Category: K3

Karen Damen, Kristel Verbeke and Josje Huisman

K3, loud and soft

I lied! Here’s more with K3. First, there’s an amateur view of the ladies waving bye-bye at the big, splashy Studio 100 Summer Festival in Holland, taking Mega Mindy with them up the stairs.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/K3ByeBye.flv 440 330]

“K3 10 Years,” but for me it’s only been four months. At first I wondered why they always use large, handheld microphones instead of small headsets. The mics must constrain the choreography, but after thinking about it I realized they reinforce who’s singing.

And here is a real treat. K3 shining in a smaller, quieter setting. If, after seeing this warm and winning performance, you still aren’t sold on K3, I give up. (Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about the video compression glitches.)

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/K3Quiet.flv 512 288]

I won’t speculate if Karen, Kristel and Kathleen could match Petula Clark as solo performers. That would be a totally unfair comparison. My feeling is that K3 is/are, like other groups I appreciate, being much more than the sum of their parts. And I have no complaints about the parts! 😉

K3 in 2008 Summer Festival Outfits

Studio 100 ZomerFestival

2008 Zomer Festival poster

You missed it! I missed it too. I’m speaking, of course, of Studio 100’s Summer Festival at the Ahoy Rotterdam stadium, Netherlands, this past June. But thankfully we can watch some video highlights, including K3 and Mega Mindy sharing the stage. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/K3ZomerFest2008.flv 512 288]

Look at all of those adorable little Mega Mindys! But why not more of Mindy herself in the video? Maybe she had to get back to Plopsaland in Belgium to capture some crooks. Why would anybody NOT want to be caught by Mega Mindy??

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/MegaMindyJetSki.flv 512 288]

This will be it for a while before I post more about K3, girl group extraordinaire. Thank you for your indulgence.

K3 at 2008 Zomerfest

K3 be from .be

One of these days, I’ve gotta learn me some Flemish. I’ve been going through the K3 videos on YouTube, so you don’t hafta! The HQ versions, where available, I download because I don’t see a way to embed them with YouTube’s player.

This is a shorty, an amateur video of the ladies being introduced live…

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3Teleromeo.flv 440 330]

…and here are ten well-edited minutes from the show. Some of it was taken from the big monitors in the hall, to good effect. There’s a nice medley starting at 6:00. C’mon, if you like ABBA, how can you not like K3? Karen! Kristel! Kathleen!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3ShowZwolle.flv 440 330]

K3 in wax at Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam! I don’t know what they’re saying, but I can guess the girls felt a little weird seeing lifeless versions of themselves.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3inWax.flv 440 330]

Jensen! The dirty Dutchie with K3

K3’s popularity isn’t limited to Belgium, it extends all the way north into Holland! 😉 In the Netherlands there’s an obnoxious TV host named Robert Jensen. You’ll hear enough English in this chat to appreciate why Jensen somewhat resembles a Dutch Howard Stern, and why at the end the ladies appear increasingly uncomfortable.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3Jensen.flv 512 288]

Super K3

While awaiting the results of the MRI of my lower back, I shall cheer myself up with the lovably likeable ladies of K3. The Belgian beauties must not be confused with the Hungarian band K3. I don’t know who had the name first, but I know who should stop using it.

Studio 100 has done very well with Free Souffriau as Mega Mindy, so it only makes sense they’d give Karen, Kristel and Kathleen a shot at playing superheroes.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3Superhero.flv 450 360]

In this quickie video the girls strut their stuff live, in their more familiar go-go boots…

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/K3Zwolle.flv 440 330]

… and here’s a featurette about the making of a K3 video. I don’t have to tell you that’s Kristel Verbeke on the left, Kathleen Aerts in the middle and Karen Damen on the right… do I? 😉

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/SEP/k3Interview.flv 440 293](Does Karen have a tongue stud? Yikes! That’s hard core. Well, I guess I can deal with it.)

Being a fan of the Monkees — a topic I leave open for D.F. Rogers to indulge online someday — I’m intrigued by the idea that a Pop group can be assembled by audition, and achieve a synergy that’s as compelling as any ‘organically’ formed quartet or trio.

Because I don’t understand Flemish, I have to appreciate K3 for everything else they do well. Precisely because I don’t understand the words they’re almost abstract sounds, and they take on their own appealing quality.

Kristel Verbeke is the most beautiful woman in the world. (There, I said it!)

Kristel Verbeke with hubby and baby

K3 have been at this for ten years, and Kristel is married and has two children, yet they keep going, being silly into their 30’s. Perhaps that’s one of the benefits of being in Belgium, where their audience is relatively small, but loyal.

K3 Wallapper

They ARE a girl group!

D.F. Rogers, in his “Denro the D.J.” persona, will introduce this K3 video, which he seems to feel is perhaps their most accessible to American listeners.

“Ladies and Gentlemen — Kah-Thrrree!” Wow! Hey, this is the missing link! This IS Girl Group Music! And they sing part of it in English — and very well! They even do a few Klangs! They do the Supremes thing — but again no “Diana’s” up front — they sing as a group and spread the solos parts equally. The interesting thing is that it seems to be the one K3 song that has comments [on YouTube] in English! The comments in English are divided between “What th…???” and “Awesome!” — mainly because parts are clearly in English and they have no idea what the heck the rest of that stuff is! It seems like it’s an American group – but it’s mind-bending! It has an English title, too. This a gateway to the real hard stuff! Pure Flemish! Een Klang Kusha!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/K3LoveYouBaby.flv 448 308]Note: This video clip required major surgery to fix the shape of the image, so you will see some re-compression artifacts.

Bonus K3 Video! This one is also partially in English, and required no special treatment other than being scaled up from 320×240. Shades of “Happy Days”! Rather than being just fun-loving, Karen, Kathleen and Kristel seem a bit boy crazy here, over a bunch of lunkheads, but we can deal. 😉
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