...I had no choice but to book myself a pair of tickets to Brugge to see Bettie Serveert. I can never thank enough my good friend Mikolavic who agreed to come with me, even though, as he joked, he would have never been able to locate Belgium in a map before. I can never thank him enough, for this has been one of the best experiences in my life (should I say better still than seeing Bruce Springsteen live when I was 19?)
It was freezing cold. Well, it was December after all, and following my personal style, I had forgotten my mittons and hat. We flew to Brussels the night before the concert, and found a nice bar/caffee where we had some beers and something to eat. Mind you, we also found a night bar! full of teenagers but nice and cosy. The following day we made our way to the city of Brugge, where I awaited without patience our date with Bettie. While preparing ourselves to The Date, we took some pictures of ourselves nicely dressed, and started our way to the Club. It had been my idea to get there half an hour earlier in order to have some drinks before the event, and to avoid the crowd near the stage when the concert started. I could never have thought that the club was closed until the concert time, and not only that, there was a big Non-Smoking sign at the door! Hello! No comments...
As it was closed, we walked about 50 metres (almost crossing the limits to the city!) trying without success to find a bar, as it was very cold outside. I then saw a blue van arriving at the parking by the club, and could recognise in an instant the guitarist, Pieter, by one of the side windows. He´s blond and thin and wears thick black frame eyeglasses, unmissable. They then parked and made their way to the club, and I could see Hermann, the base player, and the rest - no Carol within sight - walking towards the side door and inside the club. I was so nervous! I wasn´t sure whether to go and talk to them, take a picture or - just as I did - stand there looking at them and behave like a teenager.
I then had a vision of myself with my band, millions of years ago, doing exactly the same thing. This is the first thing I noticed about Bettie Serveert, they move as though they were a band who are just playing around waiting to be someday famous. No pretentions, no crowds around, they just looked anonymous. I knew it would be a friendly concert and I was glad we were one of the few people who had made the trip to Brugge that night.
We made a friend at the door, Dirk, who was also waiting for the opening. I suppose we were happy to meet somebody from Belgium and he was happy to speak some English for a change, and we stayed with him the whole night. We enjoyed the concert, but altough Mikolavic confessed he liked it, I know I liked it the most. Gosh, months, years, listening to the same songs that helped me in my lonely hours, in my happy times, on my way to work, (at work!) and I was watching them so close they actually looked at me while they played.
Carol´s mastery with the guitar tells of years of practise, her appearance has changed with the years but her voice is still sweet and powerful. Pieter´s solos are just too much to tell in words, and although this was much of an accustic concert, the rythm ran through my veins just as the nicotin I was missing would have done. Pieter swap the guitar for the drums on one occasion, and I must say he surprised us all with a great performance. Hermann, the base player, and the drums player sang the chorus on that same song, with their hands in their pockets, and looking really funny but doing great, while they looked at us below. Later on the keyboards player took the guitar and played "Roadmovies", a song from their last album, from which I had only listened the first 10 seconds but always knew it would be a beautiful song. I never asked Mikolavic to record that song, and I regret it now for it was one of the best....
At our yells to sing a Private Suit song, and although Carol was not very keen on it, they played this exact song, which gives name to the album, by the end of the performance, which, this time, was full of guitar and passion. This was extasis, we loved it!
One more thing to say about the performance is the jokes and bits of conversation going on amongst the members of the band in between songs, which I knew were funny taking into account the laughs of the audience. But as they´re Dutch and they were in the Dutch side of Belgium (half north), they spoke in this misterious language and we were unable to understand a single word. My friend Dirk would translate some of the jokes for me, but most got lost in the air...what a shame.
After the concert, and to our surprise, they got out their albums and t-shirts and started a mini market! people would approach and speak to them. I bought their last album, which I wanted to buy anyway, and they signed it, every single one of them. We spoke to them a bit, and the base player wrote "I love you" in Flemish for me. What will Paco and Patxi say when I tell them I spoke to the band who created "Balentine", that song we played so very many times!!
Mikolavic said to them that we came all the way from Spain just to see them, and they were surprised "Really?". In the picture you can see a really happy version of me, surrounded by them, smiling to the camera. I hope this image will be repeated soon.
In the meantime, if somebody wants to feel it too, please do come to Barcelona with me. Don´t know about you, but I have a live date in March.
:0)
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