Dead Guitars – Living Room Tour 2012, Villers-le-Bouillet
I feel slightly funny about reviewing this concert because my wife and I co-hosted it. Yet, to express nothing at all would be a crime against music. Dead Guitars are one of the nicest live bands going and their favourite concerts are these unplugged events. I say ‘unplugged’ but Ralf Aussem brought an array of effect pedals and amps. You could still hear a pin drop but it’s true, it wasn’t acoustic in the strictest sense. It was electrifying.
The Deadies ran through some of their choicest songs. ‘The Name Of The Sea’, ‘Love Goddess’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Airplanes’, ‘Silver Cross River’, ‘Crash’. We also heard ‘Dead Guitars’, the White Rose Transmission song Carlo van Putten wrote with Adrian Borland of The Sound , from which the current band take their name. There was even a spontaneous cover of The Verve’s ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ as encore.
What struck me most about the acoustic nature of the event was its intimacy. Carlo’s vocal was true and clear but the lack of microphone really allows the guitars of Ralf and Peter Brough to shimmer and shine. The effect that these two weave together is quite magical and the audience, a mixture of friends and neighbours, witnessed an event they will likely never forget. I had to pinch myself to quite believe that all of this was taking place in my own home. I consider myself very fortunate to have had this experience and such wonderful memories. Yet it is wider than that. We, all of us music fans are lucky to have a band like Dead Guitars full stop. They may not be the widest known outside of Germany and Netherlands but they should be. They deserve our attention.
There are some video clips to be found. They’re fairly dimly lit but the sound is nice I think.
The afterparty set by ‘DJ Spaceman’ was pretty good too!!!
~Massive thanks to the wonderful Carine Hubrechts (Luna) for making it all possible. And to Gary and Frauke a terrific help on the day also.~
~Photographs by Jeremy Thomas (Perverted By Language)~