It's wintertime , no more live shows , no more tours ... time to get into the studio and work on some music .
Mitras is an highly original project : bizarre instrumental violin music with a heavy tango influence and lots of electronics going on .
We just finished all the rough mixes and decided on the CD order and are extremely happy with the overal vibe . We'll take a small break now to focus on the artwork and then we'll fine tune the mixes to make them sit comfortably in the playlist .
more info on the mitras website

Haff oktober we start rehearsals for the anual Night of the Proms tour that goes on until Xmas . The tour is devided in 3 blocks : Belgium , Holland & Germany . Main act this year is Roxette , and we also have OMD , Toots Thielemans , Alan Parsons , Sharon Den Adel , Heaven 17 and a few others on board .

As usual I'll be programming and running the clicktracks & loops and take care of all keyboards , electronic drums & orchestral percussion . There's only 2 of us to take care of the massive backline (my good friend Chris Oliver as a guitar tech + myself) , so we wont be bored .....

The last show of this tour and since it's a special orchestral show , Roger's setup will need a lot of alterations . It's going to be good to see all my friends again for the last time this year , but plans are already being made for the next year , so who knows .....

It's incredible , but I have the whole month of septembe off ! I'll be staying home with the family , and in the meantime work on my lovely girlfriend's first solo album . She's a very talented violin player and songwriter with a passion for adventurous electronica . It'll be an instrumental album with both acoustic and electric violin parts playing very melodic and catchy arrangements over a background of trippy beats and moody soundscapes ... unlike anything you've ever heard , and probably commercial suicide , but hey : we've got the luxury to do what we want to do , with the people you want to do it with ..... aren't we luckiest people on this planet ? .... :-) ....

Aha ... working in my own town : isn't that a luxury ? I live in a small town called Aarschot , and every year they have the "Osschotse Feesten" where I'm stagemanager . Lot's of local bands ( apart from headliner "The Sweet" ) , lot's of familiar faces , too many mojito's , and sleeping in my own bed every night .... lovely !

Roger has a few days off and wants to do some additional programming , trying to transfer all his settings and sounds to mainstage and try out some new plugins .
I'll be helping him out in this 2 day session .

Pukkelpop is one of my favourite festivals in Belgium and also the last big one to finish of this summer . It’s alternative , refreshing , and you always see a couple of cool upcoming bands . Spread around 8 stages over 3 days , we’re sure to do some serious work here with a crew of 12 backlineres and 2 full trailers of gear .... Kraftwerk - the band that turned me into a synth freak back then - is playing here as well , so I hope to get the time to see a part of their show .

Another one-off date for a Roger Hodgson show in Switserland . This extraordinary man mostly manages everything by himself for his solo shows , but when playing festivals with short change overs he feels more at ease when I’m around , so here I am again . great location (an old Roman amphi-theatre) , great company , and I even had some extra time to visit some friends in Geneva .... sometimes it just all falls together ... :-) ...

The last couple of gigs for Ultravox this year , so also a goodbye to all of my good friends from the crew and the band . I hear plans are already emerging for next year , so hopefully we’ll continue this reunion tour sometime in 2010 .

I’m stagemaneger at the mask shaped mainstage of the fantastic Tomorrowland techno & dance festival . The DJ booth is in the mouth of the mask , and the complete structure quiet simply looks stunning with a great lightshow , fountains , fireworks and flame throwers . The festival has no less than 11 stages going in different themes , there are swimming pools , jaccuzis & even an artificial ski slope on the site . Unfortunately I didn’t have time for all those goodies as I was busy preparing my stage for artists like Dada Life , Felix da Housecat , Moby , Armand van Helden , Paul Van Dyk , and many more ...

Check out this video of Moby’s grand finale with fireworks and apocalyptic lighting

Here we go again : every year I take position as stagemanager for this prestigious Gent Jazz festival in the great historical location De Bijloke . 9 Days of Jazz and crossover styles . Names like George Benson , Richard Galliano , Joe Jackson , BB King , Jamie Lidell , Rodrigo & Gabriela , Marianne Faithful , Jamie Cullem , and many classic jazz trios will be playing over a period of 9 days . It’s a truly great festival , with a nice and relaxed atmosphere , and I’v never seen an act here that I didn’t like .

Rock Werchter is Belgium’s biggest mainstream festival . Spread over 4 days and 2 stages they’re receiving over 80.000 people a day , and the lineup containes names like The Prodigy , Coldplay , Metallica , Royskopp , The Streets , Oasis , Lady Gaga , Grace Jones , Black Eyed Peas , Lilly Allen , Bloc Party , and many many more .... As most of these productions come with a full stage set including backline , our job is mainly to provide general backup backline for any malfunctioning equipment .
We’ve stacked our trailer with a variety of the most common vintage and modern instruments , spare parts and useful bits and bops .
The weather is great , and we’re waiting for things to happen .... I love it !

Couleur Café is a worldmusic festival in the heart of Brussels . With a crew of 6 backline techs we’ll be providing backline for bands like Zap Mama , Ozomatli , Khaled , Cubanisimo, Alpha Blondy , Emir Kusturica , Cesaria Evoria , RZA , and many others .... basically half of the festival lineup that is . We’ve got a trailer and a large truck full of gear , and we’re gonna get sweaty and dirty this time I’m sure ...

This is the first festival of this summer that I’ll be working for Kick Artist Services . This company provides rental backline for most Belgian festivals , and every year they hire me as a crewchief backline to run a few festivals . This one is 3 days of Afro Cuban & Latin music spread over 2 stages .
We’re here with 2 trucks of backline and 3 backline crew working in a very pleasant atmosphere and good conditions , allthough after 3 days full time exposure to this type of music I’m beginning to long for some good old fashioned rock&roll ... :-) ....

5 weeks after the last tour we’re making a one off appearance on june 13th at the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK . We’re having 2 rehearsing days in London prior to this to fresh up a bit , reprogram the shorter setlist , make some corrections after the evaluation of the last tour , etc .... Everybody is in a good mood , we’re all glad to see each other again , so this is gonna be a great start of the festival season .

I just installed a brand new mac pro in my home studio ... boy is this machine fast !!!
I was still working on a dual G5 2.5 before that and it really started struggling with the latest plugins like omnisphere and complete 5 .
Now I’ve got an 8 core nehalem mac pro , and these processors use hyperthreading so they actually present themselves as 16 cores to the OS , and I can tell you : every one of those single cores is way faster than a G5 core . I’ve installed 8G of memory (expandable to 32G) , 2 drives of 1TB (with still 2 empty slots to fill) , and a TC electronics powercore card .
This computer will finally enable me to make 3D renders in the background (they can take a looooong time , even on this one) , while still making music with plenty of cpu headroom .

Next project : the recording of the Mitras album

Together with my good friend Erik from mandala corporation , we designed a logo that is going to be printed on drumline practice pads for the students of the cy-fair school in the US
We based ourselves on one of our existing designs from our mandala collection , changed the colors and textures and added the lettering .
The client was very impressed , so soon there will be a bunch of drum students beating on our artwork .... great !

Roger Hodgson will be supported by the Metropole Orchestra for this gig , including a pop rhythm section . It’s all gonna sound a bit more like the real supertramp , which is a good thing I guess . I’ve always liked Roger’s band shows . We just did a full day rehearsal at the Metropole’s studio in Hilversum and are now preparing for the show in The Hague . Roger’s setup needs to be simplified as the orchestra will take over a lot of parts that he normally plays on keyboards .

I finally finished the Donquièstar album . The recording and mixing took exactly 10 days , spread over the last few months , so we stayed perfectly within the budget and timeframe .
Dave is now very proud with his first album , and I wish him all the best with it .

A one off show with Roger in Strasbourgh on may 14th . Roger is always trying to improve on his software based setup and it’s been a while since we worked together , so he’ll probably want me to look into his new configurations and finetune some things . It’s always a pleasure to spend a few hours brainstorming and programming with Roger , as we seem to inspire each other for the better ideas .

I’m really thrilled about this tour . As a child from the eighties , I’ve always liked Ultravox , and now I got asked to join the reunion tour as a backline tech . I’ll be responsible for all the keyboards apart from Billy’s (who’s got his own tech) , the electronic drum triggers and most of the computers on stage , all running logic or mainstage . A few weeks back I spent a few days in London programming stuff for the rehearsals , and the guys are really cool to work with . What more do you want ? We’ll be doing 17 shows in the UK and Ireland , starting april 10th in Edinburgh and ending may 3rd in Belfast . It’s going to be a great tour !

update : I’ve also made the clouds used on the LED screens for the opening song Astrodyne . Have a look at them here (right click and download)

2 Night of the Proms shows in Charleroi + 2 days of rehearsals + some additional programming . It’s a routine job , working with a team that runs efficient like a factory ... what can I say ? ... It’s good to see everybody back again , but it won’t have the charm of the “real” proms at the end of the year .... good freshing up though ... and we’re having Chic as a headliner , so we’re gonna have a funky good time ...

The second session for the Donquièstar album will take another 3 days . Most of the recording was done on a previous session , so now we’ll do some additional overdubs and try to get a good mix going . After this week we’ll let it rest for a while and then take one more day , maybe two , to finetune the mixes and do the mastering . It looks like we’re going to stay well within our 10 day timeframe . Nice .....

Just picked up a new canvas . I made it in photoshop and sent it in for print before Roger Hodgson’s South America tour .
Now it’s finished and nailed to a frame , and proudly hanging on my kitchen wall .
Another great addition to my growing collection , and I must admit : quiet impressive at 1m x 1,6m .

3 days of programming for the upcoming Ultravox reunion tour in april . I’ll be working with drummer Warren and bassist Chris to get the Rhythm section going . Back in the days it was all analog beatboxes and synths connected with cv and gate . The challenge now is to recreate it all using software only . I already found some samples from their favorite durmmachines and I have a pretty good idea how to put it all together . I’m really looking forward to this ...

This is going to be a fun tour . 3 weeks in South America , with a cool and relaxed band and crew . We’re doing shows in Ecuador , Venezuela , Peru , Argentina and Chili . Starting with a few days of rehearsals in Ecuador and then doing only 5 shows , this trip is gonna leave us with some spare time to check out this continent .
We’re renting most of the backline locally , so that could be interesting .... well : I have a feeling this is going to be an adventure , and that is a good thing .

This week I’ll be recording the first part of the Donquièstar album , a techno-punk ish band from Leuven . I’m doing this in my small home studio , based around logic , loads of plugins , a cosy and good sounding mix room with genelec speakers , and a small recording room with some basic mics . We’re on a tight budget and time , so it’s gonna be hard work , but I love deadlines : you have to focus on the essence and not waste time on unimportant details .
And it’s good to be in the studio again and be a creative producer .
Oh , and I also do the cooking , which makes a great break to give our ears some rest .... and the client apreciates the food as well ... :-) ...

Happy birthday to me ! Yes that’s today , and we’re travelling to Germany for 20 shows in 12 major cities . Finally some action !
staying at one location is cool for a while : no building and breaking and lot’s of time off , but it also gets boring ...
So 4 more weeks to have fun and tour around Germany , and we’ll all be home the day before Xmas to spend quality time with family and friends .
A perfect way to end the year!

The Belgian part of the tour is finally over : we did 14 shows in the Antwerp sportpaleis . Now moving to Holland where we’ll do 11 shows in Arnhem and Rotterdam . This gives us the change to prepare our set and “rehearse” the travels for the German part of the tour in december .

For 8 years in a row , I’ll be working for the Night of the proms . This tour kicks off half october and goes on until Xmas . We’re doing around 50 shows in Belgium , Holland and Germany .
This is really a massive production : we have 1 full trailer of backline only ( and only 2 bacline techs ) . Not surpisingly if you know that the production is based around a 74 piece classical orchestra , including a grand piano , a harp , 4 timpanis , xylofone , concert bass drum , etc .... There’s also a full electric band , including V-drums , an advanced percussion setup , keys , bass & guitar .
My main job is to program and operate clicks and loops , program keyboard sounds , and setup the backline . Programming the clicks is really a challenge sometimes . Some of the classical stuff has very complex multi tempo and multi signature changes .
It took me a few years to get my head around the classical way of notating and interpreting rhythms , but I finally feel I’ve developped a good working relationship with the conductor .
I also get the freedom to add a personal touch to the music as well : a percussion loop her , a sound FX there ... this makes this work really enjoyable for me . I hope to keep on doing this for many years to come .

4 days in Athena for 2 shows : I think I’m actually going to climb the acropolys and enjoy the mediteranian weather .
It’s always nice to be out with Roger again . It’s a real small production with great people , and everybody is always relaxed , the hotels are great , the venues are good , ...... I wish I could do more of these kind of jobs .

A live TV show , featuring a number of European popstars , and backed by our NOTP orchestra . We did the same concept e few months back in Paris , so this is nothing new , only smaller .
I spent a lot of time programming clicktracks again ... and this time nothing will go wrong ... ;-) .....

I’ve never been in Brazil , so I’m looking forward to his one . We’re doing 3 shows : Sao Paulo , Brazilia and Rio de Janeiro + 3 days of rehearsals in Sao Paulo as well . We’re doing all this in 1 week , so It’s a pretty busy schedule . Normally Roger is playing solo , but this time he decided to do it with a band , so it’ll almost be like Supertramp again .... which is nice ....
We’re renting the drumkit , but we’re flying in all the essentials . The crew is just Howard for the FOH and me , so we’ll know what to do .
Brazil : here we come !

A one of show in Germany with Roger Hodgson . I worked with Roger before years ago on the NOP tour ,and he contacted me to help him re-program his live keyboard rig . It’ gonna be good to see him again , and ik looks like we’re do some more work in the future .

Pukkelpop is the last Festival of the Belgian summer festivals . It has 8 stages and goes on for 3 days . Kick Artist Services provides the festival with backline , and that basically means : move the complete warehouse stock to the pukkelpop site . The program has a very broad style : there’s dance , DJ’s , metal , rock , world , fanfare , ... you name it and it’s there . That means the backline needs to be there too . We have a few trailers on site as stock and around 15 people as crew . The atmosphere is great , and after the last day we symbolically celebrate the end of the festival season ..... yes that means : drinking and drinking and drinking ...... Ives Mergaerts , the owner of the backline company , is so kind to extend our hotel stay for 1 more day so we don’ have to drive home . Rock on Ives !!!

Another great job I’m doing for Kick Artist Services . I’ve been working for reggae sundance since the very first edition , and it’s really one of those festivals I wouldn’t want to miss . It’l located on a beack near a recreation pool , just across the border in Holland , where soft drugs are legal ..... you get the picture ... :-) ....
Mind you : it’s hard work ! We provide backline for every single band that plays there (Jamaican bands seem to travel without backline as a rule) . Especially the keyboard demands can be pretty extravagant , and with 10 bands a day you’re busy from the early morn until ..... JAH , RASTAFARI !!!

I’m stagemanager and backline coördinater at this nice little jazz festival . This is really one of the most relaxed festivals I know . It’s located in the middle of a historical site in Gent and the music is all top quality jazz or crossover . 3 shows a day , 10 days in a row .... what more do you want ?

This must have been the biggest show I’ve ever done . Live for 600.000 people , and broadcasted live all over France . It is off course the French National Holiday , and we are invited with the NOTP orchestra to provide the musical background for the French stars . The main part of my job - besides setting up the backline - is to program and run all the cliktracks and loops . It’s a lot of preparation for a one-off show , and a bit tricky , since they keep on changing stuff until the last moment ...

Another Job for Kick Artist Services . The Werchter festival is Belgiums biggest mainstream festival , and for many years I’m part of the team , as crewchief backline . Lots of big names here , most of them with their own backline , so not so much to do here . A few smaller bands during the day but once the headliners start playing we’re packing up . We do have a vast collection of spares of all the major brands on site though , as well as a fine team of experienced backline techs

For years I’m working on this festival as a crew chief for the backline rental company : Kick Artist Services . Graspop Metal Meeting is Belgium’s biggest Metal festival . On the mainstage we have all the big metal acts , like Kiss , Iron Maiden , Whitesnake , etc .... They all come with their own production , so we stay out of there . The 2 marquee’s however is where all the underground bands are playing , so for us that’s where the action is . We provide backline for most of those bands , and backline for metalbands is A LOT of backline . Practically , this means we come with 2 trailers full of backline : 7 full drumkits with double bassdrums , 6 racktoms , a few floors , a dozen cymbalstands mounted on racksystems , 8 ampeg 810 stacks , around 40 marshall cabs , a dozen mesa cabs , a few dozen amp heads , and lots of spare ..... not a single percussion item though ...

Working for Kick Artist Services , providing the Afro Latino festival with backline for the major part of the line-up , including Shaggy .
I’ll get the change to see Shaggy’s MD again , with whom I worked previously on the NOTP tour and the Natalia concerts .