On Thursday evening, the Purple Lounge at Casino2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains hosted a dinner-concert featuring Luxembourg band Go By Brooks.
Starting off with the soulful Dancing Like The Devil they created an instant atmosphere and rapport with the audience who were hanging on to every lyric and bar if music; the band then immediately upped the tempo with a couple of fast numbers before performing a couple of instrumental tracks - mainly keyboards and guitar - and continued to alternatively raise and drop the tempo with each successive song, most of which were original tracks, with some coming from their year-old EP Rivers; Laetitia also performed a Leonard Cohen song solo, on acoustic guitar, and she got the audience to join in with the chorus during the encore City of Love.
While Laetitia may be the leader of the band, she has put together a sublime quintet, with Sasha's exquisite bass playing driving the instrumental sections, with Laetitia's guitar combining the perfect counterfoil for a pure soulful and rhythmic sound that is pure joy to the ears.
Luxembourg's closest thing to a country rock band with a twist of soul (or maybe it's the other way round?) - they describe their music themselves as "spicy melancholic rock with funk and jazz nuances" - is making a name for itself, in contests, in the recording studio and on stage. Last November Go By Brooks played as warm-up for Scotland's Little Eye and made such an impression they were invited for their own concert, with just the five musicians on stage.
Led by Laetitia Brooks on vocals (and acoustic guitar), the 5-strong group also includes Jerome on synthesizer, Sacha on bass, Nicolas on guitar and Gilles on drums. The band is influenced by artists such as Leonard Cohen, Lissie and Damien Rice.
Apart from being able to dine at Purple Lounge before the concert, the Casino2000 venue also offers an intimate concert setting and one in which the volume is always at a comfortable level. Concert-goers have the opportunity to cone early in the evening for a brasserie-style meal, or arrive just for the concert at 21:00.
Watch out for Go By Brooks in the year ahead! They hope to be back at Purple Lounge around May, with their second EP "Ocean" planned for release in September.
Photos by Geoff Thompson
