Bonjour Couleur Café!

The summer music festival season started some weeks ago. On Friday the warm weather began to settle in, time for Couleur Café!! 

We could confidently use the word soulful to convey the first day of the festival: soulful temperatures, super soulful line-up, soulful food and a pretty soulful crowd! 

A sun soaked festival field served us an average performance of hiphop legend Nas, refressing cocktails, an amazing Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings bringing the pure soul and the diva of all diva's: miss Erykah Badu. 

One of Belgian's finest festivals!

encounter the light: Brussels

Brukselcity

Gotta love Brussels!

    

Bruksellive

Yesterday ... Bruksellive ... a free festival ...  took place at a wonderful location in the Osseghempark, right at the foot of the Atomium.

Teddiedrum

Teddiedrum

the Cinematic Orchestra

Tv on the wall

@ Bozar - Bxl

Walvis

Wet wet wet.. another rainy evening in summer time.  I planned to go to Brussels on Thursday evening for some tapas and to have a drink on the cosy terraces in the Dansaert street, one of the most lovable places of Brussels.. yes, even with the rain.  Lucky us, each bar has a shelter to hide.  We went to a really nice hotspot called 'Walvis' or translated the wale...  At the end of the trendy quartier this is one of the hippest bars.  A must go if you visit Brussels! 

A low quality picture.. blame it on the rain!

 Walvis

Rue A.Dansaert 209

1000 Brussels

Le Fab Marcel de Bruxelles

Singlets are hip!  A fashion label in Brussels knows this, so they made their own fabulous collection of these essential basic singlets, or a Marcel as they call it!

It seems 'Marcel' is a real success, the collection is for sale in worlds most famous boutiques: Colette’ in Paris or ‘Isetan’ in Tokyo..

Take a look at their website www.fabuleuxmarcel.be and see how lovely this fashion brand is.

Cocorosie (15.05.2010 Les nuits Botanique)

Les nuits Botanique, the annual music festival in a superb setting gives more than 100 musicians from all over the world. This year the highlights include Jamie Lidill, Joanna Newsome, Gil Scott Heron and plenty more. Every year it's a hard job to pick one night out.

I've chosen for an evening at the Cirque Royale to spend and enjoy the show of the twisted sisters CocoRosie (www.cocorosieland.com). Their music is rather difficult to describe, it varies somewhere between freak-folk, avant-pop and trip hop.

Although they grew up in the States, they started their rise to stardom in Europe in 2003. Some hate them, but they won the hearts of tens of thousands music fans and certainly that of my friend I was joining to the show last night. It was her seventh concert!!

Before the crazy show started, we enjoyed the support act of Efterklang. This band from Danemark brings happy indie pop/rock sounds. Magic Chairs is their latest release and it's fun and easy music to listen to. We enjoyed their performance but were waiting for the show of the night.. Cocorosie!

Photographer Samantha West

Bianca and Sierra amazed the Cirque Royale with songs from their previous albums like Werewolf, Rainbowarriors and trippie songs from their new album Grey Oceans like Lemonade. The words in the tracks are better experienced than analyzed. Do not just listen to their album, you have to catch a show of them!

Do you remember the terrible R&b single of Kevin Lyttle: Turn me on, covered by numerous artists, but none of them can match Cocorosie's version. Check the video:

The show featured everything from beat-boxing to tap dancing, bizarre and messy songs with traditional instruments and kids toys. It was amazing!

Please notice that the image credit for the above photos: Photographer Samantha West. Check her website: http://samanthawest.net/

A Sunday Smile

A Sunday smile...
on the streets in Brussels
and on the train with the great new album of José James.