Hey Johnny Aka, are you looking forward to something
that has already been?
The performance was last Friday. I was there, in my
Raindog Harry likes Tom Waits t-shirt, expecting to
be tapped on the shoulder by no-one less than Johnny
Aka, but nothing happened. Only ladies in long
evening dresses, with bare shoulders. And even the
young people were rather neatly dressed, much better
than the old raindog. I was sitting in row 6, which
appeared to be the third row from the stage. Belgian
logic! The performance was quite OK, the band was
good, piano, keyboards, saxophone, fagot (is that the
name of an instrument in English? It sounds like a
derogative word for men who like men), drums, wood
block, two guitars, one banjo. A female singer
performed the songs by Kurt Weill, she was very good,
I always pay attention to the pronunciation of
course, when foreigners sing in English, or German.
This lady sang near-perfect German. A boy sang the
songs by Waits (beautiful songs, I'll shoot the moon,
Briar and the Rose, Innocent When You Dream,
Yesterday is Here). He did quite well, although I
prefer it if people sing in their own voice. He tried
too much to imitate Tom, which to my opinion is an
effort one should not try to undertake. But he did
rather well. Pity his trousers were too neat, and
that he wore a Stetson hat (to underline the fact
that Tom is an "American bluessinger" as the written
information said.? I would have preferred him to wear
a Tom Waits style hat. I stumbled upon a website of a
company that sells Tom Waits style hats. Something
for you Eric? For when you grow up one day ;-))?
Anyway, I had fun. Ended up in an Irish bar with life
music every evening (guess Johnny, also known as
Johnny will know which pub I am referring to), after
that ended up in a Jazz café which I liked much
better, called Tati's Jazz, small place, music OK,
people OK, Bacardi Cola's OK. I don't normally drink
Bacardi Cola's, but after I had already tasted white
wine, accompanying the mussels in white wine, and the
always gorgeous Leffe Brune, I thought I wanted to
taste something else for a change. So, two Bacardi
Cokes. After which it was time to get back to the
hotel, before I would not be able to find it back
again.
A good evening! More of these,
Raindog H.
P.S.: During I'll shoot the moon (the American
Bluessinger pointed a gun to an imaginary moon, I
found that he was overdoing it a bit, to take
that "shoot" so literally ;-)), he threw a big bunch
of flowers into the audience. Of course it landed
right on my lap. Because I was reluctant to drag a
big bunch of flowers around on my nightly tour of
Oostende, I presented the flowers to the
bareshouldered lady next to me, with a courteous
gesture. (You can leave that to the old raindog ;-)).
She was very flattered. And I had got rid of my
flowers. ;-)) End of Story.
