Ween in Berlin; Creamfields 2000 by the Mersey

Ween Arena, Berlin (August 22) One might expect Ween to be huge in Europe. Top of the Pops and all that. I mean, in a perfect America, the toast of New Hope, PA, would be hosting MTV's Ween Weekend and recording duets with Tony Bennett. So perhaps the sophisticated European public identifies more with Ween's "brown sound" and has catapulted them to hero status? If Frank Zappa can get a statue in the former Czechoslovakia, why not Gene and Dean? A 20-minute version of "Poop Ship Destroyer" could topple any dictatorship. "We're Ween, from New Hope, PA. We suck ass." Mickey and Aaron soldiered on, killing the hecklers with kindness and confusion. What are the fans?let alone a bunch of pea-brained, beer-drunk morons?to make of ditties like "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)" and "The HIV Song"? Having moved past their four-track ways, they emphasized material from the last few major-label albums. There were fewer outright rockers (no "Doctor Rock," no "Stroker Ace") and the band seemed to be in kind of a mellow mood. Maybe they were just drunk on Jagermeister. Gene Ween was in typically sweet voice on such tender numbers as "Even If You Don't" and "Exactly Where I'm At." When he coos, "Your lips are like two flaps of fat/They go front and back and flappity flap," a man could almost cry. Those two songs, from their latest album, White Pepper, positively shimmer on the heavily produced CD, and the cavernous Berlin Arena gave them a similar presence.

The hoedown that is "Waving My Dick in the Wind" always gets the crowd moving, and tonight it even inspired crowd participation in the front row. If you've never heard five 15-year-old German girls sing, with heavy accents, about waving their dicks in the wind, well, maybe you've never been to a Ween show. The Jimmy Buffett-like cocaine-and-potassium anthem "Bananas and Blow" was a little flat (must be the sampled steel drums), but the best Prince song that Prince never wrote, "Roses Are Free," was as strange and sublime as ever. Chocolate and Cheese must still be their most popular album, because "Roses" and "Voodoo Lady" seemed to get the biggest response from the crowd. In 1994 I remember hearing "Voodoo Lady" as a single on WNEW-FM and thinking Ween just might have a hit on their hands. Well, nothing of the sort happened, but the song has become their "Whipping Post" or "Stairway" or "Inna Gadda Da Vida," even. It seems to get longer every time they play it. Always kicking off with a chicken-scratch funk guitar and grooving into a full-fledged dance number, the song then deteriorates into some Dean Ween guitar exploration. Tonight, he even embellished his solo with one of those stupid Peter Frampton talk box things, which?I don't care who's playing it?just plain sucks.

Ween's main talent is their effortless adaptation and tweaking of pop idioms, from Philly soul to 70s country to, um, sea chanteys. Whether they are engaging in homage or parody is a subject of debate between the faithful and the detractors?much to the amusement of the band, I'm sure. Since they appear comfortable in any genre, their choice of live cover songs is usually interesting. On this tour they've done everything from "Hot for Teacher" to "1999." Tonight's choice was a true show-stopper: a dead-on version of Wings' "Band on the Run," which showed that?all the lyrics about ticks, guava and mononucleosis aside?more than anything they appreciate the simple beauty of a great pop song. Maybe if they hadn't huffed all that Scotchgard after seventh-grade typing class (as the self-promoted legend goes), Ween might have become Ben Folds Five or Apples in Stereo.

Christopher Weber

Creamfields 2000 Old Liverpool Airport, Speke (August 26) "Where do you think you're all sleeping tonight?" taunts Shaznay Lewis of all-girl pop act All Saints from the Radio 1 stage as her band restart their opening "Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Moi." Somewhere far away from your horrendous version of "Walk This Way," hopefully. Somewhere the ground doesn't threaten to swallow up my feet. Still. It's a reasonable question. Britain's new annual dance mecca, Creamfields, is designed for a hardier breed of music fan than your average rock festival. Over the course of 16 hours, between 2 p.m. and 6 a.m., a sold-out crowd of more than 44,000 congregates from across the UK to witness eight stages of DJs and live dance acts. Even finding the event is a struggle. Creamfields is spread over 500 acres of waste-ground near the Mersey, surrounded by motorways and industrial estates. (Somewhere close to many of the main attractions of Liverpool's Annual Beatles Week, actually.) Most of these kids will be sleeping on the steps of Liverpool's Lime Street station come the dawn.

It's all the more incredible, then, that this event, organized by Liverpool's dance club Cream and now in its third year, has sold more tickets than most rock festivals this year. Or perhaps inaccessibility is part of its appeal. Dance music still has a considerable "underground" cachet?even in England, where the youth delight in their parents' complaints of the music lacking discernible melodies. Recent UK number-one artiste, the blandly clinical female DJ superstar Sonique (tonight, rocking the hardcore Golden tent), doesn't come from nowhere like it seemed to your average Top of the Pops fan?she came from clubland. Names like DJ Judge Jules, the mischievous revisionists Basement Jaxx and Seb Fontaine may mean little to your average Oasis fan, but in Liverpool they're mega-stars. Choice of music has always been crucial: no wonder the new generation venerates the tastemongers. Female fans crush and wave banners down the front of Fontaine's seamless early evening set, same as they would for any Bon Jovi wannabe.

Organizer James Barton of Cream has always refused to supply DJs for dance tents at places like the Reading Festival, not wanting to "ghettoize" the music. Looking around, it seems his faith is more than justified. Everywhere there are bubbly, volatile faces up for the party. Girls in plastic hotpants, blokes waving fluorescent tubes, arguing whether to risk the freefall bungee cage or perhaps check out the Evian tent with its promise of free massages and golf lessons. Inside the steaming Big Beat Boutique tent with its giant hanging 3-D smiley faces, Death in Vegas turn in a typically potent, sinister dance-rock set, Richard Fearless' crew punching devil signs through the darkness. Earlier, Moloko belied their pop status with a teeth-rattling dub sound, led by hyperactive 80s throwback Roisin Murphy.

It's in the 15,000-capacity Cream tent, though, that you'll find the true enthusiasts whistling and stomping the night away to a mixture of heavyweight contenders, Oakenfold, Pete Tong and a blistering Carl Cox included. This is where the true four-on-the-floor trance happens, with no vocals or extraneous harmonies to dilute the mix. In dance, the moment is all?and these series of repetitive, upbeat moments threaten to last a lifetime. The Cream tent's massive canopy boasts about a dozen blue turrets, and has to be half the size of the Millennium Dome. Enter this confusion of strobes, noise and heavy beats without a map, and you might not see your friends for days.

Everett True