After some time, I gasped, 'there they are!'. Crispian was walking very slowly as was the rest of the band and I just gave Benny my camera so he could take pictures while I went to get autographs. I passed Jay and decided to go to Crispian first. I got hold of him pretty quickly and gave him my CD cover of PP&A and he looked at me and asked if I had a pen. I totally melted and said 'yes, here it is'. He was walking very strangely and I thought that he was high already! LOL but then I noticed that he had a water bottle between his legs, above the knee. He was signing my cd (Crispian and Om) and Benny was talking pictures of it and then Crispian asked 'could you remove the water bottle from between my legs, please?'. I didn't realise that he was talking to the roadie next to him and quickly grabbed the bottle from between his legs! LOL. He looked at me and started laughing and then I realised it and also started laughing and the roadie just laughed as well. :-)) Then he kept on signing stuff with my pen and I kept on standing next to him because I wanted my pen back. After some time he asked who's pen it was again, and I said, Mine!!!! He then gave it back with a lovely smile and went into the bus. That pen is very very sticky now and is now called 'the mighty pen'. :-) I have to say that when you stand next to Crispian, he's in fact taller than you would think judging by the way he looks on stage. He's not that short after all! Fabienne yelled that Paul was still out of the bus, so I ran over to him and asked for his autograph as well. And then they were gone. Benny asked me what the hell I was doing with my hands between Crispian legs and I told him what happened and we couldn't stop laughing. He said that he didn't even dare to take a picture of that! hahahaha.

me grinning stupidly ;-)

(Crispian signing my cd during the water bottle incident)

I still can't believe that all that happened to us yesterday and I'm still quite shakey and stunned. But one thing is certain, those guys are probably (no, certainly!) the kindest people around and are also just fantastic live. Crispian is the best and loveliest guitarist in the world and Paul the kindest drummer. Oh yes, Crispian has really nice legs! LOL.

Keep on watching the skies, my friends!

Lonz signing for a woman I don't know & Pauli signing my CD cover

If you don't believe it was that good, have a look at what the papers said about the gig...