Belgian Weekend

By Stef

Belgium is a country that actually doesn't seem to exist unless the national football team plays, just like today, when for a bizarre reason Belgians (?) feel Belgian, whatever that means, and which is truly unusual, because they normally are just a bunch of individuals living together between artificial borders, huddled together like cattle in a pen. But just to show that we have more to offer than football, chocolates and beer, we also have some great musicians. Most of them are highly skilled yet few of them dare go beyond the conventions of their conservative upbringing in which discipline and perfection are essential yet coloring outside the lines is viewed as very, very bad. Great professionals, but pretty boring.

Luckily, there are some exceptions. We think of pianist Fred Van Hove to start with, of André Goudbeek (although born in The Netherlands), of Peter Jaquemyn, of Kris Vanderstraeten, Paul Van Gysegem, Joachim Badenhorst, Teun Verbruggen, Othin Spake, De Beren Gieren, Mäâk's Spirit, Jean-Yves Evrard, Els Vandeweyer, Eric Thielemans,  Laurent Blondiau, Michel Massot, ... but the list is short. We will review some of them in the coming days.