The concert started around 9.45 p.m, and lasted about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The Walkabouts started off with several songs from 'Nighttown,' and they sounded much as they do on the CD (the violins and so on were mixed in). It sounded great, but it wasn't giving anyone the "concert" feeling (well, not me, at least).

It wasn't until they did "Nightdrive" that the concert really started for the 200-300 people in the crowd (where were all the Walkabouts fans here in Norway?). Because of the small crowd I felt that perhaps the band was disappointed, and didn't give it their all (except for cellist Christine Gunn).

However, they did a blistering version of 'Leaving Kind' before they went offstage for the first time. For the first encore they did really good versions of 'Jack Candy' and 'Grand Theft Auto.' In the second encore they played 'Slow Red Dawn' (which Chris said he had written here in Oslo when he worked with Midnight Choir -- nearly the only thing they said on-stage). They finished with Serge Gainsbourg's 'Bonnie & Clyde.'

I grabbed one of the set lists, but compared with what I remember I think there were one or two more songs, but I'm not sure which ones they were:

Follow Me an Angel
These Proud Streets
Tremble Goes the Night
Heartless
Nightdrive
The Stopping-off Place
The Light Will Stay On
Rebecca Wild
Inauguration Day
Death at Low Water (not sure about if they played this!)
Harbour Lights
Blue Head Flame
Immaculate
Prayer for You
Leaving Kind

First encore:
Unwind
Jack Candy
Grand Theft Auto

Second encore:
Slow Red Dawn
Bonnie & Clyde

All in all, a good concert, but it lacked some of the feeling between performers and audience that makes for a great concert.

The Paradiso is in a former church, and its old windows help create a unique atmosphere. The disadvantage is the over-reverberant acoustics, causing some occasional feedback problems. As a result, the vocal levels were kept low, and they were not as intelligible as might be preferred.

Musically, the concert left nothing to desire. There must have been a great deal of rehearsal work. The performance was excellent and left almost everyone in the audience spellbound.

The Nighttown Orchestra consisted of 6 Violins & 2 Violas (I'm not quite sure about the exact ratio); 2 Cellos (one played by Christine Gunn; she performed solos in some songs); 1 Brass; 1 Woodwind; 1 saxophone/leader.

New arrangements presented the well-known songs in a different light. 'Findlay's Motel' and 'Forgiveness Song' both ended with Stairway-to-Heaven-like climaxes.

SET LIST:

(Nocturno served as intro and intermission)
1. Follow Me An Angel
2. These Proud Streets
3. Tremble (goes the night)
4. Lift Your Burdens Up
5. The Light Will Stay On
6. Rebecca Wild
7. Findlay's Motel
8. Heartless
9. Harbour Lights
10. Blue Head Flame
11. Prayer For You
12. Forgiveness Song

1st. set of encores

13. Christmas Valley
14. Bonnie & Clyde (Serge Gainsbourg cover; lyrics translated by Steve Wynn)

2nd set of encores

15. Nightbirds
16. Slow Red Dawn

The concert started at 22:00 and ended at 23:35. The Paradiso was about 80% full, with about 50 of about 300 seats unoccupied. There does not seem to be much support from Virgin for this tour, so it will remain to be seen whether it is commercially successful. The ticket price was 25,- NGL (approximately 15$).

I would recommend this unique series of concerts to everyone, even to those who may have mixed feelings about the new record.

A cellist on the left. On the far right a drum kit. Squeezed in at the back, a bank of strings which make-up the bulk of the Nighttown orchestra. Tonight a saxophonist, dressed-up in a hat & raincoat like a private detective, will occasionally lay down his instrument & conduct. When he does, making angular gestures with the palms of his hands, he looks like a bookmaker giving the odds at a race track.

They begin with four songs from "Nighttown". Chris Eckman hunched over a small keyboard, a cross between Ray Manzarek & Nick Cave, nonchalantly switches to guitar midway through "Follow Me An Angel". They continue with "These Proud Streets"; Carla Torgerson on vocals steps away from the microphone after each line. Across the stage, new bass player, Baker jerks about awkwardly. "Tremble ( Goes The Night )" & "Lift Your Burdens Up", follow.

The first high point in the set comes with two songs from "Devil's Road". During "A Light Will Stay On" three usherettes sit on the stairs to watch. It is tremendously moving.

The violins sweep through "Rebecca Wild", then the lighting, previously muted blues & reds for the Nightown songs, occasionally flaring to a bright yellow, now shrinks to a single spot. Illuminated in the pale glow, Chris delivers a reflective "Findlay's Motel", the only concession to their Sub Pop material. Behind him, in the semi-darkness, the string section creaks & sways.

Overwrought renditions of "Heartless" & "Prayer For You" bookend what was for me the best part of tonight's show: "Harbour Lights", with its cacophonous mid-section in which the whole orchestra bellows at the audience, & one further track from "Devil's Road" - "Blue Head Flame".

They wind-up the performance with " Forgiveness Song ".

With much clapping we entice them back on stage for two brief encores. "Bonnie & Clyde" - "An old American folk song ", with an all-action guitar break that dies then suddenly rekindles itself, is loud, violent, orchestral punk; a polar opposite to the marooned lament of "Christmas Valley" which preceded it.

Second time out, the band come on alone for "Nightbirds" then, with orchestra back in tow, finish off with "Slow Red Dawn".

The doors open. Everyone gathers up & moves out. In the lobby the Glitterhouse Rep, who has been selling books & CDs out of a suitcase all evening, is doing his best to haggle with a native East-ender. Just in front of him, set prominently on a small table, sit a stack of novels by Maxim Jakubowski. Earlier this evening he read nervously, filmed by his daughter.

Nearby a German youth & his girlfriend are examining the cello-shaped CD they have just bought

"This is a joke," he says, unsure of what to make of it.

The lights I saw tonight will probably always stay on in my soul.

Tonight, 28th of June 1997, the Walkabouts and the Nighttown Orchestra played in the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. A red-coloured place perfectly matching the night purple from the lights on stage, perfectly matching with Carla's passionate voice, and Chris's deep vocals.

The Nightown Orchestra are two wings supporting the Walkabouts.

The track list, I don't care, all I care is how the band played dreams after dreams, after chaos, after dreams.

They even managed to cover (and in what way) a Serge Gainsbourg song, "Bonnie & Clyde."

Gainsbourg was a French singer, a poet, a movie director, a painter, a photographer, a true genius who sang songs from jazz, to reggae, metal, he wrote songs about incest inspired by Chopin (he sung that with his daughter), a true creator. Serge Gainsbourg died 10 years ago, cause of death: alcohol, tobacco, sex, or actually real sadness.

Anyway, a dream come true, tonight in Brussels, the Walkabouts played for 1.30h, and the city never looked so purple.

Another view of the Brussels show, by Karel Staes and "De Morgen":

"Het concert opende met het rustige 'Follow Me an Angel', met het orkest als een humuslaag waarop de song mocht bloeien. Dit beeld bleek slechts zeer sporadisch gepast want in de regel overwoekerden de strijkers de nummers. Nu eens met drammerige dramatiek, dan weer met romantisch geslijm, maar altijd als onkruid dat in geen tijden gewied is. En toen de man achter het lichtorgel meende om tijdens "Harbour lights" de accenten van het orkest visueel te moeten beklemtonen,toen, tja....

Ik zou song na song kunnen overlopen wat er mis liep,maar zo'n post mortem is te pijnlijk. Daarvoor liggen de Walkabouts,ook na zaterdag, me te na aan het hart. Samenvattend komt het hierop neer: het orkest voegde niets toe, meer zelfs, het haalde het leven uit de songs, het sloot de ramen,het doodde. Niet hard en plots,maar langzaam, alsof je een kussen op iemands legt en versmoort.Vandaar dat de nummers meestal aantrekkelijk werden ingezet,maar langzaam leegbloeden. Als in een liedje het orkest een paar minuten zweeg, vonkte zelfs de magie,maar het kriebelde ook onheilspellend,omdat het uiteindelijk wachten was op de dood.
Zonde."

This article says that the orchestra adds nothing more to the music, and what's more: it takes all the life out of the songs. It's closing windows; it kills. Most of the time the songs started beautifully, but soon they bled to death. When the orchestra was silent during a song, the magic returned for awhile.

I think I can find myself in that article. As a great Walkabouts fan I was very disappointed last Saturday. Indeed, there was no magic in that concert, like all the other times. It was sometimes even boring. I missed the excitement of a good rock concert. I missed the tension between that angel voice of Carla and that devil's voice of Chris. I missed the tension between the punky rock songs and the great ballads from the Walkabouts.

Chris Eckman: I hope you will not be too mad at me when you read this. I award you the success of this tour and of the "Nighttown" CD (I never saw so many people at a concert), but as a hardcore Walkabouts fan I hope that you will give your guitar the place it deserves and leave that orchestra where it belongs. I hope Jack Candy never dies!!!!!

FAN REVIEW OF "NIGHTTOWN"

While most bands, after an existence spanning some 10 years, are simply content just to consolidate past glories, this Seattle-based five piece show a continual desire to move onwards and upwards . Thus in place of the string section (consisting of members of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra) that augmented large parts of their 1996 album "Devil's Road", we find "The Nighttown Orchestra", an ensemble that adds woodwind and brass to the band's enhanced aural palette, which now also features: analogue/digital synthesisers, electronic percussion and that old seventies war-horse - the Mellotron.

If this does make for what must be the band's most densely textured album (that amply rewards repeated listens), it is also to their credit that this never becomes one of those "everything but the kitchen-sink" productions that all too easily come about when these kind of resources come into play. Indeed, many of the album's numerous musical highlights stem from the sheer quality of the arrangements. For example: the glacial mellotron strings on "Unwind", are so effectively juxtaposed against the return of their orchestral counterparts on the following "Lift Your Burdens Up", as to underline the heartfelt nature of Carla Torgerson's entreaty and thus lays the ground for the album's redemptive centrepiece "Prayer for You," a track whose anthemic nature is deftly underpinned by French Horn and Trombone, before a suitably climactic guitar solo brings it to an end. Additionally, mention must also be made of some superb solo violin playing by the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis on the penultimate song "Forever Gone" and the album's effectual coda: "Nightbirds".

The album consists in total of 13 songs, and avoids tempting fate by the addition of a brief instrumental by keyboardist Glenn Slater: "Nocturno". Vocal chores being shared (as on previous outings) by Carla Torgerson and the band's songwriter Chris Eckman. Whilst wisely avoiding entering into concept album territory, "Nighttown" does have a strong thematic unity that takes the listener on a kind of dusk to dawn journey, through the more seamy parts of the urban landscape of anytown. A cinematic vision in sound of say, the paintings of Edward Hopper: side streets lit by the glow of neon-lit bars, places where the lonely and forlorn pass away the wee small hours and try to forget the shadows encroaching in on them. Only at one point: "Immaculate", do we briefly step out onto main street and encounter the glitterati and jeunesse dorée, the whirling synthesisers distantly re-calling "Street Life" era Roxy Music.

The Walkabouts are of course not the first (or the last) to etch out this territory and critics will be tempted to make all sorts of pat comparisons, however this is a work that scrupulously avoids cliché, never allowing its undoubted complexities to muddy the strength of its emotional directness. It only remains now to see how the band will meet the challenge of transferring it's symphonic grandeur into a "live" environment. But for now they can content themselves with having produced what may well be seen as their masterpiece.