Next to the sadly demolished CBGB in New York, the still overly active Strip on LA’s Sunset Boulevard and the Marque in London – that suffered the same fate as the CBGB – we now have De Verlichte Geest in Roeselare. I have to admit, the name is not so glamorous – but if you know that CBGB (full name CBGB & OMFUG) stood for Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers you might think differently – and the little town of Roeselare has even less appeal.

BUT what yours truly and some faithful companions have seen these last 2 years as far as glam and sleaze bands is concerned was even in the glorious eighties not possible. Why? Simply because way back then most of these bands were simply too big to bother with a trip to a small country as Belgium. And let’s also not forget the gigantic amount of work that Sandy & her team are putting in this endeavor. Still coming up this year at this little glamshack are Lizzy Borden & Faster Pussycat! But first…

…Pleasure Addiction. Yet another French band that is making the effort to spread the Holy Word of Glam to the as always quite rowdy bunch of people in De Verlichte Geest. Would there be a genuine glam wave active with our neighbors in the South? Let’s hope so! These French dudes kicked the evening off in style and before we knew it we were singing along to the happy party tunes full of nifty backing vocals, style Pretty Boy Floyd & the lot. Nice effort, boys!

Damn Dice, the band to entertain us next, have a rather nice story going on about them. The band is supposedly formed in London, UK by 2…eh, French dudes. They were looking for people and found…wait for it, an Italian bloke and for good measure & translation purposes a UK singer. And we quite enjoyed their no nonsense show  although it wasn’t always easy to distinguish the songs due to sound problems during their set. The ‘disappearing’ sounds of both the bass player and singer made it hard to enjoy things to their full extent. Nevertheless I have to say that I saw a band with some promise and I would like to hear more from these boys soon.

What is there to be said about a band like L.A. Guns that hasn’t been said before? We enjoyed the Tracii Guns-version a while ago in the very same place but for your scribbler this is the version that he really wanted to see as I simply adore Mr. Phil Lewis’ voice and I was hoping that the particular tonsils had stood the test of time. But I needn’t have worried cause from the first words of ‘Over The Edge’ it became clear we were in for a real treat! The voice was fully intact after all these years and the band, completed by long serving drummer Steve Riley, Stacey Blades on guitar & Scott Griffin on  bass was firing on all six. What followed was a greatest hits set list with a couple of songs from most albums (“Vampire”, “Sex Action”, “Electric Gypsy”, “Ain’t Got Nothing Better To Do”, “Rip And Tear”, “Show No Mercy”,…). However even with a set list like that one can always argue about the songs. I would have preferred if ‘One More Reason’ had been given an airing in favor of another song but that’s my personal opinion. It rocked hard and it sure was nice to witness Phil Lewis’s L.A. Guns in great form. Another highlight, in fact!
KVK