De Grungblavers

A translation job that grew a band

The group began with lyrics rather than with musicians. Guillaume Van der Stighelen writes the Antwerp-dialect versions of international hits that make up the repertoire, and from 2013 he gathered singers and performers around those texts under the name De Grungblavers. The idea is narrow and holds: take songs that already belong to everyone, put them back into the language actually spoken in the city, and let the recognition do the rest.

The first documented outing was at the Arenbergschouwburg in Antwerp on Tuesday 3 December 2013, and the review that came out of it was honest about a young project. The texts and the atmosphere were judged the best part of the evening. Ludovic Nyamabo was singled out as the revelation of the night for his soul readings, Erik Goossens for the strength of his interpretations, Gene Bervoets for solid singing. Paul 'Boogie Boy' Ambach was marked down for pitch, Johny Voners for a thin performance, and several translations were said to have lost their dramatic weight once they were shifted into dialect. The group held together better as a mass of voices than as a run of soloists. The reviewer's closing hope was that the material would end up on CD and turn into something the city kept.

That hope was a fair reading of what the band is. The roster published by the group runs to thirteen names — Van der Stighelen, Stany Crets, Jan Van Looveren, Marc Fransen, Gene Bervoets, Dirk Cassiers, Erik Goossens, Paul 'Boogie Boy' Ambach, Ludovic Nyamabo, Nathan Ambach, Ivan Pecnik, Jean Bosco Safari and Luc Caals — and their booking agency describes them plainly as nine Antwerp friends over the age of forty-eight who found each other through music. Voners, part of the 2013 line-up, was remembered by the group in their 2020 Christmas broadcast.

Three records, and what is on them

The catalogue is short and it does exactly what the live show does. A concert document, Laaif Concert 2015-2016, came in 2016. The first studio album, Ziel, followed in 2018 and was the quieter of the two — new material, less swing, more intimacy. Pannen van 't Dak arrived in 2019 as the second official album.

Pannen van 't Dak is the clearest statement of method. Twelve classics, all rewritten in Antwerp dialect with local jokes built into the lines, drawing on originals by Ike & Tina Turner, Bob Marley, George Michael, The Monkees, The Temptations, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Ram Jam and Sam & Dave. The roots-music critic who reviewed it in April 2019 said he had seen nothing like it in fifteen years of reviewing, and filed it not as a covers album but as the work of a singing entertainment team.

The spread of source material explains why a single genre label sits awkwardly on the group. Across records and shows the repertoire takes in protest songs, opera arias, crooner standards, ballads, soul, funk, French chanson and rock and roll — rock is in there, but as one shelf among several.

From the Arenberg to the Lotto Arena

The venue history is a straight line upward within one city and its ring of suburbs. Two nights at Waagnatie in December 2015. De Roma in March 2016, CC Aartselaar that same month, the Grand Casino at Knokke in August, and a sold-out deSingel on 27 September 2016. From December 2016 the Koningin Elisabethzaal became the regular room, with matinee-and-evening doubles in December 2016, February 2017 and December 2017. The group's own tally puts it at nine shows at the Arenberg Schouwburg, ten at the Elisabethzaal and three at Opera Antwerpen, alongside an annual Mother's Day date at the open-air theatre in Rivierenhof.

When the halls closed in 2020 the band went to a stream instead. On 23 December 2020 twelve of them announced a Christmas concert filmed for Kamiano, the Sant'Egidio initiative that runs hot festive meals and wrapped presents for homeless people in Antwerp, Brussels and Liège. The programme mixed Auld Lang Syne, Hallelujah and You Raise Me Up with Jingle Bells, The Xmas Song and So This Is Christmas; it streamed on 24 December and went out on ATV and HLN on Christmas Day.

The end, as announced, came on 3 September 2022 with two performances at the Lotto Arena. Their own promotional copy calls that a farewell to the audience after ten years on the large stages of Antwerp and the surrounding region. A sold-out run at the Elisabethzaal followed in 2023 regardless, which is roughly how the retirement has gone since.

Where they stand now

The comeback is booked and partly gone. De GrungBlavers in Symfonie brings the full band back together at the Stadsschouwburg in Antwerpen for three performances: 17 October 2026 at 15:00 and 20:00, and 18 October 2026 at 15:00. Tickets start at €44.50. The band's own diary marks the Saturday evening as sold out and lists the two matinees as last-tickets. Billing for the symphonic show names ten singers rather than the full thirteen — Van der Stighelen, Van Looveren, Fransen, Bervoets, Cassiers, Goossens, Ambach, Nyamabo, Pecnik and Safari.

The announcement is direct about why it exists: after the 2022 goodbye, demand kept coming, and this is the first time in a long while that the whole band stands on a stage together. The arrangements are new rather than the songs — the best-known numbers rebuilt as a symphonic run-through, with the group's own sound sitting inside a full orchestra.

The rest of the calendar shows a band working at two scales at once. A reduced show, De Grungblavers in 't klein, played CC Zwaneberg in Heist-op-den-Berg on 23 February 2026. Two performances at LUX in Kapellen on 4 December 2026, at 15:00 and 20:00, are both sold out at €39. A Christmas concert follows at the Mark Liebrecht schouwburg in Mortsel on 11 December 2026, and De Grungblavers intiem is set for CC De Mol in Lier on 13 May 2027 at €37. Music bookings go through Pilot Music.

How the thing is actually put together

The group is candid that polish is not the point. Their booking page says they rehearse minimally and put the weight on the company rather than the accuracy, and describes the pre-show ritual: the men stand in a circle patting each other on the shoulder, grown men behaving like children in the minutes before they walk on. The Zwaneberg listing for the small-format version is no more reverent, calling the ensemble rudderless, like a stray projectile.

That small version strips the thing to five performers — Ivan Pecnik, Erik Goossens, Dirk Cassiers, Ludovic Nyamabo and Marc Fransen — and runs an hour and a half across the same range of protest songs, opera, crooner material, ballads, soul, funk, chanson and rock and roll. The consistent feature at either size is that the audience sings: the sing-along is written into the format, which is what a dialect lyric is for.