A year with very few but very interesting gigs that showed the evolution of songs that were being recorded for “Life Transmission”.
13.05.2000 – Lenteparade / St. Andries, Antwerpen (B)
A Sin So Nasty – Lampshade – Accenten
First gig with Adrian Lenski.
08.06.2000 – Brixton Academy, London (UK)
This was a support set for The The, who invited DAAU on the occasion of the “Shrunken Man” release. This remains the band’s last UK gig to date!
19.06.2000 – Place Ste Catherine, Brussels (B)
Fête de la Musique.
20.10.2000 – Rocksario 2000, Villanueva del Rosario (ES)
21.10.2000 – free show at a college, Estepona (ES)
24.10.2000 – CCP, Malaga (ES)
27.10.2000 – Torrox (ES)
28.10.2000 – Ronda (ES)
From a newsletter at the time:
If anyone has a reason to feel nervous, it is new DAAU member Adrian Lenski who joins the group for his first tour. Adrian will now become a permanent feature of live performances adding piano and synthesizer to the DAAU sond. Adrian, the eldest of the three Lenski brothers, has recently graduated from De Singel in Antwerp where he studied composition. His skills are in evidence on the forthcoming DAAU CD where his most challenging task was to arrange and conduct and eighteen piece orchestra. Adrian has naturally followed the progress of DAAU since the outset and was a member of DAAU predecessor Subconciousness with technician Wim Dox. As part of the musical family Adrian and his brothers often perform informal concerts of chamber music at their home. The brothers have played together since before they can remember, their familial bond being evident in their musical synergy.
Despite having visited the region on three previous occasions, including an extended stay during the recording of their second album We Need New Amimals, the group is relatively unknown in Andalucia. Local poster campaigns have been undertaken and articles printed in the local press. All three hundred seats for the following show in Malaga are already taken. All the shows are free to attend, tickets being made available by request at the local Centro Cultural.
03.11.2000 – 4AD, Diksmuide (B)
04.11.2000 – De Balie, Amsterdam (NL)
Mary Go Round – Accenten – Lampshade – A Radical Chinese Duke – Freeze – A Sin So Nasty – Piano Dub w. Angélique Willkie
Crossing Border Festival. “Mary Go Round” is a very early, almost unrecognizable arrangement.
From Bastiaan’s review:
They played only new songs, wich was a very nice surpirse to me, a great way to get to know the new songs. But to be honest I didn’t feel the excitment of seeing DAAU the first few times. They somehow missed alot. I hope because they where tired from spain and traveling, because it just didn’t have the fire it had before. The songs are nice, especially theones without electronics. I normally love electronics, but at times they get the overhand in daau now it seems. The thing I missed most about the concert( as my girlfriend pointed out to me was that there was a complete lack of improvisation. (…) They depended heavely on the electronics and at points left out two or sometimes three instruments(of 5 they have now)That was in a way disapointing to me. The thing is that the songs where pretty good, and they still had that bit of difference that keeps them standing out form plain electronical music. (…)
A few other things worth mentioning are that several people from daau have
started singing. Buni has a nice song where he sings through a distroted
microphone(something about freeing:) ) and Simon sings also on a reggae-like song where the lead vocals are for Angelique Wilkie again(good song I think) (…) They played ONLY new material. I was hoping for another fantastic version of drieslagstelsel 2, but I guess I have to wait a little bit until
they play in holland again.
23.11.2000 – Scheld’apen, Antwerpen (B)
Si – Drieslagstelsel 4 – Lampshade – Accenten – King Of The Garlic – A Radical Chinese Duke – Drieslagstelsel II / Suds & Soda – Freeze – Waltz Delire (w. Punkistan) – A Sin So Nasty (w. Punkistan)
From Quinten’s review at the time:
Thanks Wim for telling about the DAAU-gig last night! I read it just in time to reschedule my evening, jumped on my bike, and finally made it in time! If there are any more gigs coming up, it would be nice to know a little more at forehand though! 🙂 Anyhoo, no regrets here riding 50 minutes toward and 50 minutes back all the
way to the other side of Antwerp- it was worth it!About Bastiaan’s comments on them not improvising enough or without any true vibe- I can partially understand. Occasionally, the excitement-level dropped a bit, mostly when not all of the band was playing. There were two songs like these (and Adrian didn’t play along on every song either), but they
definitely didn’t spoil the rest, which was sometimes good, sometimes plain excellent. First, they played some new material (first song was called ‘Si’, the rest I don’t know). None of the new songs had any sign from samplers/drumbeats in them whatsoever. (so I thought they were more akin to the first than the
second album). A reasonable amount of singing though, mostly by Simon, and Buni as well. Also, integrated in the new songs was a cover of ‘Paint it Black’ by the Rolling Stones. (which I found nice and amusing but not thàt spectacular)Then, they started to play the first notes of Drieslagstelsel 2, but it soon turned into one long, epic piece, filled with lots of fantastic improvisations. I think it must have lasted around 20 minutes, half of it was improvised I think. At the end, they did their ‘usual’ Suds&Soda-piece, but it had a lot of impro’s in it as well. Part of the crowd was screaming ‘Friday, Friday, Friday’- excellent atmosphere. I think one or two more new song followed, and finally, at the end of the set,the guys from Punkistan (David Bovee, Tomas De Smet and Roel Porino) joined the Anarchists on the tiny stage, playing two more songs. ‘Waltz Delire’ (which is also a Think Of One song as you might know) and another one from We need New Animals (can’t remember which). Both had a vast amount of improvisations in it, and sounded -of course- fantastic. Sooo- my idea on the new songs: they sound promising, but I think the guys simply don’t have full ‘control’ over them yet, in a technical way. I had the same thoughts about them as Bastiaan (i.e. they had few improvisations), but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they’ll sound equally exciting live as the old songs.