Arbeid Adelt! @ 4AD Diksmuide - January 21st 2010 **

I'm one of those live-music freaks who'll travel to the other end of the world - or the country, in my case (if I had the cash it'd be the world) - to see some obscure band perform, often in the tiniest of venues.

A few years back, I went to see Mudvayne at the Biebop in god-forlorn Vosselaar; I went to Eindhoven (Holland), Nürnberg (Germany), Lille (France) and even Luxemburg to catch shows of Sepultura, Kid Rock, The Roots and Machine Head.

Yesterday evening marked another one of those instants. Benjamin and me Beamed all our way to Diksmuide, in the deepest of West-Flanders where the poppies still grow in between World-War 1-trenches, to see Arbeid Adelt! perform at the 4AD.

The frontman of Arbeid Adelt, a new-wave band that was in it's prime around '81, '82 (as the Neue Deutsche Welle reached it's climax) but carried on through the early Nineties, is Marcel Vanthilt, a Belgian television personality.

(Pour la petite histoire: Vanthilt used to be an MTV presenter during the eighties and even managed to get a role as an extra in 'Friends' - in this clip, you see him behind the green column in Central Perk. It's the guy with the glasses.)

Their concert at the tiny 4AD was a tryout for a full-on, sold-out gig in two week's time at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. It seems like Arbeid Adelt can still count on a quite the fanbase which they built primarily on two great songs: 'De Dag Dat Het Zonlicht Niet Meer Scheen' ('The Day The Sun Stopped Shining') and 'Lekker Westers' ('Nice And Western').

Describing the Arbeid Adelt! 'sound' as purely 'new wave' would wrong the band, as their '80s style also has plenty of pop, ska and rock elements. Also, Marcel & co's on-stage theatrics make for plenty of entertainment, even though the bulk of their songs hardly match the catchiness of 'De Dag Dat Het Zonlicht Niet Meer Scheen'.

Yesterday, it seemed to me that both band and 'crowd' (if you could consider the 50-odd people attending a 'crowd') enjoyed each other's company, so I guess Arbeid Adelt! earned themselves a two-star quotation. Which means they're ready to rock the AB.