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by Mieke Van Hoof I had never seen Texas acoustic before. That's one of the reasons I was really looking forward to this showcase, others were, taking one of my best friends Matthias and try to Texanize him , meeting the other fans (some for the first time, others again), and off course, Texas itself, who I love more at every concert! I was at Matthias' house early, I'm always early, can't help myself... From there we drove to Brussels, to the trainstation where we would pick up Miss T-time and Wildwhite. We were there early as well, but had some hot chocolate and watched the passers by! Miss T-time would arrive first so we decided to wait at her platform for her train to arrive. We didn't have to wait long before it was there and Jessy got out of the train to meet us, we gave her a warm welcome in the cold city and went back into the station to look for Griet. We hadn't seen her before so that was a bit of a struggle, but after a text-message we found eachother and we also gave her a warm welcome in the world of Texans! Since it was noon we decided we wanted to eat something but at the trainstation there wasn't much to eat, so we went to the studio's and tried to find something there. That wasn't easy either as everything seemed to be closed. After a while we did find a place but when we wanted to order they didn't seemed to have anything small, just whole menu's, and because we didn't dare to leave we just had something to drink and left then. In the end and after some more walking around and asking even, we found the most famous restaurant in Belgium, the "Frietkot" where we had some fries and something that's supposed to be meat. Then we headed back to the studio's where Marilyne was already waiting, but we stopped at a comic book store for a short while since Matthias and also Jessy seemed to be into that. When we arrived at the studio's, Marilyne told she thought she recognized someone who looked like SharleenRocks, and she already entered. We found her a little later waiting inside at the entrance so we joined her and her family (they were a lot!!!) and also some other fans who were already inside, in the mean while Dirk had already joined us as well, also with some family. Not long after the little place where we were got crowded and more familiar faces entered, BBB, Johan and Emma and not long everybody was there. At 15.30 they took us into the building where we had to wait a bit longer, waiting, always waiting, it's good to have some fellow-Texans with you then!! At about 16.40 the studio was opened and we rushed in, got ourselves some good places. We were a bit scared by the distance there was (not) between the stage and us. If I wanted, I could have touched Tony's seat... Marc Pinte, one of Donna's presenters came on the stage and we were all excited but he told us to wait a bit more, he was just going to give some instructions, no flashes, no mobile phones, things like that. So after some more chatting and a drink, provided by Mercury, finally Texas got onto the stage. Shar told us she had brought Misty with her but that she wasn't interested in seeing her mom play and wouldn't watch the show! They started with Getaway and I think that already got the crowd going. I loved it, just the acoustic guitars, a bit of piano and Shar's voice, what more do you need? After getaway they played So called friend, someone in the audience had a little piece of paper where she had written on "Please play So called friend" and they did. What I thought was amazing, the fact that they played it and how, they got us singing there as well, definately the first couple of rows were singing along, I don't know about the others but it did sound loud, louder then any of the other songs, it was very, very, very good!!! Afer that they played Inner Smile, always a crowd pleaser, not different this time, loved it. I don't remember quite well where she talked about the new video, i'll just tell it here. She seemed a bit dazzled when we said we had already seen the new video, sorry Shar, but internet is fast these days Marilyne shouted something about the uniform and that got her started about firemen uniforms, she seems to like them and especially the French one, with the helmet. She told the story about how she got one of those at the end of the GH tour in France from the head of the Fire department who was at the concert and she has that helmet in her house now, she doesn't wear it though... They played sleep, with Tony on the vocals, he needed a bit of cheering which we obviously did. I like it better with Paul Buchanan, hope they will take him on tour, but Tony is a very good replacement, i like it when he sings along!! After that they played can't resist and then Shar took place behind the piano to play Nevermind. She actually needed some help with the mike, the roadie tightened the screw a bit too much and he had to come and help her. When she was doing that she told a girl in the audience to be quiet and told us (or Dirk ) she has a nickname in the band, which is Radar, because she can hear everything when she's in a room, even with 50 people in it and when it's whispered. She can follow every conversation she said, she then asked the girl what she said before because she did hear but didn't understand. The girl said that she couldn't see so Shar told her to get up but she turned out to be tall (she sat so everyone behind her would be able to see something) and that scared Shar a bit so she told her to get up on her seat on the stage, which she did. Nevermind is such a beautiful song, but the acoustic version does sound a bit like the album version to me, the ones they played at the concerts is much more powerful, which makes the contrast between just the piano and the piano with the guitars bigger and the song more beautiful, to me. After that they played Summer Son and SWYW and then the country version of IDWAL, fantastic, I really love that version!!! Then they said their goodbyes, Shar had a lot of signing to do which she did with a smile and then left, probably headed back home! I asked Tony for his plectrum, he got it out of his back pocket an gave it to me, saying I could have loads of them, because it's just a regular plectrum, but I can't have loads of them that he played with, so, me very happy!!! :°D We were presented a walking dinner afterwards, which we enjoyed, and talked about the concert in the mean time. I heard some girls talking about the people in the front and that they were from the Texas website so I showed them my TID t-shirt (which after my mom ironed the two prints on top of eachother is now also falling apart literally ) and they said they really enjoyed the concert! After eating something we said our goodbyes to some who were heading home and also met Luc, who was lucky enough to get a picture with Shar. It was great meeting you Luc! And after that we saw we were the last people in there and Griet and Jessy had a train to catch, it was time to go! Thanks to Texas for being there and for again giving us the best time, thanks to all the other fans I've met, it's great going to a Texas concert with you!!! And I just wanted to say, when a friend of Matthias called him, he told him he had been to a Texas concert and that it was "super"!!! Mission accomplished!! |