Visiting Montcornet and Reims @ Tour De France

LA GRANDE BOUCLE FINALLY RECONNECTS WITH THE SPIRIT OF MERCKX AND HINAULT

This summer we wanted to visit the Tour de France with a couple of friends. After all if there’s music in cycling the three weeks during race is the rock'n roll part of it... and not only Peter Sagan. Theoretically it should not have been all too difficult to jump in because the Tour 2019 started in our capital Brussels on the 6th of july as 'le Grand Départ' and had a team-trial the next day in the same town. But I couldn't make it there those days so we left the busy first two stages rightful to the Brussels' inhabitants and cycling lovers that showed up in mass: 100.000 people at the start, 120.000 at the 'arrivée' and a total of 500.000 in the Brussels-capital region on the first day only!! Whow! An extra attraction was the fiftieth anniversary of 'cannibal' Eddy Merckx’s first of five victories in the French stage course. Eddy was properly celebrated with among others a giant ground picture of him wearing his yellow Faema jersey in 1969.

We joined in for the third stage ‘Binche-Epernay’ and drove from the Belgian roads over some of the race-course roads to Montcornet (Hauts-de-France region) and then to Reims (Grand Est region) where we chose to spend the night in the neighbourhood. This in order to see a glimpse of stage 3 and the start of stage 4 in the centre of Reims the day after.

Fight for merch

The first day we stopped at Montcornet, a little village at the crossroads between Laon and Reims and situated in the Aisne department, to watch the cyclists and the mighty Tour caravan which precedes them for about two hours. If you've never been to a stage you can compare the Tour caravan to a carnival parade or an election campaign in the eighties where all sorts of merchandise are thrown to the spectators at the side of the road who fight among each other for the little publicity wanna-have's. After that it's a long wait to see the rider's peloton. A helicopter guiding the cyclists has then long flown by. In the Hauts-de-France region there are a lot of farmers and everyone does their best to welcome the Tour.



This goes from hay stacks in special trimmed forms, a lot of bikes in different sizes and colours and different banners with slogans on, which you can see pretty detailed on television too or maybe on stream.



I had positioned myself just outside of Montcornet at the bottom of the hillside leading into the village centre where the cyclists attained the highest speeds of the descent, which I estimate around 50 miles an hour (80 kms per hour) or more. Direction hillside I could see a traffic sign pointing to Brussels at a distance of 163 kilometers like it was made for this Tour. The first cyclist I took down on image was Belgian Wellens who was spectacularly leading the breakaway that got him the polka dot jersey. When the peloton arrived I managed to get some well-known cyclists in my lens such as Van Aert, Mattthews, world champion Valverde, Simon and/or Adam Yates, Fuglsang and the later victorious De Ghendt - a little blurred because a Dutchman just came leaping into my focus (grrrr).






The 215 kilometers long stage was eventually won by the French talent Julian Alaphilippe, officially and unofficially the best rider in the world at the moment, who also took the yellow leader's jersey that day. When we arrived the evening at our hotel near Reims we were surprised to see the leader's team Deceuninck - Quick-Step residing next to us at a footstep's lenght.

So we paid them a visit but when the yellow jersey arrived after the exhausting stage and the press and sponsors duties afterwards, he was properly shielded by the staff members - nothing more than justified - and no sign of the teammates either. Also present were some TV crews - I remember Danish, Dutch and Belgian TV - shooting or preparing their short journal news contributions.



Luckily the day after we got to see the pro competitors of the Belgian team before they were driven to the start in their giant team bus. That way I could take a nice shot of Alaphilippe who was already heavy sollicitated and also of sprinter Viviani, climber Enric Mas and of the Belgian helper Devenyns. This was around a quarter past ten in the morning with the start of the ‘Reims-Nancy’ stage at noon.

Ewan’s unforgettable debut

Reims centre, where the wheel heroes were being presented to the public, was our next stop. Passing a booth with the official Tour de France memorabilia on the lane to the giant cathedral we came just in time to see the then white jersey - best young driver - and later sprint victor (but also very unlucky) Wout Van Aert manoeuvring on the podium. A lot of people were gathered on the Boulingrin parking square for the presentation, at the Rue de Mars and also in the adjacent streets leading out of Reims but obviously not as much as in Brussels that waited more than sixty years to be yet again host of the Tour's departure.

The starting line in Reims was constitued of the holders of the classification jerseys. Already that morning I had taken the later winner of the day, Elia Viviani, on picture - as if the Gods of the wheel were generous. Soudal-Lotto's main sprinter, the Australian Caleb Ewan, comes prominently in my lens in the streets of the Marne subcapital. At that moment nobody knew he would become the most succesful sprinter in the Tour 2019. Caleb had been a few times close to victory in the first half of the Tour and eventually won the 11th stage with only a few centimeters advantage to Holland's top sprinter Groenewegen at Toulouse. It is said Groenewegen know writes Toulouse as to lose. In Nimes, at the end of the 16th stage, the quick Ewan speeded up to win the day’s head prize a second time. The cherry on the cake then was yet to come with a glorious win on the last day at Champs-Elysées, every sprinter's wet dream. Again Groenewegen was beaten making the hierarchy very clear for this year.

Just become a father, Ewan's debut at the Tour was unforgettable for him with three wins just as for his Belgian Soudal-Lotto team with four team wins and Tim Wellens holding the scarabee climber jersey for fifteen days, a souvenir from the early attack we witnessed in Montcornet. As a team only Mitchelton-Scott and Jumbo-Visma could equal the number of four stage wins. Another person I recognised in Reims - not a rider but the former Belgian minister of mobility, how appropriate - was Jacqueline Galant with her baby boy. She’s still mayor of Jurbise, a village near Mons, so for her the trip to watch the yellow jersey - an idea a century old reflecting the page colour of the organising journal - was easily within reach.

Long and thrilling

The Tour would go on to provide a long and thrilling race where mainly in the mountains was decided who would be this year’s number one: the young Columbian Egan Bernal.

Bernal, who is the first Columbian to ever win the Tour de France, makes an end to a long British hegemony, starting with Bradley Wiggins over Chris Froome to Geraint Thomas, but confirming yet an even long supremacy of the same Team Sky, since this year Team Ineos.



Bernal, only 22 years old, at his turn could be in for a very long series of wins if he remains untouched by unreasonable bad luck. Time will tell! Most important was that we finally got to see a race again where the riders attacked to win the race instead of trying to control it not to lose. The French climbers Alaphilippe and Pinot - very unlucky at the end - were the best personifications of that. Cannibal Merckx had made it already to the Pyrenees after the Brussels’ celebrations and saw it was good: the riders raced in the spirit of his way of cycling and we all know that was... simply attacking! Sadly fate made this extremely attractive course end on a bit of an anticlimax with the injury of challenger Pinot, one of the few favourites who had been able to leave Bernal behind on a climb, and the both shortened 19th and 20th stage because of weather conditions.

We must not forget that La Grande Boucle has always been a very hard competing race while technology has made the stages even go harder year by year. That makes the riders also more vulnerable, it's not a profession for sissies to say the least.

"Technology has made stages go harder year by year. That makes the riders also more vulnerable"

One can hope for the near future the riders will be progressively better protected as well as one must realise that there will never be a zero risk in this tour or sport which is highly accessible for fans, especially in the mountains. At least the Tour organisation has done what it should to cancel the 19th stage in the descent preceding the climb to Tignes, because the roads were covered with mud, snow and water when a heavy hailstorm occured. No professional cyclist should ever be put in danger, after all the races are already tough and difficult enough by itself!

Pédaler dans la misère in 3019?

But just prophesying where this big tour and cyclism will stand in yet another hundred years? Computerisation and algorithms have now fully entered the sport and their use will only increase. The harsh iron bicycles have been traded in for faster ultralight carbon types with disc brakes not offering any protection so the outcome of their race will now lay in a combination of the rider’s physical and steering capacities, their safety helmet, the team orders, the future weather and a bit of luck or shall we say fate, assuming all organisational faults have been ruled out.

Many will probably ride the virtual Tour de France by then but don’t doubt that 'bread & games' will be even dominant as it is now. It will also have become even more difficult to know the sport’s history by heart, but that's not new: already lots of champions are forgotten or nearly and the list will only become longer with only a few exceptional champs to be remembered. Some spectators will still probably use the event to express their misfortune or poverty - didn't I read "Et le peuple pédale dans la misère" on the Brussels' Jubelpark-Cinquantenaire tunnel bridge at the end of the first stage? That were yellow jerseys too… But that finances by then will be more evenly distributed over the people remains highly questionable. In the northeast of France up to the Belgian border you see most or many of the houses still have the old tv-antennas on their roof. I predict that in 3019 these folks will at least have cable tv to see the future candidate winners on screen trying to grasp yellow stardom!

31.07.2019

My words were not a week old and Belgium lost one of its biggest tour talents in the Tour of Poland. A serene golden boy who competed in 2017 to win the Tour of the Future only to be beaten by Bernal. Belgium's sports and cycling community is devastated by this loss. The new weather and fate take a heavy toll. RIP Bjorg Lambrecht 02.04.1997 - 05.08.2019

MIDNIGHT OIL Live @ Rock Zottegem - Belgium - 05.07.2019

THE OIL STILL BURNS

As the legend will say... Midnight Oil wasn't really sure to compete in the Tour de France or in a Flanders Classic. But their road captain was wise enough and knew that in Flanders you often ride against the wind. So they took the right direction and made it in time!

Midnight Oil is one of the few bands that knew how to combine protest songs with hit success. That doesn't have to be a paradox if one for example donates his gains to the good cause besung. What Peter Garrett and his band didn't warn for or put the light on, we honestly don't know. Just read the lyrics of the song 'Protest' from 1985.

The band from Sydney had built up that hit success quite cleverly out of their experimental sound in the late seventies and early eighties - with even an occasional disco tune. It culminated in a more mainstream protest rock which distinguished Midnight Oil from around 1984 on with a series of strong albums and with in the lowlands three singles that gathered a lot of airplay, among which tophit 'Beds Are Burning'.



The nineties brought confirmation of their big political and environmental voice in versatile artistic productions but without notable singles. Garrett was already busy with Australian nature conservation and Greenpeace. From 2003 on the singer even wanted to practise more intensely what he preached. He got a seat in the Australian parliament and managed to become minister in two consecutive administrations. Midnight Oil went into slumber status until may 2016, a month wherein Garrett announced the comeback of his band as well as a solo album.

Beats have become loud

As an early ecologist the words of the bald front man still easily find connection with reality. Also on a musical scale the mature band still performs solidly. The Oils played an energetic set in Zottegem just as they hadn't really been away. But in the meanwhile beats have become loud, even on a rock festival. Luckily the comical spastic dances of Peter Garrett - a real minister of silly walks - were not techno driven.

Drummer Rob Hirst also had a great time - he's the band's driving force - and threw with just as much enthousiasm his drum sticks in the round. Guitarist Jim Moginie took place at the organ for 'Whoah' and it had something of an intimate celebration. 'Truganini' opened with Garrett on mouth organ, a familiar sound for the fans that grew along with the band, and was captivating. Before yet another great harmonica solo in 'Blue Sky Mine' - a song on asbestos victims and still actual - Garrett asked the public's compassion: "Because it's a tough time for people in the US, having the dumbest president in the universe",  he spoke. Today he's free again to reclaim such statements.

"Because it's a tough time for people in the US, having the dumbest president in the universe" - Peter Garrett

Nothing new of course but he wanted it said! After that the piano melody in 'My Country' and Martin Rotsey's acoustic guitar met for a highlight that flowed out into a powerful collective singing of the other members.

'Short Memory' came refreshing the world's conscience up to the Belgian events in Congo. Hirst had then already taken position at the front, next to Bones Hillman on acoustic bass, and his onehanded beat on the snare drum created a unique momentum with Moginie's piano-improvisation. Another superb soft spike was 'Put Down That Weapon' - somebody's got to sing it - with airy keyboards  by Moginie and the band completely under current.

The Australians had brought with them a sax player and that added value was played out well in 'Beds Are Burning' and last song 'Forgotten Years'. While the band members received inspiration and political energy at large through the situation of the aboriginals even a few of the indigenous peoples came over to see and support them. Obviously 'Beds Are Burning' ended in a beautiful public chant. A concert a little longer than an hour - we could take more - but it was intense enough as a compensation. A happy meeting again in the heart of Flanders!

Setlist: The Dead Heart/ Redneck Wonderland/ King Of The Mountain/ Whoah/ Truganini/ Blue Sky Mine/ My Country/ Short Memory/ Kosciusko/ Only The Strong/ Put Down That Weapon/ Beds Are Burning/ Forgotten Years

Flight 714 to Brussels (Vossenplein/Place Du Jeu De Balle)

FLEA MARKET ATTRACTS ALL RANKS OF SOCIETY

Hergé at the flea market in 1968 © Hergé Museum

Okay the Brussels flea market - although officially befriended - is not comparable to the Saint-Ouen marché aux puces in the Parisian suburb. That is a huge one! Not so in the Brussels Marollen quarter where the daily market is held on just one great square and does not consist of many streets like in Paris what makes it more manageable, if you want. Another difference is that the Brussels flea market is very nonchalant. There's lots of enormous rubbish on the carpets covering the cobblestones but if you look well you can find some genuine gems or save some great books from a rainy day.

The sellers - a lot of Arabs - won't mind. That is for the books, a violin for example will not be for free. I even found a beautiful old box and when I opened it there were just pictures and letters from a world war soldier of a village in the greater Brussels region, but I let his heritage rest in peace. Anyway, lots of stuff for collectors to go through at a market that still has that original Brussels' touch which becomes more and more rare as the real 'Marolliens' - who were born in the socially neglected neighbourhood - have almost all disappeared.

A cup of soup

You still have some poor, often elderly people who live there or enter the pubs for a cup of soup each day but almost none had their cradle in the hood. The last few years the place is being modernised which makes it more accessible for tourists as it used to have a more edgy reputation in the past. But you can find crowd from all ranks of society at the square, from young music producers to richer business people.

One of the original Brussels' inhabitants or 'Kets' who found inspiration at the place, originating from 1873, was the inventor of strip hero Kuifje or Tintin, the late world famous Hergé. In 'The Secret Of The Unicorn' album, Tintin gets possession of a three-master scale model at the old market which leads him from one secret to another discovery. There's also Tintin memorabilia or albums to find at the square if you look well. That way you don't necessarily need to be in the Walloon student town of Louvain-La-Neuve for the Hergé-museum where the merchandise obviously is much more expensive.



But all other reasons to go there remain good! Thinking back at my recent visit in L-L-N just one picture stood out for me and that is exactly the one I'm showing here at the start. It puzzled me enough to make it to the Vossenplein or La Place du Jeu de Balle, called that way because of its early recreation function. The giant vertical print in the museum shows Hergé looking like a humorous art dandy clearly enjoying the moment and life in 1968. One thing I might uncover is that the man was a big fan of music band Pink Floyd and other psychedelic brothers or sisters. If you've seen and read the first album of Tintin where he travels to Russia you will understand why. That album is a crazy road 'trip' in all its aspects. I won't suggest anything but it's clear that Tintin was born out of experiment. His figure became a bit less extreme but if you look well there's still a sharp edge to him in some later albums.

The picture at the Vossenplein was taken when Hergé was a bit older, wiser and already a succesful artist and business leader. Showing this pic is not nostalgic driven. 'Le marché aux puces' is still going strong in Brussels despite internet; not far away are the gigantic heads of Tintin and his dog Snowy covering the rooftops of publishing house Le Lombard near the South station and Brussels is still Belgian's (and possibly Europe's or even the world's) comic capital, celebrating this with many of its façades, rear sides or side walls decorated with well known comic figures. 'Comic strip street art', quoi. Originally, since 1991, it was a way of embellishing the city by the local authorities and The Belgian Comic Strip Center. But it evolved into a 'Comic Book Route' with more than fifty mural paintings - from Tintin to Lucky Luke and Gaston Lagaffe over Boule & Bill (see my picture at Rue du Chevreuil/Reebokstraat leading to the market) and The Smurfs - and even involving neighbourhoods as Laken and Oudergem. Yet another touristic asset...

Hidden treasure

It livens up the places just like the Vossenplein lives up out of poverty nowadays.  The Brussels' flea market still keeps its promise of being a tradition which doesn't mean it should be surrounded by unreasonable poverty.

"The flea market still keeps its promise of being a tradition which doesn't mean it should be surrounded by unreasonable poverty"

So take a look there, it's safe, entertaining and you might find a hidden treasure. If you are in the neighbourhood at night and in the weekend you might want to visit legendary discotheque The Fuse in the Blaesstraat/Rue Blaes, a street adjacent to the square. Meanwhile Tintin's fuse is still lighting up Brussels and the world...

02.12.2018

GOLDEN EARRING, THE KIDS Live @ Zulzeekse Feesten, Kluisbergen - Belgium - 28.07.2018

MUSICAL MASTERCLASS IN CYCLING VILLAGE

So yes, I was the whole week at Rockall where they have no internet and that's why this stayed in my shelf for that time. But nevermind here is my review because ZZ was top! The Fest I mean... And for 2019 you'll see these bands around again at the summer festivals in the low lands. Has it ever been different?

It was eighty years ago that the earth trembled in Zulzeke. Maybe that's why the organisation thought at The Kids and in lesser degree at Golden Earring for shaking up their summerfest. Because from The Kids you can expect rattling music while Golden Earring brings a more subtle rock sound. Three thousand spectators was maybe a bit too optimistic for the gigs on saturday but the concerts brought life into a normally only by cycling events moved village. The Kids, one of the longest running Belgian bands, celebrated in 2016 their fortieth anniversary back then with local talents Black Tolex opening up for them.

That's an honour for the troups of Ludo Mariman of course because who says punkrock in Belgium and Flanders can not go passed this Antwerp band. Moreover, you know what you gonna get when you put the Belgian Ramones on your bill. Already early in the set we got to hear that 'There Will Be No Next Time' and that the authorities are 'Fascist Cops' (but luckily they were at the entrance then). And 'If The Kids Are United' that the rich may fear for a 'White Riot'. Bringing lyrically with

"That's my life until I die"

even the ultimate ode to rock'n roll. Respect!

With Golden Earring you bring in experience, performing pleasure, feeling and class on your festival. The four Dutchmen are at seventy years (ssst!) still one by one top musicians and so is their show. In their home country they haven't been equalled until now and their gig simply brings enjoyment, for their sound fitted perfect and didn't automatically require loudness.

Late seventies' & eighties' touch

The folky 'Another 45 Miles' was the perfect example of that. A song that rang in the seventies and has since always been strongly appreciated. 'When The Lady Smiles' was instantly recognised but 'Going To The Run' - a bikers' ode - and 'Johnny Make Believe' - with bass player Gerritsen at the organ - were the sing-a-longs that enchanted the audience. And the living proof that this band had also succesful singles in the eighties and nineties.

The guys from The Hague even brought with them saxophone player Bertus Borgers who looked after that typical late seventies' and eighties' touch. Those that know the Golden Earring shows are aware of the space they allow the solo improvisations during the intervals of their greatest hit 'Radar Love'. At first it was Rinus Gerritsen making his self-made double bass sound like a sax whereafter he relaxedly unleashed a bursting solo on exotic lively vibes.



Then it was time for drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk to show why he's got a double drum mounted behind his head. Show and drumsticks juggling but also intruiging worldly sounds: these are ingredients of a band that's got something extra to offer. Summarized, a masterclass in music on a hot summer night that for many went even into higher gear during the afterparty. Golden Earring was not awaiting a hangover on sunday, but with Aalter their second summerfest of a Belgian weekend!



Setlist: Just Like Vince Taylor/ Identical/ 45 Miles/ Twilight Zone/ The Devil Made Me Do It/ Going To The Run/ When The Lady Smiles/ Long Blond Animal/ Johnny Make Believe/ Radar Love

Bis: She Flies On Strange Wings/ Holy Holy Life



08.08.2018