Samson & Delilah (Rockox-house, Antwerp, 25-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

The painting of Samson&Delilah (see pic) was made for Nicolaas Rockox, major of Antwerp, by Rubens and now it has finally returned to it's original place!
The painting is the possession of the National Gallery in London but they have kindly loaned it to this museum for their 30th anniversary.
It's one of Rubens' greatest works and it's definitely more at place in Rockox's room.
I think we should just keep it ;-)

If you want to see this painting live check: http://www.rockoxhuis.be/html/rockox_e1.html
You can visit un till 10-2-2008.

Flemish Primitives in Reflection (Antwerp, 25-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Small interactive exhibit about David Hockney's theory on the use of optical aids in 15th century art.

It has ended already but it may travel to other locations. Check out http://www.ha.be.

Read about the theory: http://www.davidhockney.com/

Dez mona + support: Kris Dane (24-11-2007, Mechelen)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

http://www.krisdane.com/
http://www.dezmona.com/

Two brilliant performances in a perfect setting. If you want to have an idea of the music and how it looked on the stage you'd better check the sites. The images will tell you everything I cannot put into words.

Interpol (Vorst National, Brussels, 23-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

Mmm this is not any easy one to give stars: I love this band, I love their songs, I love their sound so they would easily get 6 stars or more. But sound was just THE problem this time: the sound is never really good at Vorst but this time it really sucked! Which is weird because the sound was ok during Arcade Fire and they have ten people with many instruments on the stage which must be more difficult to mix into a decent sound....

Interpol gave a really good performance, the set was great and I've had many shivers running down my spine but because of the bad sound it was never as good as Werchter.

Their special guest Blonde Redhead is pretty great too but they also didn't sound as good as they could've because of the sound.

Ah well, we did have a great time but I don't think I'll ever go to another Interpol concert in Vorst National. I'll just wait un till they play somewhere with a more decent sound ;-)

Formatting Europe (Royal Library, Brussels, 23-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Another Europalia Europa exhibit.

This one shows 10 centuries of maps of Europe from the collections of the Royal Library of Belgium. And it's free!
If you are interested in maps this is a definite must see because there are some real beauties in the exhibit. You can visit un till 8-2-2008.

When we we're there there was also another free exhibit about critical hagiography (=> stories about the lives of saints) which was very interesting. There were some really beautiful illuminated books there. This exhibit has ended but there may be a new one soon.
Check out the site of the library: http://www.kbr.be/ (Dutch and French!)

There are also some really interesting virtual exhibits on the site: http://www.kbr.be/actualites/expos/virtuelles/virtuelles_nl.html

Municipal Archive Brussels (23-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

For every-one who doesn't know or remember: I work in the municipal archive of Antwerp.... and I took this day off from work to visit: another archive! Please don' tell my colleagues ;-p

We had never been to this archive yet so the exhibit about city lights (Du Halo au Reseau / Zicht op Licht) was a great excuse to check it out.
The outside building doesn't look that impressive but the entrance looks terrific. Lots of old wood and ironwork; nice and dusty looking.

The exhibit was great too: nice old pictures, posters, drawings, etc. etc.
For me it's always fun to see the kind of documents I see at work on a daily basis in another context. A nice thing for every-one who doesn't work in an archive are the old drawings of streetlights which look so much nicer than most do nowadays!
And after all: the lights are just what a makes a city a great city. But maybe I'm biased because my granddad used to work for Philips (see pic) and used to show me the many lights of his city with much pride ;-)

Check out the archive (in French and Dutch): http://www.brucity.be/artdet.cfm?nLanguage=2&id=4610

The Stranglers (22-11-2007, Mechelen, Stadsschouwburg)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

I'm pretty sure most of us know The Stranglers even-though not every-one may be aware of it. They've made some very well-known classics in the (late) 70's / 80's like "Always the Sun", "No more Heroes", "Strange little Girl" and of-course "Golden Brown".
They were actually considered punk in those days even-though you can here more blues/jazz/classical influences in their songs than in most punk-bands I've ever heard.

We've always loved their songs so it was a great opportunity to see them so close to home. As the concert was in a playhouse with seats we kind of expected a playhouse-audience: quiet, older, well-dressed and frankly a bit boring. But we were surprisingly mistaken!
The playhouse-audience was there all-right but the band had also attracted their own very drunk British Stranglers fan-club. They were standing and shouting even before the band began playing. During the show they tried to sing along with most songs, especially one guy (the most pissed one) and to which one of the Stranglers remarked: "Many people who follow us around tell us they could be in a band too but YOU bloody well couldn't!".

The friendly banter between the band and their drunk but good-natured fans made this a very funny and special performance. The band was clearly having a lot of fun also joking about the fact that Belgium doesn't have a government and things like that. They played extremely well too (even-though the percussionist had the "shits" as another band-member kindly told us, hehe).

So if you ever have a chance to see this band live you should just try it because I'm sure you'll have a great time!
Check out who they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers
Their official site: http://www.stranglers.net/

Oh and for all the native English speakers: try to pronounce Stadsschouwburg. The band tried it and it was very funny for us Dutch speakers ;-)