Arsenal (★★★★☆)
West Flanders made its appearance in large numbers on both sides of the Minnewaterpark in Bruges. Earlier in the day, Bolis Pupul – son of Kamagurka – had asserted himself at the side of Charlotte Adigéry from Ghent. And the Kortrijk residents of Goose made it a boisterous party as well. But Arsenal also consists of one part of West Flanders with the refugee Torhoutenaar Hendrik Willemyns as master of puppets. They closed the first day with bravura and an unlikely jukebox of hymns and hits.
For the fifth time in a row they made their appearance at Cactus, and unsurprisingly there was hardly anything to criticize about their set or your enthusiasm. The fact that ‘Melvin’ passed ridiculously early mainly showed that the group had l’embarras du choix. After all, there followed a feast of recognition that egg was regarded as a gospel celebration, on the understanding that it then concerned a voluptuous prayer. For ‘Saudade’, John Roan forced assistance from the entire audience, and in the sweltering ‘Longee’, ‘Estupendo’ and ‘Lotuk’ you didn’t even need his request/order to completely freak out. Horny party!
Arsenal during their performance at the Cactus Festival in Bruges.Beeld Wallpapermotiv.com
GOOSE (★★★★☆)
Did someone predict a tsnumani? Even now that GOOSE has trimmed itself a little tighter at the temples, they still know how to swirl a crowd and reduce it to a menacing sloshing ocean. They went for absolute dominance in Bruges. Sheltered bangers like ‘Synrise’ or ‘British Mode’ caused a small landslide near the Minnewaterpark, but they were just as good at driving the audience with the filed synthpop of their latest long player What You Need. Live, those songs also unfolded into modest festival anthems, which sounded armpit fresh and yet just immoral enough.
Yet we remain even bigger fans when the group lets its synths brush past your head like fighter jets and a bass drum turns your gut upside down. Frontman Mickael Karkousse has a blond spot in his black crown today, as if he is Rogue from Marvel Comics, but his gift turned out not to be a curse. When he made contact with the public, he did not absorb their physical energy, but rather gave you superpowers. Or did you become insane on your own? We can no longer count how many times we saw GOOSE live at work, but remarkably enough, this group never gets boring.
GOOSE during their performance at the Cactus Festival in Bruges.Beeld Wallpapermotiv.com
Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul (★★★★☆)
“It’s tied vo Bètlééjèm”, we heard a mother say to her offspring. Time to go to bed? Just before the blistering show of Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, that testified to poor parenting. After all, together with this duo you undertook an exciting pilgrimage, which did not lead to Bethlehem, but to Grace Jones, cheerful absurdism and idiosyncratic electro. ‘Ceci n’est Pas Un Cliché’ was performed with fervor as if it were an alternative national anthem, and from ‘Paténipat’ the audience also seemed to want to swear allegiance to the flag of Adigéry.
In crimson and aluminum silver, she exuded something of a sci-fi superheroine, and the set also turned out to be out of this world. In the beginning, the audience looked a bit sheepish at this sparkling duo, but with the final sprint in sight, Bruges gave in completely. It had to be, with a concert that did not experience a single slump or slump, or only slightly lacked excitement. Without a hint of sarcasm, you lipped along: “Thank you! No-no-no-no, thank you so much.”
Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul during their performance at the Cactus Festival in Bruges.Beeld Wallpapermotiv.com
Goldband (★★☆☆☆)
Anyone who thinks De Jeugd van Today is still a bit too sophisticated should head for Goldband on Friday. Insanity sent you a friend request with these Hagenezen. All you had to do was press “confirm”. Half of their live orchestra turned out to be stuck in some kind of tunnel, but that didn’t spoil the fun: “we’re having a party”, the trio promised, largely bare-chested. The popular group from the Netherlands then randomly picked people from the audience to hide the emptiness on stage. For example, one Sofie was allowed to take off Karel Gerlach’s shirt and fan Danae was allowed to muzzle Milo Driessen on a cardboard sign after a call. The band apparently didn’t know that verb yet – French kissing still sounds a bit weaker – but the trio turned out to be good students.
And even better denominators: a handful of youngsters were allowed to wave the flags of The Hague and Scheveningen on stage, another child was allowed to perform the song ‘Emergency’ almost entirely on its own. Only: what a limp bite Goldband brings. Think of Bloodhound Gang who would imitate Backstreet Boys for the jool at Aalster carnival, and you kind of ended up with them. They had earned the sympathy of the public, but we ourselves gradually began to regret our life choices. Soak some eels in a bucket of snot and you still don’t have as slippery a mess as Goldband.
Goldband during their performance at the Cactus Festival in Bruges. Image Benny Proot
Aila (★★★☆☆)
Aili Maruyama used to want to successively – or perhaps haphazardly together – become a volcanologist, astronaut, actress and a boy. In the end it became a pop wonder in the making. She could have done worse! A concert in the open air may have turned out to be just a little too ambitious for this gate opener by Cactus, but you won’t hear us complaining. Together with the Ghent producer Transistorcake, she dabbled in feverish electropop and Krautrock, while she brought up the few Japanese words she had left over from her first seven years of life in Tokyo.
The excellent ‘Make Me Rich’ was rather tamely received – shame on you, bunch of bobbin lacers! – but when she started Fergie’s ‘Glamourous’ midway, you suddenly saw the audience bouncing cautiously. At the end you even went along with the popular mantra “if you ain’t got no money, take yo’ broke ass home”. A song like ‘Up and Down’ sounded like “Pizza Boys, but cool” according to a real music connoisseur next to us, but in the end we were most impressed by ‘Dansu’, which is not only one of the best songs of 2021 and spent weeks at the top of Radio 1’s Vox list, but also hors corona hors category sounded.
Aili during her performance at the Cactus Festival in Bruges.Beeld Wallpapermotiv.com
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2023-07-08 10:40:31
#Cactus #day #tsunamis #landslides #eel #bucket #snot
