Beat Expo festival

Last Saturday, I attended the first Beat Expo festival in Ternat near Brussels. Because of a rather obscure bill and cutthroat competition from Dick Dale headlining a Roots Night in Antwerp, the venue was barely half-full (say 150 people). Afterwards, people told me Dick Dale was boring as hell, but heck, what else did you expect? The Beat Expo however was great! The fact that the hall wasn't packed, created a cosy atmosphere, some kind of intimate rock 'n' roll party for the in-crowd. I missed THE AMBASSADORS, a local band from Antwerp and the second band, PRESTON PFANZ & THE SEATON SANDS who featured 2 members from The Thanes, played very boring Shadows-like instrumentals (The Twanging Wankers would have been a more appropriate name!). Next was CURLEE WURLEE!, a band from Düsseldorf whose enthusiasm made up for a total lack of decent songs. It was party time nonetheless and the band set the tone for the rest of the night. Some of you might know the Italian band THE HORMONAS from a 7-inch on Shake Your Ass Records but I myself had never heard of 'em before and was very impressed by their 120mph psycho-rockabilly trash. The female drummer as well as the rest of the band (including stand-up bass - yeah!) played very very tight and the songs were top-notch. I am really looking forward to their upcoming album on Billy's Bones Records! THE THANES from Edinburgh treated us on some mighty fine tunes: this was beat punk par excellence! Their cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" might as well be my favourite live moment of 2006 (together with Jack O & The Tearjerkers godlike rendition of Booker T & The MG's "Time Is Tight"). Check out 'Evolver', their great 1987-2001 songs collection on Rev-Ola Records and cherish this band for the rest of your life! The headlining MORLOCKS (it was already 1.30AM) didn't disappoint to say the least. OK, it was a rather unbalanced set but Leighton was fun to watch, the guitars were loud & mean and you don't get to see many 1980s garage-revival bands who still can stand the test of time, right? So yeah, if you like The Fuzztones, The Stooges or The New York Dolls, fat chance you would've loved The Morlocks set! Anyway, some Morlocks footage of Saturday's show can be found here. Hopefully, there's still some courage & cash left for a Beat Expo II next year...