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| Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Lowlands festival, Holland. 23.07.02 Because the sadists that had done the programming had put the Cooper Temple Clause just before BRMC, I missed half of their set, and had to sneak through the gathered crowd stealthily, to be able to see anything. I came in during US Government and Spread your love, which was a really big shame because those are my favourite songs. Fortunately, there were only a few spots where people were pogo-ing, so I could get quite close to the stage, couple of rows to the back, to the right of Peter. I had a little trouble remaining upright, because of drunken people swaying and jumping, but it was worth it because what I witnessed was literally breathtaking. They looked like the ultimate expression of superhuman coolness, Robert and Peter standing all alone on the gigantic stage, elevated several feet above the masses of toiling mortals that were swarming below them. On the endless black wasteland of the stage they merely stood, their silhouettes black and ominous in pools of light that washed over them, drawing around them halos of amazing colours; blue like the flashing lights of violence and death, dark, bloody red, and icy white all came and faded in misty shades. They remained, though, their slow, smooth motion and godlike silence only adding to their divinity. So distant were they that they did not seem like the friendly, soft people I had met only a month or two ago. The crowd was thus awed into complete adoration, most of them being too drunk to really care anyway, and swayed and pushed and jumped and screamed. Robert thanked them for their enthusiasm several times. After the afore mentioned songs, they played a few new songs, some of which I remembered from their last gig. Then Salvation descended, heavenly beams of white light that shone down on them moved slowly from them unto us, letting us share in their astonishing glow, and then it ended in the fast chaotic ending they sometimes play. An invisible UFO started blinking above, and they suddenly vanished in a fiery blaze of pale orange light, back to the celestial kingdom they belong, leaving us in the mist and noise. Then Robert came back, smiling, scratching the side of his head in his typical manner, and said: “Thank you! Thanks very much.” I knew they couldn’t have changed. By Hanna Nierstrasz |