Hi there!

here's your g35 after coming back from on the road;

first up: 

I. setlists

1. Gelsenkirchen  (G) - Hans-Sachs-Haus
    24.08.2000

01. The 3rd (new song!)
02. Superstooge
03. Never Let You Out
04. The Other Fool
05. Fade To Grey (heavily and amazingly rearranged ...)
06. Blueberry Daydream
07. Big Surprise
08. Shalalala (new song ... the name is hillarious! (-; )
09. The Nerve Tattoo
10. Whip That Ghost
11. Go To California
12. Walking With J.
13. The Witch
-----------------
14. Upstairs / Downstairs
15. Taifun
16. My Best Friend
------------------------
------------------------

2. Biddinghuizen (NL) - Lowlands Festival
    25.08.2000
    (annotation: the first 6 songs are in the correct order,
     all others are in random order since I was not there 
     anymore [... I was attending the Sigur Rós-show])

01. Other Other Fool
02. High Time
03. Never Let You Out
04. The Other Fool
05. Whip that ghost
06. Go To California
??. The Nerve Tattoo
??. Walking With J.
??. Hey Jane
??. Plan #1
??. The Witch
??. S.T.G.
??. Black To Comm --> TV Eye --> Black to Comm
??. Taifun
-----------------------
-----------------------

3. Hasselt (B) - Pukkelpop Festival
    26.08.2000

01. Taifun
02. The 3rd
03. Go To California
04. Never Let You Out
05. The Other Fool
06. Whip that Ghost 
07. Upstairs / Downstairs
08. Big Surprise
09. Fade To Grey
10. Plan #1
11. The Nerve Tattoo
12. Hey Jane
13. The Witch
14. Black To Comm
--------------------
--------------------
(no encores!)

II. a little report from the three shows

Since Alex has already written an excellent report about the Hannover gig ... 
there's no need to tell much more about it ...
except for: The new song 'The 3rd' was played on the 
soundcheck there, but not in the set later ... and it was really nice to meet 
some of the MP-friends there (*g35ies and non-g35ies*)!

After a nice but short after-show event and having spent the night at Anke's 
and Corinna's flat in Hannover Leslie, Niels, Heidi and me headed for the 
'Ruhrpott' [nice traffic-jams there all the 
time ;-)) ] the next day. The Hans-Sachs-Haus came out to be a
kind of typical congregation-hall with not too nice atmosphere.
But hey: there was the as usual MP-road-crew around: Ever-and -always-Elisa 
from Italy, Leslie and Niels from the Netherlands, Claire and Philippe from 
Paris and even more people from Hannover (like Olli and his friend) and other 
places in Germany you've seen the faces a lot of times (sorry I'm really bad 
with names ... ;-) )

The show started with 'The 3rd' a brand new song, which is a bit in the dirty 
rock'n'roll-style of the forthcoming E.P. but blended with the neo-sixties 
sound (harmony vocals) from LTEC. It has a energetic guitar-riff of Snah ... 
and yes: I did like it a lot.
'Superstooge' was not too extended and played very energetically ... followed 
by the "Give the drummer some ..."-'Never Let you Out': groovy and funny as 
usual ... (-;
After 'The Other Fool' they had the first big bang for me: This brilliantly 
rearranged version of 'Fade To Grey' is just a killer: the band has now 
included a completely new bombastic part with great harmony vocals before the 
fade into the - very softly sung - chorus. Some new stop and go breaks and a 
brilliant new ending
with a great guitar riff also ... I loved it for the first time after not 
liking it too much in '98. Just great, now it has a shape! :-)
'Blueberry Daydream' followed afterwards; like on the spring tour with Baard 
playing the harmonica; btw did anybody get that the up to date live version 
ressembles more to the version on 'Maiden Voyage' than to the version on 
'Another Ugly E.P.'? So that's maybe another 10th anniversary item we get 
from the MPs ... :-)
'Big Surprise' was again in the 'we swing like a rockin' big band'-version, 
just like on the spring tour ...
And then we got just another completely new one with a kind of really strange 
sixties-name: 'Shalalala'. I can't tell you too much about it except for that 
I didn't like it as much as 'The 3rd' and to be honest: I can't rember too 
much of it after having seen four MP-shows in a row .... ;-)) ... anyway I 
think it's still in the works ... so they gave as a little look behind the 
curtain of the things to come ...
Another highlight for me: 'The Nerve Tattoo' finally played in a better, 
faster tempo again than in the recent two years followed by 'Whip That 
Ghost'='Song For A Bro.' with the beautifullly low 
early-70ties-fusion-jam-part (Bĺrd was in excellent condition that evening!) 
that Alex already mentioned in the Hannover-report.
'Go To California' will be played in the radio *big time* when it'll be 
released. It has simply all the qualities to stay in your head after hearing 
it: for me *the h i t*  the moment: "There is no to-mo-rrow, there's on-l-y 
noooow ...."
'Walking With J.' with the great Beach Boys Knaben-Chor again and the new 
version of 'The Witch' to close the normal set: they've included a new melody 
to it (not scary at all but dead funny) which obviously origins from the 
tv-series-music to 'Twilight Zone'.
The encore-section was filled with psychedelia: First up: 'Upstairs / 
Downstairs' (the beauty), 'Taifun' (goosebumps, hell of a version, pure power 
at the end!) and 'My Best Friend' (a song which is not my best friend ... 
;-))) )
The sound was way better than in Hannover, but there were by far less people 
(and they showed not too enthusiastic reactions also ... Gelsenkirchen is a 
strange town because:)... that gig was *the best* of the four that I 
attended. Loads of energy and the band was obviously happy with it also. (In 
Hannover they seemed to be a little bit tired after the long drive ...)

After the show I had the pleasure to get to know the famous and very very 
nice MP-fan Sebastianno from Italy as well as his two friends joining him on 
the MP-trip. Too bad: they just came in when MP played the last encore(!) 
after a 34(!!!) hours-drive! Hell, that's what I call a fan! :-O 
Anyway: we travelled together for the next two days and so finally were a 
9-persons-MP-fan-mob together on the road.

The next day we met and drove with three cars to the Netherlands
to hit the 'Lowlands' a really beautiful and quite good organized festival 
(though also quite commercial and expensive in the meantime). After arriving 
at 5pm we just set up our four tents at the same place [the only thing 
missing being a flag with a big 'M' in the Stop(D)-typeset ;-)) ] relaxed a 
little bit, explored the festival area and finally met in time again in the 
first row and the correct tent 
;-)). With Motorpsycho starting the tent was filling with shitloads of people 
and the sound was really great (you know: well defined *and* loud, Pieter did 
a great job!). First up: 'Other Other Fool', rocker's time so to speak and 
like this it went on with 'High Time' (='Up Against The Wall'). The band was 
defintely in a good mood and obviously amazed by the large amount of people 
attending the show. There was nothing unknown in the rest of the songs I was 
able to attend before something forced me (argggggh ... yes it was hurting! 
:-| ... but it had to be done! ) to leave for my first show of Iceland's 
finest nowadays: Sigur Rós. So we maybe have to wait for other reports from 
the gig. 
But one thing is sure: their gig was a big success and the audience was 
freaking out after a while ... they had to oplay several encores .... and 
yes: all my fellow-travellers really enjoyed it. So it must have been really 
good ...

The evening ended with heavy and abusive consumption of diverse fluids 
('alcohol' it's called ;-) ) and other usable .... eemmm ... materials ... we 
had a great time with a lot of stories to tell each other ...

13.00h on Saturday the nine people - not really in the best condition btw 
;-)) - broke down their tents and left for Belgium to catch the Motors 
another time.
Arriving at Hasselt at 19.00 we were surprised to find the festival taking 
place in the middle of the town and we faced serious problems finding a 
parking place for the cars not to speak about a space for the tents (<-- 
hopeless! ;-) ) After some more hour of walking to the festival area and 
finding a way to get in we just had the time to organize some drinks, said 
hello to Bas ((-:
and were all disappointed after hearing that Anders wasn't able to come down 
here  :-(( ... and then the MPs started with a tremendous 'Taifun'. 
Speaking generally the show was way different compared to their 
'Lowlands'-appearance; the level of energy was not really that high, less 
people attending the show and MP seemed to be a little bit exhausted after 
the Lowlands show, some slight but funny mistakes here and there (e.g. Geb 
missing the point after a break in 'Never Let You Out' and the band's playing 
off-beat for some seconds 
... ;-)) ) ... but hey, it was still very good (Bas did already tell you 
about the highlights so there's not much to add) and everybody was having 
their fun, especially the (now) ten of us. They played the complete show in a 
row 'til the festival schedule forced them to stop without being able to play 
an encore (even though the audience wanted them to). There was not even a 
session part in 'Black To Comm' (no Stooges' 'TV Eye' and no Suicide's 
'Rocket U.S.A.') due to the time problems: they just played straight but 
extremely heavy through the song.

The night we spent camping simply in the woods(!) somewhere in the Belgian 
countrysite [nice mosquitos there ... some people were eaten alive last night 
;-)) ] and today the nine of us where heading in the direction of Italy. My 
dear fellow-travellers let me out in Mannheim and seven of them are right now 
passing the Alps to catch the Italian shows which are starting tomorrow ...

Say hello to them you Italian g35ies ...
"I know you rider ..."

cu soon
Torsten aka TrueMiddle


>2. Biddinghuizen (NL) - Lowlands Festival
>    26.08.2000
>    (annotation: the first 6 songs are in the correct order,
>     all others are in random order since I was not there 
>     anymore [... I was attending the Sigur Rós-show])
>
>01. Other Other Fool
>02. High Time
>03. Never Let You Out
>04. The Other Fool
>05. Whip that ghost
>06. Go To California
>??. The Nerve Tattoo
>??. Walking With J.
>??. Hey Jane
>??. Plan #1
>??. The Witch
>??. S.T.G.
>??. Black To Comm --> TV Eye --> Black to Comm
>??. Taifun

I'm afraid I forgot most of the order, but the encore was STG, after
Black To Comm. I think Plan #1 (and Taifun after it) came right after
Go To CA, which was a great "break" from the modern MP which plays pop
and "atmospherical music" to the old psychedelic rock band most people
in the audience still expect (guessing from the audience response).

>The next day we met and drove with three cars to the Netherlands
>to hit the 'Lowlands' a really beautiful and quite good organized festival 
>(though also quite commercial and expensive in the meantime).

Nice summary (the description from these 3 festivals in a row are also
very nice to compare, thank you!). Yes, Lowlands is absolutely my
festival: beautiful entourage and many things to do, and really GOOD
FOOD. Indeed, for prices that many people call expensive (though if
you're from Norway you should not complain, I guess). I prefer nice
Japanese food for 18 guilders to hamburgers and other greasy shit. And
there was one place where you could get good beer (Belgian white beer)
instead of that awful Dommelsch (Unfortunately, I only found out about
this on Sunday...). And (and this is REALLY unfortunate) not that many
good bands (this was VERY different a few years ago when LL used to be
the best 3 days of my year...) So now you go see some bands and
inbetween you drink and eat and relax in real comfy sofas in the
Higher Ground area. (Next year we are thinking about renting a
bungalow in the neighboring bungalow holiday camp, a good bed and no
lining up for showers that produce less water than a urinating mouse
and a chance to get some sleep without the noise of a guy who has to
puke but has puked so much already that he cannot puke anymore so he
just keeps on making puke-noise for another three hours). 

OK, about the music. It was the first time I heard Walking with J.
live because I only saw the Tivoli gig this spring where they did not
play this. It was a big dissapointment. I like this song very much. I
can hear that they have really practised on their singing, which is
very good since it is the weakest part of MP. But they should practise
much more. It was too difficult, switching from one person singing to
the other, singing slightly out of tune, too loud, etc. The
instrumental parts inbetween were great of course.

In general I would say that this show was a big succes, but not the
huge succes their performance a few years ago was. The audience seems
to like the power rock better. But I really like and admire MP for
daring to keep perpetually changing their style. There are only very
few bands that dare to do this and that can do this succesfully and
these are the bands that continue to be interesting for a long period
of time.

[...]

Groeten van Bram