The Hydromatics Euro Tour 2002
Diary:
5 shows, 5 hellrides & 5 blasts
WORDS AND PICTURES: LAURENT
VAN BOUVELEN
July 2, 2002 with Holy Curse
- Le nouveau Casino, Paris, France
Last time I saw the Hydromatics, it was in Southern France, last year, and
it was total fun, divin’ into that Detroit sound. Not the “new”
Detroit sound connection, and there I’ll not mention all the bands we
have to dig, and we have to suffer also... I talk again about The Authentic
Detroit sound. And with no one else than the real Scott Morgan drivin’
the engine, I can tell you, you don’t need nitro to get right into space
at the lightnin’ speed... Anyway.
Le nouveau Casino is the new place to look for in Paris. A 350-people capacity
venue, a good sound, that replaces the little boat called Makara they played
into last year (seems like Tony and Theo definitely made the boat sink after
that Hydros show...). Inside, the Casino looks like the inner structure of
a whale, fully decorated with surgery lamps and weird stuff.
Holy Curse warm their hometown audience, with a new drummer, who used to play
for French band The Backsliders (with François Lebas, formerly of Fixed
Up). Seeing Holy Curse live is really amazing. They are definitely an Australian
sounding band. Those guys have listened so many times to their New Christs
singles and their Radio Birdman LPs, you can really hear the influence and
energy in their songs. One of the guitar player plays a Crestwood replica,
the same as the Hellacopters use on stage. But it’s one thing to have
a guitar like that, it would be nothing if they didn’t use it the good
way. But they do, and they do it real well. Both guitar players give energy,
burn our ears with this so familiar sound.
The band sound is more compact than what it used to be, and Vinz drives it
with a lefty reversed string bass. They fill the space, we’re beautifully
drown into the songs.
Holy Curse played a 45-minute show, with excerpts from their two records,
and also from the split CD released on SDZ Records in France. Songs
like “Forgotten Heroes”, where Eric sings “Remember Me”
(echoing the Visitors' "Journey by Sledge") over a magnificent and
frenetic guitar solo at the end. Their show ended with my own fave from their
discography, “Too Much Paranoia”, a story about lost friendships
and loneliness, a heavy song full of meaning.
After a few minutes where every ran to the bar searching for expensive beers,
the Hydromatics come on stage. The crowd rushes from everywhere to the front
and they start with “Let’s Do It Again”. It could be a slogan
for the tour: Never quit, never stop, follow the Hydromatics, to hell or heaven.
Scott Morgan finds his mark easily, rocking more and more from song to song,
most of them taken from the Powerglide LP plus some covers from Sonic’s
Rendezvous Band, songs not many of us had a chance to hear live before Scott
decided to form the Hydromatics.
“R.I.P. R’n’R” and other songs you certainly already heard
before, take on a whole new sense live. There's something about the power
of burnin’ amps and the guys playin’ it in front of you that adds
a new dimension. Guitars in the air, bass on the knees, a killer Andy on drums,
who shouldn’t be considered anymore as a Nick Royale replacement but
an incredible drummer in his own right.
A couple of drunken people slam weirdly in the pit and they look like two
Iggy Pop impersonators. One of them jumps on stage, near Scott, and stays
there, looking at us stupidly, until Scott gives him a “soul mover"
punch with his ass, still playing guitar...a funny moment.
“Powerglide”, Tony Slug’s anthem, is always a moment I’m
impatiently waiting for. Scott Morgan puts his guitar on the ground and concentrates
all his energy in his throat, a cool moment where you can also realise Hydromatics
are a real band, not Scott Morgan’s backing band.
The night ends with “Cit-Cit-Cit-City Slang” as a trademark. It's
a super killer version where the guys finish in knee drops, posing with guitar
over their heads, crouching on the floor and definitely releasing the beast.
About 17 titles in a bit more than one hour, a nice show, considering it’s
the second one of this tour. Days before they played at the Roskilde Festival
in Denmark, in front of their biggest-ever audience. I missed that, but have
seen the pictures and, yeah, the venue was crowded.
July 3, 2002 - Le Zoo Bizarre,
Bordeaux, France
After a nine-hour hellride, we finally reach the venue at 7pm in Bordeaux,
my hometown. Le Zoo Bizarre is this little cave fully decorated in red and
white (are they White Stripes addicts?) in which bands such as Zen Guerrilla,
the Hives, or Hugo Race have played.
North Western rockers have two major habits : They welcome the bands with
red wine, and they always add extra support bands. Tonight, Los Puritos, a
local band with the Ramones’ syndrome, who played also a “Ça
plane pour moi” cover. Their singer entered the venue on a mop, smelling
of gasoline, and the stink will stay for the rest of the night. That’s
the better memory they left us.
Second support - and we’re lucky there is no other support, because
this second one is pretty good - the Jellybears. Playing a mix of '60s garage
rock and soul pop music, they perfectly warm us up for the Hydromatics, reminding
us the roots of the band we’re gonna listen to with a passionate performance.
The singer also plays a Telecaster guitar, Miss Wonda on bass handles a Rickenbacker
4003ST and they really sound like an authentic '60s band. They have melody
and harmonies, a brilliant touch of humour, but they hardly catch the attention
of the audience, sadly. Born out of time, in the wrong place, I’d sincerely
love to have some foreign rockers' opinions on this band. Nice music, nice
people, and it’s over with a “BBC 1” cover.
So weird to see the Hydromatics on a little stage after the Paris’ big
stage and lights. Sound is a bit poor, very sharp, only high frequencies,
but it gives us another side of the Hydromatics music. The night before, people
were already rambling about the fact yes or no, the horns and girls’
back ups are missing, this soul side of the Hydromatics. Of course there is
a difference between what you can hear on the record, and what you experience
live with them. The answer is in the last sentence, it’s just different.
A bit less soul, a bit more R ’n’ R.
“Ready to Ball”: it could be a question posed to the audience tonight.
There are only 100 or so here. How do you recognise a good live band? Even
in front of 10 people, they give you the feeling there is a 500-strong audience
present, rushing to the stage. And that’s exactly what happened again,
and on songs such as “Electrophonic Tonic” or “Love and Learn”,
you could close your eyes and swear you are at the Blind Pig for one long
charming night. A dream come true.
“Powerglide” appears again, and Scott is there, in front of devoted
fans, wearing sunglasses and his eternal beret, warming the place to maximum
temperature. We’re all dancing, shaking and shouting lyrics, then, suddenly,
on the last verses of the song, I see a microphone in front of my mouth, and
Scott Morgan on the other side of the arm that carries it. “Powerglide,
powerglide!!” and the naked torso of a dancer with a red Radio Birdman
tattoo on the heart takes the last verse. God ! It’s the first time I've
actually seen Scott sharing lyrics with an audience and he filled two Aussie-Detroit
rock-addicted guys' souls forever.
Theo Brouwer, former Nitwitz, plays with an energy barely impossible to imagine,
pushing hard the strings, stepping out of the stage on the side of it, always
trying to find some feedback from the people in front of him. It’s not
a band performing, it’s a band sharing passion with people who care.
After a one song encore - but a long, incredible and wild one in “City
Slang” - everybody in Bordeaux was praying for it wouldn’t be the
last time they saw the Hydromatics. If it could happen again, please, in a
bigger venue. They deserve better than old crappy bars. But it was r’
n’ r ...and they did it again.
The night ended late, with a couple of drinks, or more...
July 4, 2002 - Azkena, Bilbao,
Basque Country, Spain
Maybe this drive was the shortest one of the whole tour: 350km through a
beautiful landscape that at a certain point reminds Andy of his faraway Michigan.
Split into two groups for one day, one part in “the Van from Hell”
(doesn’t it remind you somewhat of a “Van of Hate” ?) and one
part with a crazy Frenchie driver girl, the crew enter the Basque Country.
My “division” makes a little stop at French border to try to find
some drumsticks, but we only found the most notable difference between France
and Spain : the beer is better there, and cheaper.
We reach Bilbao in the afternoon. Azkena, the venue, is more a bar than a
real venue, but the sound is good and that promises us a good night. During
the soundcheck, the band practice "Tumblin’ Down”, so it’s
one more song on the setlist for tonight.
Support here is the local band Painkillers, a combo driven by a guy who looks
like Johnny Thunders younger brother. The music was not so bad, but I didn’t
pay that much attention, and preferred to have a little Anglo-French-Spanish
discussion with the singer from another mightier local band of heroes, Xabi
from Señor No. Everybody in the Hydromatics crew deplored the fact
no shows could be arranged with this band. They have a pretty good remember
thinking about last year show in Bergara, where the bands played together
for the first time.
At 11pm the Hydromatics get on stage, and I find me a corner from which to
take closer pictures. According to a Santanica Pandemonium girl on front of
the stage, the sound was awesome, and I can tell you from where I stood, it
sounded amazing too. Spanish audiences are always very reactive and enthusiastic.
If there is one place to stay if you wanna rock, it’s there, around Bilbao
or Donostia.
“Let’s Do It Again” opens the long list of rock anthem. Lucky
people from Spain will be hearing great music for a few months, ‘coz
they've invited a lot of bands for the Azkena birthday, including the Hydromatics,
Zen Guerrilla, the Bellrays. This night is a preview of the upcoming festival
to happen in September.
Basically, it’s the same setlist, except for the addition
of “Tumblin’ Down”, which is so different from the LP version,
but so cool also. Even without acoustic guitar, girls’ backups and horns,
it stills sounds beautiful. It’s funny that this song was just added
to the setlist here because it has a real Hispanic sound influence. Reminds
us of hot summer nights, with a touch of melancholy. Was it just another coincidence
or an inspired Scott Morgan decision?
On “Powerglide”, Scott is always in search of a safe place to let
his guitar on. When he stepped on the left of the stage and gave it to me,
sorry, I had to stop making pictures...I had this old Telecaster on my heart,
some sacred relic, and I cherished it. See how stupid we can be, we, us rock’n’
roll loving, passionate guys....
“Earthy” is probably the song during which I first saw the real
“Slugwalk” as we call it.. When he is deep into the show, sometimes,
Tony has a characteristic way to move...you’ve got to see him do it to
understand. He's a tall guy, very tall, and rests his guitar on his knees,
playing strings on the neck most of the time, on his yellow Gibson. When he
turns into the Slug, his body stretches, and he starts walkin’ with little
steps, very quick, and goes through the stage like that, playin’ wild...so
cool. “Earthy” and “Dangerous” are probably the songs
where you can discover this copyrighted step happening.
A real good show, with a real fresh audience, and the band seemed to enjoy
it a lot too. So much they were still yelling way after the last of the feedback
was over, the band comes back for more action. But any show has a beginning
and a happy end, this night I had to let them go their way and come back in
France, while they were still touring and rocking places such as Coruña,
Lisboa, Madrid, Oviedo...
July 11, 2002 - The Magic,
Barcelona, Spain
I promised to be back for more Hydro action, in Montpellier, but couldn’t
wait and had to see one more Spanish show. First surprise: Did you ever saw
a show with a closed door, no posters, no flyers ? Damn, I thought it was
cancelled, and so did the tourist in the streets of Barcelona waiting for
them.
Second surprise: The guys seem to have suffered from the excesses of the Spanish
way of life. Everybody’s tired, half dead, except Scott who still looks
the same, only wearing stubble after a day without shaving, but he is still
the smart and nice man I know. Andy has a bad cold, and in the heat of the
place, it’s difficult for me to imagine this half dead guy will be able
to drum tonight.
A third surprise? Yeah, OK, the venue itself: The place is under the street
level, divided in three rooms, certainly ‘coz the place is more a discotheque
than a real rock-dedicated venue. The floor is covered with aluminium, the
stage is small, on the walls you can see enlarged pictures from “Beggars’
Banquet” and an Iggy picture (the same one you can find on the back of
the “California Bleeding “ LP on Bomp, where Ron Asheton
is whipping Iggy in a nazi uniform.)
Well, I’d like to give you the name of the support band, ‘cause
they were soooo bad I will help you to save some money if one day you’d
have the crazy idea to buy some of their shit. It was a kind of crossover
music between hard rock and .. well anyway, it sounded so bad. Good guys,
certainly, but that’s not enuff to make a good band.
And it was so long...
I think Los Hidromaticos ( as some people call them here ), started at 1:30am.
And I’LL give them my eternal respect for the show they did this night.
Wasted, sick, in a place where the sound is only high frequencies, (even if
Evert the sound engineer is always doin’ the best work for the band),
where you can hear your feet stomp the aluminium floor. Under the red lights,
it was a show in hell. Sweating so much, drinkin’ so much to compensate
the sweat (what?), I finished half drunk and my batteries ran empty on my
camera, a weird night.
Have you ever tried to sing along “Getting There is Half the Fun”
? Didn’t you ever try this ?
Have you noticed also the catchy little trick on the drums? No? At the end
of every chorus, there is a simple thing, a double beat on the snare, that
re-launches the song to the next verse. Maybe the local high frequencies made
it clearer to my ears. With Nick you can hear that on the LP, but with Andy’s
power, the way he plays, you can’t miss it. This, the swirling bass line
that comes high and low, it will get you in a trance. My eyes stared for a
long time at this drummer... A flu in his blood, the need of sleep, and he
still beats like hell.
Theo, who’s been nearly electrocuted by a deficient power system in Oviedo,
and Mr Slug himself, seem to concentrate all their energy and fluids on this
one hour show, giving everything they have to their fans. This is the last
night in Spain, everybody knows it, and it’s gonna be hard to leave this
country behind. Really, everybody agrees, Spain is the R’n’ R place
to be.
As we left the venue, a party started, a disco party.. This is just a little
bit of what you can get when you step in this fabulous country. One day, I
swear, I saw a marriage party happening in the same place where a punk rock
show just ended. Dudes in black leather and guys wearing ties, all mixed up
dancing on “Viva España”....
July 12, 2002 - Nowhere aka
“Doomstock”, Montpellier, France
Nowhere, yeah, ‘coz the show, organised by the Subsonic’s crew,
took place in the middle of nowhere, on a lunar landscape, in a valley, a
desert town, near a lake. The perfect start for a horror movie. I have to
give you the story of this place, thank god I was with the band, nobody would
trust them otherwise. The lake is an artificial one, when the engineers built
the dam, they thought the village would be under the water. So everybody living
here has been asked to move, then the water came and...nothing happened. The
village is still here, intact, nobody lives here anymore, but there is a mayor.
And Rock shows, surprisingly.
We spent some time waiting for the van in the car, listening to the Saints.
It was raining, and, funny part of the story, the show was open air... I think
that’s the moment that we decided (Theo, Andy and me) to call it Doomstock.
We were desperately waiting for the pouring rain to stop, as the organisers
decided to remove the show into a church!!! I started missing the high frequencies
from Barcelona...
Remember what I told about support bands in France ? how many tonight ? Guess
? Three! Yeeeah! First, a certain band, covering the Ramones. Well, OK, another
Ramones’ syndrome victim, then Starfish. Starfish is interesting to notice,
‘coz it’s Lo Spider’s new project (from Jerry Spider Gang),
with a bassplayer with no bass on bass, (I play mean, don’t get angry),
a chick singer, and, but there, I’m not sure and may be I’ve been
back in time somewhere, I’d swear the second player was the guy playin’
guitar in Bordeaux, for Los Puritos. I ask myself : Do the guys start bands
in France only to be the support of cool r’n’r legends ? Anyway...
The support band tonight, the one to catch, was Little Green Fairy. The band
fronted by Rauky, Sonic Assassin singer, and his buncha friends, more than
that, his family.
It was the opportunity to hear again those catchy little songs full of feelings,
the feedback of his handy guitar. They've gained more cohesion, and have a
second wave of songs recorded and ready to be released.
I didn’t mention it, but the rain stopped, so the show happened in the
open air as planned, under the stars, in the middle of nowhere.
And it was a strange Hydromatics show.. A really strong one, almost violent.
Late at night, in Doomstock, Scott, Theo, Tony and Andy played like Cathars
defending their citadel.
Scott pushed his voice so much - and the guitars were so loud - that it gave
a violent mood to the show.
Tony played a big part of the show with his guitar in the air, did a total
Slugwalk show, all this in front of an astonished drunk audience, where you
could have counted a dozen of dogs also. Somebody crushed Scott’s distortion
pedal, someone else grabbed his microphone during the show. It was insane,
but the show remained excellent.
I think most of the songs were played a bit faster too. There was not much
left of Andy’s drum kit at the end. Theo’s amp went off, but anyway
he kept on playing as nothing had happened ‘'til the end of the song.
They totally rocked the place, definitely, and I don’t think you will
ever see such an Hydromatics show. It was...extreme.
It was the kind of show where you stare at your friend’s face suddenly,
during a solo, and he stares at you with a smile, asking himself also “What’s
happening.?!?” And then you both cracks out and laugh out loud, singing
along the song. Insane and beautiful.
And on “Powerglide”, Scott sings “Say goodbye to willow run,
say goodbye to everyone”, agitating his hand on a last goodbye...
An encore, and this time I don’t want to miss it. Rauky and I yell to
hear “Asteroid B612”. Theo starts the bassline, smilin’ at
us, Tony understands too, as I’ve been beggin’ at every show to
hear that one. He laughs and plays the fast riff of the song, but it’s
“City Slang” that wins again. And in a way, that’s the better
way to end the night. Everything’s gone again, I had my Hydromatic fluid
drive, everyone had it tonight.
One more thing about Doomstock, this place is so funny. They wanted to save
electricity, so after the show we had only 30 minutes to break down the gear
before it went darker than hell.
I left the band in the middle of the afternoon, the day after. They got back
to Amsterdam, I got back to Bordeaux. Since that, they've also played the
Barbarella Festival in Uppsala, headlining, and rocked London.
The Hydromatics will be back, this year I hope, with an Asteroid in their
bag, but for sure a new single, and probably a live LP. I love them, the band
in itself and the mates they are, I’LL follow them, even if I have to
suffer Doomstock again. Catch me there. Waiting for this moment, I’m
gonna slow down and take a look.
