In 1979, a decrepit ex-sugar-refinery stood tall, dark and proud in a scruffy street called Rue de Manchester in the run-down district of Molenbeek-St-Jean (or St-Jans-Molenbeek for our Flemish readers), situated to the West of the ‘centrum’ of the ever-present urbane compromise of dual-language that is ‘Brussels’.
The old sugar factory had a makeshift arts and new-wave club within it. Artists, audio and visual, peddled their wares within its dank, damp and dingy walls. Musical performers, such as Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, William S. Burroughs and The Names all graced the stage, either side of Christmas 1979, peering up through the holes in the ceiling, wondering who/what was looking down on them (as well as up at them).
In 2009, a smartly renovated ex-sugar refinery stands tall, less dark and still proud in a desolate and rather scruffy street called Rue De Manchester. Tonight, for a very special night (December 12th 2009), one of those bands surviving from three decades ago started the proceedings as part of a bill associated with the Factory myth, Manchester and Factory Benelux / Les Disques Du Crepuscule, Bruxelles. Now there are no more holes – just huge cracks in the lighting system.........
I swear I saw a few punters get all dew-eyed during the rest of the set – non-album rarity ‘Uniform’ and potential chart-botherer ‘Talk About The Past’ being the main culprits, but the real winners this evening by a country mile were ‘Here Comes Everybody’, all moody and brooding yet subtle and softly sung by lead-singer Caesar, and the gorgeous dub-dusted single ‘Something Outside’. John Peel used to cane this on his show and it’s not hard to see why. A true landmark release. ‘The Sands’ closed the set triumphantly and hinted at new material to come.
Surprise of the night for me was Biting Tongues. I am only familiar with their Factory catalogue (not sure they actually played any of it though) – tunes like ‘Compressor’ and ‘Troublehand’ formed part of my 1985/6 soundtrack. Tonight they were damn dirty. Think Blurt. Think Cabaret Voltaire (circa ‘Sluggin Fer Jesus’ to ‘2 x 45’). Think Liquid Liquid. Think Talking Heads. It was all here in lesser or greater measures with loads of funk-flavoured sprinkles.
It’s cold.
It’s very cold.
It’s minus 3 degrees outside and it’s 20.15.
By now, La Raffinerie should be heaving with people. Instead it’s heaving with stress and icy breaths – and a lot of head-scratching from technicians. Basically, the lights are not playing ball. They’re not flashing either. Merde! Finally, after much tinkering around and shrugs from the engineers (and artists), they flicker into life, technical hitch finally over. 75 minutes late. In Britain, the place would have been trashed. In Belgium, the doors open, people stream in and a long wait is forgiven (after beer and merchandise of course). Oh yes, for ale-facticians, the beer of choice was Troll. I was prepared to get ‘Trollied’.
The Names took to the stage on a mission. Initially not chosen for tonight’s extravaganza (they played at the last Factory night in 2007), they elected to broaden their sound with the strength of strings in order to win over the onlookers. It worked. They also won over the eager (and thawing) music fans with a superb warm-up (no irony intended) slot that boasted a brand new song, one forgotten song and five crowd favourites.
‘Burn’ sizzled and soon the crowd was cheering. ‘Shanghai Gesture’ (from 1982’s ‘Swimming’ album) was delivered with a confident swagger but the highlight of the set, no question, was the radical overhaul of glum-drum album track, ‘White Shadow’. This is usually an archetypal ‘wet raincoat, bleak Monday’ song – tonight it became a ‘hot pants, sexy Saturday night’ anthem. Here, the strings-trio sparkled and the audience nodded their still-thawing heads with approval – ‘Cold-wave’, they call it over here.
The faithful Hannett-glazed ‘Nightshift’ single weaved its usual hope-filled charm, as does the propulsive ‘Calcutta’ single. Impressive new song, ‘Nature Of The Beast’, had a rock n roll shimmer to it – Michel Sordinia wrapping himself around the mike-stand like a coiled viper, spitting out the words in an intense, manner, with Marc Deprez opting for concentrated bouts of guitar bursts. It’s a good song. As is the lowly and forlorn ballad, ‘The Astronaut’, an under-rated and unassuming little treasure that rounded off their all-too-short set as an eagerly shouted-for encore. Excellent start.
It’s been a bloody long time since The Wake stood in the same place whilst playing instruments – twenty years or thereabouts. So you could forgive them for looking just a little nervous prior to striking up the short, sharp vignette, ‘Testament’. Oh it’s good to hear this again – taken from the debut mini-album ‘Harmony’, it’s always been a favourite of mine and proved to be a great set opener.I swear I saw a few punters get all dew-eyed during the rest of the set – non-album rarity ‘Uniform’ and potential chart-botherer ‘Talk About The Past’ being the main culprits, but the real winners this evening by a country mile were ‘Here Comes Everybody’, all moody and brooding yet subtle and softly sung by lead-singer Caesar, and the gorgeous dub-dusted single ‘Something Outside’. John Peel used to cane this on his show and it’s not hard to see why. A true landmark release. ‘The Sands’ closed the set triumphantly and hinted at new material to come.
Surprise of the night for me was Biting Tongues. I am only familiar with their Factory catalogue (not sure they actually played any of it though) – tunes like ‘Compressor’ and ‘Troublehand’ formed part of my 1985/6 soundtrack. Tonight they were damn dirty. Think Blurt. Think Cabaret Voltaire (circa ‘Sluggin Fer Jesus’ to ‘2 x 45’). Think Liquid Liquid. Think Talking Heads. It was all here in lesser or greater measures with loads of funk-flavoured sprinkles.
Biting Tongues are another band that hasn’t frequented the stage much in the past 20 years (save for an Islington Mill gig in Salford in 2007) but they have previously been a part of UK dance culture. Graham Massey went on to form 808 State, one of the most important bands during the Rave scene back in the early 90’s and an adversary of Chicago acid-house sounds during later BT and earlier 808 material. Tonight, I became rather enamoured with their itchy punk-funk and neck-nodding rhythms after two numbers and two more Trolls. Check out their ‘After The Click’ best-of.
Section 25 delivered one of my favourite 5 albums of the year and didn’t disappoint - they were loud tonight. Distortion started to kick in. However the newer songs, ‘Remembrance’, ‘Singularity’ and ‘Mirror’ were resplendent in their delivery and had me wondering why S25 didn’t commercially crack it 20 years ago. Well, apart from a few obvious reasons. Punchy tech-electro anthem ‘Looking From A Hilltop’ triumphed, ‘Wretch’ was a right little runt (as its name suggests), ‘Friendly Fires’ sounded fidgety and desolate and ‘Dirty Disco’ was an insistent, restless little shuffle as per usual. But the biggies for me were ‘Haunted’, a track from the Factory Benelux heyday, and 'Up To You' from their debut 12" 'Girls Don't Count'.
Although the sound wavered a little in places, most notably when new family recruit Bethany was cued up to sing, S25 justified second billing with their usual intense performance and minimal movement. You really should get the recent ‘Nature & Degree’ album. It’s a bit tasty.
All good things have to come to an end and A Certain Ratio were many more levels than just ‘good’. They were just awesome this evening. Kicking off with a medley of ‘Choir’/’Waterline’ and ‘Do The Du’, I peered over my shoulder to see a few people losing control of their lower limbs and upper muscles. Y’see, ACR do make your balls itch and your lady bits quiver – and they mean to. New songs ‘Mind Made Up’ and ‘I Feel Light’ prove that other classic Ratio pleasers such as ‘Shack Up’ and ‘Flight’, are not mere flukes.
Thirty years these guys have been playing music, yet still have to tolerate audiences of 200. Tonight though, their fans were ready to offer them beer, gear and a bed judging by the response to ‘Knife Slits Water. Donald Johnson doubled up as bassist, giving it a good old slap and giving the whole track a hazy funk.
A cover of Joy Division’s ‘Heart And Soul’ went down well as did ‘Wild Party’, spurred on by Tony Quigley’s resonating sax. – it’s hard to believe that this track is 25 years old and even harder to believe no bastard bought it when released in 1985.
The encore was provided by the ever-popular ‘Shack Up’. To out-funk the original disco-classic by Banberra is no mean feat but ACR did it tonight. Chatting briefly to Jez, Donald and Martin afterwards, I got the impression they were chuffed with the show. The cracking new album ‘Mind Made Up’ will be promoted by a forthcoming date in Brighton for a charity gig on March 7th 2010. And as homage to Martin Moscrop's request on the night, I am not going to mention ‘spiky guitars’, ‘precision drumming’ or ‘ankle-deep bass-lines’ in this review.
Even though I just have.
The party continued into the night with several DJs ‘doing the do’– I know one or two didn’t get back to their hotels until 4am – after all, this is Belgium. A place where things take a bit more time. And a LOT of beer.....
Originally published on the PKRP Wordpress site on Jan 10th 2010 (now defunct)