Programme

At the start, there were two young lads with acoustic guitars who sang for fun. Antoine Wielemans and Lionel Vancauwenberghe found themselves seriously bored at school in their small provincial town. Surely there was more to life than that! So they wrote, and they messed around. And discovered they had an innate talent for melody.



When their first album (From Here to There) was released, one journalist wrote: “If these boys were British, they would be stars in three months”. But they are Belgian. And in small countries, you climb your steps one by one. And all the better for that. Because Girls in Hawaii were going to give themselves the most precious of entitlements in the life of an artist: that of taking time. As a result, step by step, it is their whole life they were to document in their music. The innocence of their early days (From Here to There, 2003). Next, the entry into adult life, dejection in the face of the task to be accomplished, the desire to stop everything or to run away (Plan Your Escape, 2008). And lastly, injustice. The death of Denis, the drummer, one evening in May. And the strength that returns, bit by bit. That tells you, “You are alive! And you alone can give a meaning to all that” (Everest, 2013).



Four long years after Everest came Nocturne (October 2017). Since then, there have been concerts, many concerts, throughout Europe, and even further afield (Iceland, China, Canada, USA, etc.). People have left, people have joined. But the group is still there, currently numbering 5. With the desire to play, again and again. Which is how Girls in Hawaii are back on the scene in 2021, with a number of dates in France, Luxembourg and Belgium. Because, quite simply, they have a “desire to play, a desire to play now, a desire to be amongst friends, and to return to the simple things in these complicated times.”



Their concert at the Kufa will be a major event.