««« UPDATE : 12-08-24   «««

ALL THE LINKS ARE BACK ONLINE, INCLUDING THE LONG GONE ONES TO TRIGGERFINGER (Parkpop - 2009), THE HIVES (Coachella - 2012) AND MONOTONIX (Bottletree Café - 2011) ! ENJOY !! :-)                            

DOWN THE PIT

 24/7 DIVA HEAVEN - "Screechings From Berlin"- Crossroads Festival - Harmonie - Bonn - 27-10-23 + Bonus

24/7 DIVA HEAVEN     

Crossroads Festival - Harmonie - Bonn - 27-10-23 

1 - Shamebath

2 - Potface 

3 - Born To Get Bored

4 - J.T.

5 - Manic Street Ballet

6 - Face Down

7 - Crown Of Creation

8 - White Swamp

9 - Suck It Up

10 - Head On Collision

11 - Everyman

12 - Doctor Touch

13 - No.1

14 - Topped With Cheese

15 - Outro

16 - Victim

17 - Death To

18 - Bitter Lollipop

Bonus (Personal collection) :

Carnötzet - Palp Festival - Sierre - 23-10-21

19 - Victim

20 - Head On Collision

21 - J.T.

22 - Potface  

23 - White Swamp

24 - Doctor Touch

25 - Everyman

26 - Half Moon

27 - Bitter Lollipop

Encore : 

28 : No.1

Sonic Blast Festival - Vila Praia De Âncora - 12-08-22

29 - J.T.

30 - Head On Collision

31 - White Swamp

32 - Doctor Touch

33 - Bitter Lollipop

 

Technical info  :

Blu-ray Proshot + Audience shot

Video : Mpeg - 1920 X 1080 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 147 mns
Size : 21,9 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

 

 

 

 

"Every cloud has a silver lining" they say. Yep, sometimes right out of the middle of inextricable mess, luck rises. 2021, the music industry hardly comes back to normal life and the festival scene is still on hold. The great guys from Palp Festival (probably the most gorgeous open-air live spot I've ever been to !) decide to postpone their Carnötzet edition to October. The little festival is commonly held in early June but this is obviously too early to book a decent line-up. Somehow and as far as I'm concerned, this is a lucky move. June is a much trickier period for me and festival competition hits harder. September 2021, I get a mail from the festival giving the details of the new line-up. To no surprise, I don't know any single band ! Let's explore ! First on the list, "24/7 Diva Heaven", yeaaaah what a name !! Three girls playing "butter meltin' rock". Even more exciting ! Their latest single "Bitter Lollipop" is on display, let's listen ! Appealing indeed. The video starts on a poppy gritty tune, with quite a heavier Weezer vibe, ... really nice ! They push the showy "girl band" touch to the limit with pigtails, pink lipstick, balloons, smiling... but the true nature of the girls bursts out at 1:15 !! Now in jeans and tank top, loose hair, scowling, they fire away a much harder racket !! This is thicker, this is louder, this is love at first listening !!!! I'm straight away on the net trying to devise a train trip to Switzerland ! More and quite unexpectedly so soon, that will be a nice opportunity to meet Lyudmyla and Julien again, a very friendly couple I met for the first time at "La Rocklette" festival in August ! Deal ! October, 23rd, 2021, I'm in Sierre's picturesque high-street. As always with the Palp team, the concept is truly original and thought out of the box. The term "Carnötzet" is a kind of slang expression from Romandy referring to a little and fully furnished private cellar where family and friends like to spend some time together, having lunch and drinking wine. The cave is the stage ! And you've got ten or so stages scattered all along one single street ! Quite unusual ... as usual with the Palp ! The locals can't really understand what the hell a French guy is doing here ! But of course, when the girls from 24/7 Diva Heaven hit the tiny stage that night, I'm front row ! The "venue" is packed (50 people maybe !) and the show is just up to the expectations !! A gritty, dirty, loud sound from the underneath but always with a girl's touch. The perfect mix !! I'm buying up everything I can at the merch table, get the two albums signed (still miss Karo's signature though, next time I hope !), warmly thank the girls for the show and come out from this cave with the feeling that it is already damn worth the trip to this far remote corner of Switzerland ! This is what you have here in the bonus section. Some parts of it at least. To be honest, I didn't remember filming so many songs but I'm glad I did. It was a pleasure to dive into them again even if, naturally, regarding the conditions, it is quite dark ! On a side note, it was also a treat to discover the other bands on the bill, Hathors (good friends of the girls obviously), Ester Poly, Blind Butcher, Dopplegänger, Harvey Rushmore & The Octopus, Lynn Maring (I was pleased to see again after the breakup of the great Chikitas !), etc ... All highly recommended !         

Of course, once you've had a first taste ...

There have been some years now that I've had a loud Portuguese festival in my sights. Late 2021, the Sonic Blast Festival lets out its first names and at the bottom of the list ... 24/7 Diva Heaven !! Everything falls into place !! Summer 2022, so here we are, on the road down to Vila Praia de Âncora. In the afternoon of  August,12th, I firmly stand against the crash-barrier of the stage. And again, even if the conditions are the complete opposite to what they were at Carnötzet (in bright daylight this time), the girls don't disappoint again ! And those who made the effort to turn up early know it all too well ! Some parts of this set are available in the bonus section of this blu-ray too.

Another thing I also like with these girls, through the only two shows I could attend, is that they really enjoy playing together. This is plain to see. No sulking, no smugness, no weariness, no auto-pilot show ... they're up for fun and they're having it. This is also quite obvious when they're off stage, during a Slomosa's show for example (some other good friends from what I could understand ! :-) you can catch a glimpse here !)

Of course, the "main course" of this blu-ray (not free from technical headaches again !!) is the show the girls played at Bonn, last October, for the Crossroads Festival. I have had a plan to pay a humble tribute to the band for a while, this concert is the perfect match ! Thank you so much Rockpalast for being around for so many years and for making us discover so much great music ! As far as I know, you were even around more than forty years ago when you worked in collaboration with the late brilliant "Chorus" show on French TV !! More than the seasoned art of filming, we have here the chance to have an insight in what is coming next for 24/7 Diva Heaven !! A couple of new songs were played that very night and they sound all damn good, with again a great variety in the writing ("Manic Street Ballet" and "Crown Of Creation" are just earworms stuck in my head ! please, set me free !! ;-)). Alongside with the two singles out so far, this new album is just going to be big as hell !! The release is due to October, 11th. Prick up your ears, duck and cover guys !!

Enjoy !

Cheers !

Chac

 

DILLY DALLY - "Befeathered" - Lee's Palace - Toronto - 27-05-23

 

DILLY DALLY

Lee's Palace - Toronto - 27-05-23

1 - Candy Mountain 

2 - Ballin Chain

3 - Colour of Joy

4 - Doom
5 - Witch Man
6 - Green
7 - Believe
8 - Sorry Ur Mad
9 - Marijuana
10 - Morning Light
11 - Gender Role
12 - Snake Head
13 - Ice Cream
14 - I Feel Free
15 - Sober Motel
16 - The Touch
17 - Desire
Encore 1:
18 - Next Gold
19 - Bad Biology
20 - Purple Rage
Encore 2:
21 -  Heaven
 

Technical info  :

Blu-ray Audience shot

Video : Mpeg - 1920 X 1080 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 90 mns
Size : 15,7 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included
 

 

So, here we are again. New stuff, new shape. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure to get down to this ever again. Who cares anyway ? Everything is on YouTube now (and that's just fine, particularly with what lies in this one !). My almost 3-year truancy may also come from the fact I still spend (too ?) much time down the pit (see above). Better living it than making up for it I guess. Yet, people seem to crave for "touching the thing" again. Vinyl records reached an unexpected 45 % of physical music media sales here last year. It was 1 % ten years ago ! Time to author again then ? Hum ...

Actually, another thing kept me away from here. As mentioned before, what is a 720x560 dvd video worth compared to a 2560x1440 youtube cell-phone footage ? If I wanted to keep in touch with all this I needed to find an HD authoring soft to make the grade. Burning blurays seemed to be the awkward alternative then. Again, nobody cares anymore and so do the manufacturers. That kind of standalone softs no longer really exist, they have been bundled up into bigger video editing packages, just as cosmetic add-ons, with fewer functionalities.

After countless hours spent searching, I finally managed to get my hands on an old one. Then, I had to "tame the beast" ! I didn't start from scratch but the approach was quite different and getting familiar with the whole layout and firepower did sometimes make me sweat ! I eventually made my way through. One last hurdle was looming ahead. The rendering (shivers down the spine typing this) ! I'd had some looooong encoding experience with dvds, I expected a kind of act of glory with hd blu-rays ! I didn't get disappointed. I let the machine run the whole night for the first try. Waking time, feeling still clouded I headed to the computer, turned the screen on again and ... done : 6 %, remaining time : 102 hrs !! Ahaaaaaaaaaa !!!! Alright, I'm done with it. Really a shame to have spent so much time to something of no use.

 Two days later, I still felt frustrated and decided to give it a second chance. Scouring forums again, I discovered that it would be better to demux video and audio and that there's a possibility not to make the soft render both files if I managed to turn them into bluray compatible formats. After multiple attempts with no avail I finally got the two green ticks opposite my files, quality untouched !! Yeaaaah !! Back to the fearful overnight rendering ! I felt a bit edgy when switching the screen on the next day. But ... done : 74 %, remaining time : 6 hrs ! This was much better ! All in all, my first 16 Go bluray was rendered in thirteen hours, which is somehow unexpected considering my 10+ year old setup !          

Now, of course, talking about the band who made me feel going back to business ... As it often happened before, ... the opportunity made the thief ! On a blue Monday, I came across the sad news : Dilly Dally are quitting ! A real blue day indeed ! I've never got to see them live. I somehow planned to go and see them in Germany at some point but the pandemic screwed the whole thing up. So eventually, the two farewell shows were of course to be held in their hometown, Toronto. No possible way for me to get there. Sometimes being a huge fan is not enough. I could only hope that some guys from the lucky audience could post some footage to let me live the thing from afar. This is from there I need to send a so grateful shout-out to "ConcertJunkiex" and "Josh Cornell" !!! Thank You so much guys !! You made my day and managed to make me taste the special flavour of this night ! More, altogether you put on the whole experience of the show giving us the entirety of the set, 21 songs !! Amazing !! This was more than I expected and I tried to get the best of both worlds by doing some multicam stuff on "Marijuana", "Next Gold", "Bad Biology" and "Purple Rage".

 So, this is where this back to authoring business all started from. Got to do something to pay homage and make it up for not being there that very night ! I have always loved Dilly Dally for drowning us into a loud grungy pool of molten tar until the aery sound of Liz's guitar hovers around to pull us up from asphyxia. Katie / Enda's silk sandpapered voice is also a distinctive touch of the band that just keeps you float, eyes wide open, in their limbo. This humble tribute also gave me the opportunity to rediscover some songs I shamefully overlooked at the time, like "Bad Biology" (I used for the second menu) for example which perfectly illustrates the atmosphere described above. Additionally, I tried to use the artwork of their two albums to fiddle with a kind of broad thematic design for the whole thing. Well, at least, I tried ... don't know. Anyway, Dilly Dally are breaking up, this is sad news but on the bright side, they're still friends, which leaves the doors open for a possible future reunion, fingers crossed. "Who knows ?" Just hope that day I won't be going mad with an exasperating video editing bench but going mad down the pit for, really, what it is meant to be !  

Thank you so much for being around Dilly Dally ! Wish you all the best for your future individual journeys !

Enjoy !

Cheers ! 

Chac