Lord Bishop, Lonehawk, Holy National Victims at the Pitstop in Bereldange on November 29th, 2003

After huge discussions about a first very controversial review about a Lord Bishop CD on this website, I finally was looking forward to meet the self-proclaimed king of Sex Rock personally.

Opener of this event were Holy National Victims, a better discovery of this year's edition of the Luxembourgish Emergenza newcomer contest. Unfortunately, like two weeks ago in Steinfort, I missed them again. But I have to blame myself because I preferred playing Pro Evolution Soccer 3 and Mario Karts Double Dash instead of leaving early. But I didn't expect that the first band would already have finished at 10 pm. The last time I saw HNV was at the 'Rock um Knuedler' open-air and they really left a good impression. More or less 100 spectators were attending the concert at that moment.

Next band was Lonehawk. There are two songs from their new album that you can download on their homepage which made me already look forward to the gig. The afro haircut of the organ player indicated already that Lonehawk's music would be very retro. But retro doesn't always have to mean something negative. OK, considering the local rock scene, most retro bands are sounding very boring. But Lonehawk had a different approach to this genre. The instruments (guitar, bass, drums, organ) put them somehow between pop and rock with a perfect sense for melodies. They mostly reminded me of Ben Folds Five with added guitars. I think only American bands are able to play such a cute kind of retro power pop.

Before the Lord Bishop show could start, another unexpected great star entered the venue: Raoul, the mascot from the national street security (securité routière). In his white dress and with his styled hair, he was looking as slippery as an eel. Pascal was of course very proud that he got a personal autograph. He was so jinxed by Raoul's presence that he ignored the three beauties who accompanied Raoul. Pascal chose to make an alcohol test and as he still was sober, he got such nice gadgets as a pen, a frozen window scratcher, some gummy bears (that he shared with me and Obi) and another free alcohol test. Even if Pascal enjoyed this encounter, Raoul didn't seem so secure as on TV and preferred to go to a less alternative place.

Finally the pure black sex trio entered the stage and after only a few notes, Lord Bishop had been able to put the 40 remaining spectators into his ban. Never before have I seen such a self confident musician. The two meter man was looking very impressive in his colourful dresses. The set contained of course many songs from his CD 'Sweat'n Blood' like 'Devil Inside', 'Shot Down', 'Bad Love', but also new songs which rocked too. The third song was a cover version of 'Paranoid' and although this is one of the most covered songs ever, this was a real punkrocking version. The Lord showed that he's not only a perfect showman, but also a real macho. He had a perfect feeling to find among the audience the most pretty girls and approached them while showing his tongue that would make Gene Simmons real pale (even without a face painting) in comparison. The girls were however slightly embarrassed and preferred to step back. Absolute highlight of the gig was 'Great Ass' where the spectators got involved by making love noises. To finish this review, my conclusion is that Lord Bishop is on stage much better and even more entertaining than on his record. If you consider that the Lord has played more than 1.000 concerts in his life, it's no surprise that he acts so professionally.