New Model Army at La Fête de la Musique in Kayl, Luxembourg on 21 June 2024
The Fête de la Musique is taken quite seriously each year in Luxembourg, and this year kept with tradition. The capital city of Luxembourg held a number of outdoor concerts the previous weekend, but the FDLM in Kayl has become one of the must-see events in the region for those with an interest in alternative music.
The headliner for 2023 was Black Flag, so it should have been no surprise that Kayl has the (financial) means to bring in the big guns to play such a show and with free entry to boot. However, I was still very pleasantly surprised when it was announced that New Model Army would be headlining this year’s edition.
What is nice about Kayl is that there is ample free parking at the nearby Cactus supermarket which is only a short walk to the festival ground. As is standard in Luxembourg, the FDLM is extremely well organised with no queues for food or drink which is provided by local sports and cultural clubs. The stage is huge and both the lighting and the sound was excellent. With such a great organisation and free entry, I couldn’t complain about paying 4 euros for a smallish beer.
Unfortunately, I did not arrive in time to see local violinist Chris Reitz who was first on stage. More about him in a bit.
The second act to perform was local goth/dark wave “Neo-folk” duo Rome formed in 2005 around Jérôme Reuter from Luxembourg. They have quite a following in Europe nowadays, so it was nice to see them perform on home turf.
By the time New Model Army hit the stage, all signs of any rain had dissipated and there were even a few rays of sun making an appearance for the longest day of the year. By now the crowd was already fairly sizeable and remained enthusiastic throughout the set. It’s great that a band like NMA can be invited to play such an event where, I assume the majority of the audience had never seen or heard (of) them before. However, there was also a decent number of people singing along to the songs, so the band managed to bring in some of their fans too.
The first part of the set was mainly composed of newer songs, before several of the old classics were brought out during the second half of the set. Local violinist Chris Reitz, who opened the evening’s festivities surprised everyone by joining the band twice on stage to play ‘Vagabonds’ and ‘Purity’. I am not sure how much he managed to rehearse with the band in advance, but I thought he did really well. I learnt afterwards that during his own set earlier, he had said that NMA are one of his favourite bands.
The nicest surprise of the evening for me was that the band played for a good 1 hour 30 minutes or so, despite it being announced as a 45 minute set only. I didn’t see the full moon that Justin referred to until the journey home, presumably due to the clouds and/or the fact that it was hidden behind the huge stage.
So, a really enjoyable evening and great to see quite a few familiar faces in the audience, some of whom had travelled from the U.K., Germany and Holland for the show, as well as a sizeable contingent from Belgium like us. Justin and the band seemed happy and relaxed and I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable NMA shows that I have seen for a while.
