Yesterday I saw Pharmakon live in Brussels, BE as part of her EU tour. You know it's a good gig when you still think about it the day after. I think she played mostly material from the latest record 'Maggot Mass', definitely more death industrial leaning brooding, slow, bashing rhythms with her twisted vocals, impressively swaying between different vocals registers with ease. Although it did get more intense towards the end, I do wish the tension would at some point burst into chaotic onslaught, but I guess that's just not really her style. As per signature move, she also squeezed her way through the audience, sparing no one, not shying away from shouting straight in into perplexed faces or bumping into people left and right. The right kind of confrontational energy and strong stage presence that left no one uninterested at what was happening.
Anyway enough talk about an artist most of the people here on the forum have probably seen live, after the gig I had a small chat with Margaret and I told her - and she shared my sentiment -, I was a bit disappointed about the rest of the line up, consisting of just one act that could vaguely be described as 'cinematic industrial rhythmic drones' and the set was quite a distanced self indulgend 'dude behind a bunch of gear without looking up once' type of show. Anyway I felt it was a shame that the Pharmakon gig (as her name within the niche is quite big I'd say) was not used as a platform to showcase some local Belgian noise artists, whether old or new. Now this was certainly not Margaret's fault, as she told me she only knew about the support bands like 2 days prior.
Now all of that got me thinking... who would actually be fit for such a line up? Vincent Dallas comes up, but actually where are the other Belgian noise/industrial artists still performing live? Am I just a stranger to my own local noise scene, or are the glory days of Belgian industrial really far gone? I must say I am always excited whenever something noise/industrial related happens in Belgium, because those occasions are quite rare.
