Picture from the Belgian newspaper Belang van Limburg, 15 April 2002

The Velinx venue had set up two stages, with the bands on the festival's bill alternating between them. This led to spontaneous interactions between for instance PJDS and Camden and also meant that while one band was performing on one stage, the next in line was setting up its equipment on the other stage. Woven Hand was getting ready when Zornik was doing its --no offence fellow countrymen!-- rather noisy thing and David Eugene Edwards was sometimes staring at them with uncomprehending eyes. Earlier on, when An Pierlé was on, we went to the bar to have a drink and "lo and behold", who do we cross outside the Velinx on our way over? Indeed the Reverend himself. Because he was sporting a moustache and had obviously had a haircut, it took me some seconds to process, and despite earlier promises to myself to say something whenever I would run into him (after having chickened out on a once in a lifetime opportunity some years ago in Dranouter), I could only stammer 'hello' when he had in fact already passed us. It was all quite surreal since David and the three of us were the only people there, but something tells me he didn't feel like talking anyway, or so I comfort myself.

But I am digressing, back to the concert! I do not remember the exact order of the songs, I only know that they started with My Russia and then went on to play (no longer in order) The Good Hand, Blue Pail Fever, Glass Eye, Wooden Brother, Story and Pictures, Ain't no Sunshine and Your Russia from the album, supplemented by two new songs, or new to me in any case, one following Story and Pictures; the title of that one could have been When I come back. Both this new song and Story and Pictures were said to be about tractors, which is about the only thing Edwards said during the entire set and as I gathered from one of the reviews from previous Dutch concerts he made a similar remark there. The other new song is probably called Aeolian Harp. Both new titles come from the actual playlist and were the only two on it that did not ring a bell. The first new song had Edwards playing a piano-like instrument, while Daniel took up the leadsinger's chair. As always technical problems got David into a grumpy mood. He was very expressive while singing, looking up to the heavens whenever the Lord was involved in the lyrics and throwing a rather nasty look into the audience accusing us of having wooden eyes during The Good Hand.

The drummer was a very welcome addition to the Woven Hand line-up I saw at Crossing Border some months ago: he, together with the cellist, gave it some more horsepower and maturity. (I have to add that I immediately felt sympathy for the drummer, him being a fellow four-eyes). The cello-player, who I wrongly and naively with hindsight, suspected to be related to Edwards, had a dubious look as well: nerves combined with trance and contempt.
When I asked Daniel McMahon whether the celloman and David were related Daniel, obviously taken by surprise queried "By blood?" and the celloman added "only in spirit"… and then quickly made himself scarce.
Hey, opening lines are always tricky,…especially when they consist of silly questions like mine. In my defence I can say that both me and one of my companions, who is in fact notorious for having very sharp vision, immediately thought--who we now know to be-- Paul was David's brother or so when we saw him some hours before their gig, walking around telling his companion, who I now know to be the drummer, that the band they'd just heard didn't have as good musicians as the previous one. But, I'm digressing again.

The concert proper then: the soundquality of one of the microphones was too muffled and so a lot of David's excellent voice was lost, which is always a pity. The instruments came through alright. It was nice to see that all of the musicians were set up to form one democratic line. No encores I'm afraid, but I hope they will be more at ease in Brussels in two weeks time when it's really their show and I can for the time being only hope that they got a good laugh out of my surprising question…

By Lieselotte