All about the divine comedy...(19/10)

When I was in Olympia this evening, I recognised that the divine comedy was such a familiar group to me that I would use to buy their every CD since over a decade ago...still recall years ago when I first listened to their music, I thought that if I had a chance to watch them playing live, I would have to go. They were not the kind of radio-favourite bands which play always under spots from everywhere, they have no million-copy sales. Their debut album was sold with a few thousands copies only in UK, and similar number for their second one. They are always the example of how an indie band does its music at the other side of the music scene. And now, they are a 17-year-old band. Still recall the time when I looked for their CDs and special editions in UK and France, a treasure of finding the specialties, and that was fun. A moment appears when I was listening to national express on a TGV in 1998. Images blurred outside the window, and the reflection of me was staring to me. It was 'fin de siecle' but it was also those good old days. The band had their mini album released actually before they had fin de siecle in 1998. Romantic enough, this mini album was called 'a short album about love', which reminds me a lot 'a short film about killing' of Kieslowski. Both are mini work for big idea...
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My first encountering about the divine comedy was in a history class. I bought my copy of Purgatorio ironically in Beijing in 1997. It was part of the episode, and the paperback is in Italian, I just keep it well on my shelf for long time. I bought another book about the illustrations of the divine comedy in the same bookstore, but again I leave it so comfortable on the shelf for ages...though it was not the cocytus where things remain frozen and imprisoned.
Some childhood dreams appeared like the scenery of purgatorio...a confluence to the Buddhist’s regeneration cycle?!
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The band has picked a name with infinite imagination. Their music is not the dark one, but their songs are filled with a sense of French romanticism. They are the one to have orchestra music playing in their band song too before the brit-pop era. Neil Hannon, the frontman of the band, has always a college-gentleman like icon with much charisma. Surprisingly the band is quite popular in France. It's maybe their music style, their pro-renaissance lyrics rich of beautiful vocabularies and stories. Their live tonight was nice. They played songs mainly from the latest 3 albums, and when they played generation sex, it was the tout le monde chorus moment. When they had national express in the encore section, I felt like well stepping back to the summer of 1998...
The concert ended by the song sunrise, a metaphor of Dante's journey probably?