The More You Live, The More You Love

Around seven we left our hotel for the concert at the Dortmund Westfalenhalle. It was a ten minutes ride with the U Bahn, and we arrived at the hall just to witness the last three to four songs of ·F·R·E·I·. At ten to eight the intro music of two old German songs, Lilly Marlene and one unknown to us, were played and then the countdown followed for the last concert of Unheilig’s Lichter der Stadt II – Letzter Halt! Tour. In two hours Der Graf and his band played a varying set of songs from the bands history. A great setlist which was a lot harder than the first Lichter der Stadt tour of last year. Many of the ballads were replaced by older louder songs like Feuerengel and Freiheit. Although Winter seemed to be gone for quite some weeks now, the song still was surprisingly in the setlist and the video played along on the screens. After a slow and a bit uncertain start Der Graf came loose. Certainly when one of the woman at the front row threw him a towel. He wiped his ...

Just a week to go and we leave for Dortmund. On Saturday the eleventh of Mai we visit the famous Westfallenhalle to witness the last indoor concert of the Lichter der Stadt II – Letzter Halt tour. We are really looking forward to the concert. The highlight of a weekend in Dortmund.

  Last year my friend and I visited the concert of Clock Opera at the Paradiso. They played the small hall that evening in October 2012, but it turned out quite disappointed because of the worse sound. Still we decided to visit them again when they played the Bitterzoet. And This time no disappointments. What a gig. With again the full debut album Ways To Forget, but also three songs released through the deluxe version of the album on iTunes. The sound was suburb, the atmosphere eclectic, and the crowd went crazy. The band has certainly learned from the touring in the past year, since the setlist was build to a climax which the crowd could feel from the start, when first single White Noise opened the set. It was great to hear the extra songs like Let Go The Lifeboats, New Arrivals and Alouette to be performed. After them they build up to a climax, while the crowd certainly was longing for the singles Once And For All and Lesson No 7. The latter played as a last encore, bu...

A Flock Of Seagulls won't be playing Bitterzoet on the 24th of March. the concert, first scheduled for 26 January, was rescheduled on the 24th of March. Unfortuantly I learned recently that the concert is cancelled. Strange but truth. Dates in the UK and Germany are still on the radar, but the MySpace page of the band tells a different story. No tour dates are planned at the moment. A pity since I was really looking forward to see the band again.

Bitterzoet, Amsterdam, 11 March 2013. I received the album Arc for my birthday nearly a month ago, and discovered their concert at Bitterzoet on the internet shortly after. So last Monday me and a friend visited a sold out Bitterzoet and saw Everything Everything in top shape. At a quarter after nine they climbed up the stage and opened the set with Undrowned. From the start the crowd was enthousiastic, as were the band. In five quarter of an hour they played a diverse set from their two albums, with a focus on their just released album Arc. The set contained most of my favourites from this new album, and I saw that I wasn't the only one enjoying it to the max. The sound was very good and well balanced. Every detail was heard and the vocalist Jonathing Higgs established a great performance. The band had hired an extra keyboardplayer to meet the standard of the album. It was over much too soon, but for sure they showed their capabilities. What a band, what a performance...

Oh boy am I excited. Just scored my tickets for the concert at the Bitterzoet in Amsterdam on 26th of Januari. How time has flied. Already three years ago since they played the Paradiso. Recently all their albums were re-released with bonustracks. It's a pity any new material has been released in all those years. The two new tracks they played three years ago sounded promising. Well see what we can expect in two months.

In all those years that I know The Fixx, they only played the Netherlands once and that concert I never visited. So I was very eager to see them on this tour, and I can tell you I certainly was not disappointed. It seems to become a trend to play several sets during an evening. At half past eight the band opened with Deeper And Deeper and from the start the atmosphere and enthusiasm was there, both in the band and in the audience, to turn this evening into a very special one. The band played tide and inspired, and the setlist was well chosen making every number a highlight. Cy Curnin sang very good, Jamie West-Oram's guitar playing was inspiring, the bass of Dan K. Brown was tight and his playing inimitable. Rupert Greenall conjured the most beautiful sounds from his synthesizers and  Adam Wood played tight as well. For sure the audience was aware that this concert wasn't going to be a trip down memorylane. With the new album B...

Ultravox played the 013 at Tilburg on 12 October 2012. For someone living halfway between Alkmaar and Amsterdam to drive to Tilburg on a Friday night is asking for troubles. There are traffic jams along the route and although the Garmin told me, when leaving, it would take one hour and thirty-five minutes, just after driving a couple of kilometers the time went up to over 2.5 hours. In the end we arrived in time and were at the venue just a couple of minutes before the start of the concert. Then it turned out that being on the guest list does not mean that you can straight walk in. No, I needed to queue up in front of the pay box. Meanwhile a guy was desperate trying to sell some extra tickets. Since the starting time was coming closer in the end he wanted to give them for free to anyone who want them to have. Nobody reacted so in the end he tore them apart and walkid into the venue. By the time I was checked and finally was able to enter the ha...

No-Man, Cultuurpodium de Boerderij 31 August 2012  After four years No-Man returned to the Cultuurpodium de Boerderij at Zoetermeer with a great setlist and an enthousiastic band. This time the band was much more relaxed then when they played there in early september 2008. Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson did introduce the songs with a smile and a joke and the band was in top shape. With an audience that came to listen to the band, instead of talking during the concert, it became a memorable evening. The setlist contained all the songs from their recently released live album Love And Endings with eight extra’s including the new uptempo track Warm-Up Man Forever, and also Close Your Eyes and the encore Back When You Were Beautiful, which were both on the setlist for the first time. Housewives Hooked On Heroin was spontaneously played as a third encore, Tim and Steven both complaining against eachother that they had not had the time to practice the song. Steven even asked...

Unheilig, Lichter der Stadt tour Support by Staubkind & Andreas Bourani 30 juni 2012, MEP Arena, Meppen, Germany An evening in Meppen. Oh how hard it was to get to the stadion. The parkings turned to be full so in the end we parked our car along a road. From there it was a 1.8 kilometer walk. Since we had to wait so long in the traffic jam, we arrived when Staubkind was already playing. Unfortunately we hardly knew the songs, so no setlist. What I heard was a band sounding like a clone of Unheilig. Time to have a drink, which turned out to be a journey on itself. Nearly 15 minutes waiting to get two drinks, and a girl at the counter which showed to be a bitch. The way she was serving the customers, if I was her boss I kicked her out right away. The stress overtook her totally and she abreacted it on the customers. Beerglasses were put down on the counter with such force that the content overflowed the glass. She nearly threw the change to the customers, and ignored people...

The bill looked nice, although the Belgium bands were a mystery to me. So as a result we decided to enter the festival around half past three just before the start of Amy MacDonald. So we already missed The Scabs and 't Hof van Commerce. Amy MacDonald just released her third album this year, and the setlist was a cross section of all three albums. She has a strong voice, and most of the time the songs sounds like the studio versions. It is hard to get her out of her comfort zone, so the hour was filled with an Amy hidden behind guitar and microphone. She even played an acoutic version of the Bruce Springsteen classic Born To Run. Next on the bill was Kaiser Chiefs. They played an hour of mainly hits, and most of the tracks are from their recently released album Souvenir. Not bad music, a mixture of rock, ska and punk with some references to the Beatles. But it gets boring when their singer has the need to keep yelling "We are the Kaiser Chiefs" between ...

Thursday 17 Mai 2012 and going to Amsterdam for a concert of one of the greatest synth-pop artists of the eighties Thomas Dolby. We took an early train to spend some time at the Arendsnest , a pub which only serves Dutch beers. The cafe has got more than 120 bottled beers and 30 beers on draft. We sat down at a table where an Irishman was sitting, which drank his beers in a brisk pace. He followed the line of the right part of the board, and didn't bother about the alcohol percentage. After a couple of beers and a talk with the Irish guy we turned to Bitterzoet, the venue, for the performance of Thomas Dolby. At the venue I noticed the signs but since already people were making pictures and even filming, I decided to do the same. At nine the concert started and Thomas came on stage with his band immediatly opening with Commercial Breakup from his successful first album The Golden Age Of Wireless. After apologizing for not have played in Amsterdam for 28 years, some of the c...