Beleuvenissen Vlaams

I must admit that I was highly disappointed when checking this years program for the 4-day festival Beleuvenissen in Leuven. Each Friday evening in July 6 downtown squares have live artists performing for free all evening and each of the 4 nights are organised in one theme. The city buzzes while a few then thousand of people stroll around from stage to stage to enjoy the music. I even thought last years that the atmosphere was better than at the more well-known downtown festival Marktrock.

Usually one of the themes is folk and it's always been my favourite. But for some reason it has been abandonned this year. Last week all concerts were jazz, a music style I really don't learn to appreciate very much. We did walk around and enjoyed our stroll but didn't truly wait anywhere to enjoy the music.
Last Friday the theme was "Flemish". Quite appropriate the day before the Flemish regional holiday , which is heavily stimulated by the Flemish government and cities to organise parties and concerts. However a "Flemish" concert theme sets off a "Schlager", irritatingly commercial contentless humpa humpa alert in my brain and the list of artists expected partially confirmed that fear. No offense to their many many loyal fans but Willy Somers, Lisa Del Bo, Wim Soutaer etc don't get me excited unless it's 3 AM and we're all goofy & tired on the dancefloor acting silly. Nevertheless it's a pity to sit at home when a few blocks away all the fun is happening and some friends were coming over so we headed downtown.

After some dinner nearby the Vounckplein from which we could hear the coverband "Ontpopt" bring fun hits, we headed to the Vismarkt where Axl Peleman would come with some pretty good guests. On the square we met some other friends and in all honesty, I've missed most of the concert since I was so busy talking all the time :p. Then we walked by the Grote Markt where we'd sniff up the atmosphere of the schlager concerts... after 1 minute already we figured we hadd sniffed up enough atmosphere and we walked on. Right at that moment "Als een leeuw in een kooi" started. Oh gosh, for a moment I was very tempted to embrace my inner side that in fact does love "wrong" music very much, but I resisted. We also resisted Will Tura, although surely he's a big artist and we went to listen to the for us unknown Buurman. That was a very pleasant surprise: melancholie, chanson, pop and rock as they describe themselves brought with authentic instruments with an interesting live act. The sign language interpreters on stage were additionally very fascinating to watch as they were partially interpreting, partially dancing and showing the rhythm.

So after all, the "Flemish" beleuvenissen was worthwile visiting and my prejudices had proven to be wrong.

Comments

Stef said…
Indeed Buurman was a very pleasant surprise.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular Posts