Jay Weiner's Portfolio

On October 12th 2025, I attended a Kae Tempest concert (+Jacob Alon as opening act). For this concert, all the seating on the ground floor of the Henry Le Boeuf Hall at BOZAR was removed to create space for a standing pit like in a regular rock/pop concert hall. I was sitting on the top floor with some “low visibility” seats, but it didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the concert as I simply stood up and stayed close to the banister to see better.

Jacob Alon

I had never heard of the singer who performed the opening act, Jacob Alon, but since attending, have continued listening to his music and really like it. Alon performed in a completely solo act, singing vocals and playing his own accompaniment on a guitar which I believe had an extra string or two as there was a consistent bass line throughout most of his songs which he was clearly playing simultaneously to the chords (he is an extremely skilled guitar player). As well as this, almost every one of his songs was in an alternate tuning, so between each one, he would spend the time it took to retune to interact with the audience.

Kae Tempest

Kae Tempest is.a British spoken word hip hop artist and poet. His lyrics often cover heavy topics such as oppression, poverty, addiction, and love, but generally offer a message of hope. The music itself is made up of Tempest rapping (though I would describe it more as slam poetry) over mostly minimal hip hop beats and larger atmospheric sound effects. Overall, a mix of hip-hop, electronic music, pop, trip-hop…

I only started listening to Kae Tempest’s music in the run up to this concert but he quickly became one of my favourites. I really love his lyrical style, how grounded and real his lyrics feel, and admire his ability to masterfully raise and cover very relevant topics, and provide angles that genuinely make the listener reflect on what’s being said.

At the concert itself, I was positively shocked by Tempest’s stage presence as a solo performer and at how well he transmitted meaning and emotion even all the way up to where I was standing. I often found myself mouth agape at his performance throughout the set, mainly because watching him live really gave me the ability to understad and really feel his lyrics.

At risk of sounding a bit sappy, attending this concert touched me in particular because it’s one of the first times I’ve seen a transgender person with a large platform not be forced to make their transness a central point of their identity or message. I, as a trans aspirant singer, always worry that I’ll never be able to escape the trans label being front and centre, and watching Kae Tempest present his extremely touching music with very little reference to the trans experience, ironically, made me feel really “seen” and gave me a lot of hope for my own future in the music world.

The setlist featured tracks from his latest album Self Titled  like “Priority Boredom,” “Salt Coast,” and “More Pressure,” mixed with fan favourites such as “People’s Faces,” “Know Yourself,” and “Statue in the Square”.

As an encore, Tempest covered “Freedom”, by George Michael, to the audience’s great delight.

What THE critics said

The reviews of Tempest’s album and tour were unanimously positive. I have picked up the ones I could find about this particular concert at BOZAR.

• Kae Tempest @ Bozar: Woorden van kritiek, gevoel en hoop [words of criticism, emotion, and hope] Dansendeberen.be (in Dutch)
• ‘Self Titled’ van Kae Tempest: een wonde die niet langer ettert De Morgen (in Dutch)
• Wat Kae Tempest deed in Bozar was geen optreden, maar meer een ritueel van hoop zaaien en applaus oogsten [What Kae Tempest did in Bozar was not a performance, but more of a ritual of sowing hope and harvesting applause] HUMO (in Dutch)