steppin' out with frantic666: ALKALINE TRIO @ Trix Club Antwerp, June 4 2010

After an amazing 4 days in the UK, it was finally OUR turn, OUR day: the Belgian Alkaline Trio concert, the final indoors headline concert of the European tour. I'm extra excited about the location: Trix Club, Antwerp. After seeing them last year at the AB in Brussels, also one of my favorite venues, I remember making a remark on how I would love to see this band at Trix Club and how much more perfect this club would be for Alkaline. Very small (even smaller than the Luxembourg venue) and a knee-high stage. You can imagine the smile on my face when the tourdates were announced.

I drove to the venue straight after work and got there at 6pm. I had brought a salad and a bottle of water with me and ate outside the venue enjoying the sunny summer's day.
Quite quickly I recognized some other fans I spoke to last year in January at the AB. It felt a bit like a gang reunited at their own private party, the party being the party of the year. Some already met the band in the afternoon so there was a lot of excitement and stories. Meanwhile we could hear the band soundcheck 'Sadie'. You could feel this was the perfect pre-concert atmosphere to make the gig one to remember. Alkaline Trio fans are cool, even though there are not a lot around here.

Once the doors open, we occupied first row. Support band The Fellows are locals and I heard some fine tunes, allthough the songs sounded a lot like Green Day. In fact, one wàs Green Day (St.Jimmy).
Short changeover and the Alkaline setlist was layed out before us. Peeking or no peeking? erm... you want to NOT peek, but you can't resist. So we saw Mercy Me, not been on the list that many times on this tour. The setlist was already a classic before the band had taken the stage. Quickly disgussing who's gonna film which songs (and yeah we got a lot!) and then counting down to the intro.
There were more people in this small venue than there were last year at the much bigger AB, another sign that this gig would be a lot better than last year's.

Matt, Dan and Derek took the stage and the vibe was right from the first tones of opener Private Eye. Armageddon straight after and already people were singing along. Last year they started to sing along near the end of the show. Knee-high stage, no security barriers, you can't get closer than this! It was so great, before we knew it Derek started '97, the final song. Matt dedicated the song to my friend next to me and pointed at his cam while he was filming the moment. Great.
Encores were the same tricks as done at the already classic show at the London Roundhouse only 3 days before: the band swapped instruments: Derek on bass and backing vocals; Matt on drums and Dan on guitar and vocals. Matt kicks off 'Fine', slightly faster than on the album which gave it a "we're just messing around but it's still cool-vibe". For the second encore Derek took lead vocals over from Dan for the Misfits classic "Angelfuck". Alkaline version is the best version I've heard so far.
The third and last encore was Radio, which is probably thè ALK3 classic. For this song, everyone went back to their familiar spot.

For me, the Antwerp show and the London show were the 2 best Alkaline gigs I've seen on this tour and probably the 2 best I've seen ever. Alkaline Trio has never been better live than on this tour!

After the concert, the band took some time for us backstage to make some pictures and get basically everything signed that was brought, even drum cymbals. I've never seen artists so tired; it was less than an hour after the show ended and it was hot in there. Dan recognized me from the talk we had in London and thanked me for coming back here.

On a scale of 10, this evening (concert and everything around it) deserves a 20. Couldn't be more happier with the way my last Alkaline show on this tour went!

Now, Alkaline, please fill the gap between your last Warped Tour concert and the Reading/Leeds festival shows with a short stop at a small village called Kiewit, Hasselt. Please?

Pictures below, scroll down for video's.
All my video's at my youtube channel: www.youtube.com/frantiek