Within Temptation Világos
Although Within Temptation are often considered mainstream and pop-metal by metalheads, I have wanted to see this band for years, so when I saw their tickets on sale for $13 in House of Blues venue, 15 minutes walking distance from where I live, there was no hesitation. I got second thoughts when I was reading the Celtic Festival programme, and realised that I would miss Dolores O'Riordan, (ex-Cranberries lead singer,) because of this... but didn't change my mind.
People at ticketmaster.com deserve to spend several eons in a torture chamber, because the tickets cost me $26.52 in the end, which is more then double of the advertised price. Of course, one has to pay various taxes, facility charges, convenience charges, online order charges, picking-your-nose fees, as well as other undisclosed general charges. Still, it was an okay price for such a show, and they promised me $25 cashback on Nightwish tickets, so they are forgiven for now.
Wow. Robert and Jeroen really look like twins. And so do Ruud and Martijn.
Before I start with the "review" itself, let me fill you in on the rating system. For the good stuff, I will be giving away goshu points. If an event gets many goshu points, it basically means that it was a világos. (Pronounced velaagosh, hence goshu. :-P Syn.: ownage.) If I present something as a világos, that means it was a fantastic and extremely worthwhile event, and those who could have come, and did not, are therefore dubbed various degrees of noobs, and possibly even criminals.
An event needs at least 60 goshu points to be a minor világos, at 100 points it is a supreme világos. Very rarely it even gets above that. An example would be Therion Goes Classic in Miskolc, which with its 1.3x metal-orchestra multiplier and 1.1x front row multiplier, recieved 125 goshu points, and thus became an utter MegaVilágos, which makes it extremely difficult to surpass. Confusing, I know, but some people get it already as an inner joke, and it will grow on the rest of you, I'm sure. ;-)
They let us wait for almost three hours since the scheduled start, filled with quite pathetic gay^Wboy wannaberock bands. They were in fact so lousy, that the friend who was there with me blacked out, so that she wouldn't have to listen to them. (It was a bit scary, I had to steer her out of the crowd, but she was alright for the rest of the night, even jumped with me a little.) Good old Astral Doors, seriously.
Most important complaint comes first: the audience sucked. I've never seen such pathetic crowd on a concert in Europe before. Not only was there no mosh-pit, but it was clearly above those people to decide when to clap, wave, jump, punch the air, or scream. Consequently, most of them did nothing, and the rest did any of the above in random fashion, but never all the same. I particularly disliked the emo kids. (Oh my, they really do exist!) Those boys wear thick makeup and dark lipstick, nail polish, have hoodies on their heads, and talk like sissies. Hateable at the first glance. Oh, and the biggest idiots were guess who? Polish!!
Sharon den Adel is a remarkably enchanting woman with fabulous voice. When she came to the stage and started singing, I froze. It was simply fascinating. She was wearing a dark dress with a corset, with cleverly sewn sleeves that would bare her entire arms when she wanted. Not only could Sharon sing incredibly well, she also made a hell of a show. I especially liked her mimics, and the kind of dance she did with her hands. She must be double-jointed, because some of her moves were just otherworldly. And mmm, so sweet, that alone was worth several goshu points. :o)
Although a few times she didn't manage to reach into the uppermost octaves and her voice came out a little flat and out of tune, the overall performance was brilliant. As were her bandmates, who played tirelessly and sounded flawless. The impression was much heavier, than their studio albums. Unlike Kamelot, who did the same and screwed up big time, these guys managed to pack a lot of punch into their songs without sacrificing the melody, or quality. I have a nagging feeling to write a couple more superlatives, because they definitely deserve it, so let's pretend that I did. ;-)
As for the tracklist, it was okay. It was really fat, I think they played 18, or 19 songs. As this was The Heart of Everything tour, most of them were, naturally, from the latest album. It is quite cool, although a wee bit more rock on expense of metal. From my favourite Mother Earth, only three songs were played. The encore was three, as usual, and the final dot was one of their most awesome pieces, Ice Queen. At that moment, any reservations I could have had regarding the choice of tracks just disappeared in a puff of smoke. :-)
Overall, I subjectively award Within Temptation 83 goshu points, which makes for a major világos, approximately on par with Blind Guardian show in Trenčín, fall 2006. :-) Thanks for the amazing experience and I'll definitely see you later when I have the chance. To my European homies I definitely recommend to attend the show in Vienna, on 3rd of October. Get your tickets ASAP. It may not be the cheapest concert in your life, but it will be well worth it.
Finally, a taste of what it was. It's világos multiplier is like 0.05x, and the sound is crappy, but at least to have an idea. By the way, the show over here was even better. And heavier. And Sharon was doing much more cool stuff. Yah, whatever.
People at ticketmaster.com deserve to spend several eons in a torture chamber, because the tickets cost me $26.52 in the end, which is more then double of the advertised price. Of course, one has to pay various taxes, facility charges, convenience charges, online order charges, picking-your-nose fees, as well as other undisclosed general charges. Still, it was an okay price for such a show, and they promised me $25 cashback on Nightwish tickets, so they are forgiven for now.
Wow. Robert and Jeroen really look like twins. And so do Ruud and Martijn.An event needs at least 60 goshu points to be a minor világos, at 100 points it is a supreme világos. Very rarely it even gets above that. An example would be Therion Goes Classic in Miskolc, which with its 1.3x metal-orchestra multiplier and 1.1x front row multiplier, recieved 125 goshu points, and thus became an utter MegaVilágos, which makes it extremely difficult to surpass. Confusing, I know, but some people get it already as an inner joke, and it will grow on the rest of you, I'm sure. ;-)
They let us wait for almost three hours since the scheduled start, filled with quite pathetic gay^Wboy wannaberock bands. They were in fact so lousy, that the friend who was there with me blacked out, so that she wouldn't have to listen to them. (It was a bit scary, I had to steer her out of the crowd, but she was alright for the rest of the night, even jumped with me a little.) Good old Astral Doors, seriously.Most important complaint comes first: the audience sucked. I've never seen such pathetic crowd on a concert in Europe before. Not only was there no mosh-pit, but it was clearly above those people to decide when to clap, wave, jump, punch the air, or scream. Consequently, most of them did nothing, and the rest did any of the above in random fashion, but never all the same. I particularly disliked the emo kids. (Oh my, they really do exist!) Those boys wear thick makeup and dark lipstick, nail polish, have hoodies on their heads, and talk like sissies. Hateable at the first glance. Oh, and the biggest idiots were guess who? Polish!!
Sharon den Adel is a remarkably enchanting woman with fabulous voice. When she came to the stage and started singing, I froze. It was simply fascinating. She was wearing a dark dress with a corset, with cleverly sewn sleeves that would bare her entire arms when she wanted. Not only could Sharon sing incredibly well, she also made a hell of a show. I especially liked her mimics, and the kind of dance she did with her hands. She must be double-jointed, because some of her moves were just otherworldly. And mmm, so sweet, that alone was worth several goshu points. :o)Although a few times she didn't manage to reach into the uppermost octaves and her voice came out a little flat and out of tune, the overall performance was brilliant. As were her bandmates, who played tirelessly and sounded flawless. The impression was much heavier, than their studio albums. Unlike Kamelot, who did the same and screwed up big time, these guys managed to pack a lot of punch into their songs without sacrificing the melody, or quality. I have a nagging feeling to write a couple more superlatives, because they definitely deserve it, so let's pretend that I did. ;-)
As for the tracklist, it was okay. It was really fat, I think they played 18, or 19 songs. As this was The Heart of Everything tour, most of them were, naturally, from the latest album. It is quite cool, although a wee bit more rock on expense of metal. From my favourite Mother Earth, only three songs were played. The encore was three, as usual, and the final dot was one of their most awesome pieces, Ice Queen. At that moment, any reservations I could have had regarding the choice of tracks just disappeared in a puff of smoke. :-)Overall, I subjectively award Within Temptation 83 goshu points, which makes for a major világos, approximately on par with Blind Guardian show in Trenčín, fall 2006. :-) Thanks for the amazing experience and I'll definitely see you later when I have the chance. To my European homies I definitely recommend to attend the show in Vienna, on 3rd of October. Get your tickets ASAP. It may not be the cheapest concert in your life, but it will be well worth it.
Finally, a taste of what it was. It's világos multiplier is like 0.05x, and the sound is crappy, but at least to have an idea. By the way, the show over here was even better. And heavier. And Sharon was doing much more cool stuff. Yah, whatever.
posted by reverend at
04:00
6 Comments:
lol, you expect mosh-pit at gigs like this? I have no complaints against WT, it's pretty listenable music, but not good for furious rage in pit.
Well, I wasn't really calling for furious rage and heavy metal slams. But the people should at least jump a little, the music was heavy and rhytmic enough for that. I was approximately five rows from the stage in the center, and when I was jumping, no one around me would join and I felt like bothering them! Those people were almost completely still throughout the show. :-(
BTW, who are you? I don't think I recognize this nick. :-)
Try to find uco 219685. :)
Mmm...I should start thinking about that so that I don't look like a criminal in your eyes. :-)
Anyway, I planned to visit Vienna soon. :-)
So the time has come to report from WT in Vienna. First the list of people who definitely won't be called any degrees (I'll leave exact classification to the end of report) of noobs and/or criminals: Zdeněk, Ondráš, Jrika, me of course and for a little surprise my more and more beloved Barborka.
First of all I have to say it really wasn't the cheapest concert ever, tickets were sold for 39 EUR, luckily we got ours for quite nice 30 EUR. However the concert itself also wasn't held 15 minutes walking distance from where we live so there were some more expenses. Also I almost lost my nerves driving through Vienna.
Now for the concert itself. It started almost on time unlike in Chicago. The first band to play was "The 69 Eyes" which deserves at least few words. If I wrote this based on the coming on stage and first song, most of them would be: ghey, LOL, ROFLosaurusREX, totaly ghey, WbC (wannabe-cool) and simmilar. First the costumes were really heavy and really metal and the intention sure was to be rugged as šmirgel. Sorry boys, but it made me laught, something went wrong probably. The drummer was almost naked with great hair-style and even better show he put to his performance. It was quite cool and I really liked it, so he is excused this time.
Now for the frontman... totaly ghay. No, no, like really, like G, H, E, unclefucking Y. His moves were simillar to those of well trained stripper: shaking his ass, stroking his body, hugging and playing with microphone as if it was... and imagine all this in thight leather pants... awrghhh horrible. No kiding. I really wouldn't expect this from heavymetal band... And the music... horrible again.
Now if I wrote this based on everything but the first song: Not that bad. The music got better with every song, the drummer was just great, the frontman made me laugh every 30 seconds. The rest of the band: I don't know, had no time for them switching between two guys I desribed above. So overall: Average music, good funmetal, definitely much better than Astral Doors, not as good funmetal as Sabaton.
And then, for my great surprise: WT. No other bands... unbelievable. I will start based on original article with audience. First of all, we (me and Baška) were quite far from the stage, so maybe other guys will have different opinion. On the other hand I saw the entire audience in front of me as I'm quite tall. The hall was just filled enough to look full, but you could still breathe without doing so through T-shirt of guy in front of you. Also we had enough space to feel comfortable and there were no problems like protecting girls from getting flattened. And how was the audience itself? Not really bad, not good as well. I would say it was kind of trade-off: No polish-kind guys for not that great audience. What remains is average. Overall some real jumping or punching the air could be seen only during most well known songs, or after huuuuuge effort from the band. This really took several goshu points away.
Describing the band would be repeating of the original article, similar outfit, the dance, great show, yes there were some minor problems with voice. But overall it was great and I enjoyed a lot. In the second part of the show, they even had real fire on the stage, which was quite surprising indoors. However it looked very good and along with great light show and other stage decoration contributed to the goshupoints pool quite a bit.
I have to say for me, this concert was also special, as it was the first one on which I was with a girl and it was great experience. The slow and melodic parts were better than ever before.. guess why ;) I would also never guess metal can induce so much passion and so strong feelings and desire.
For the final and subjective rating, I award "WT in Vienna - ?Világos?" 71 goshu points, including 0.93 multiplier for distance from stage, "my girl present" bonus and quite huge deductions for audience. Overall it was the audience that caused this minor Világos to take place quite far behind the Trenčín 2006, where people simply ruled!
And now the awards: I classify everyone who haven't seen WT this year, could have come and haven't done so, as a moderate noob. I also decided to add special award similar to that of Pavel Šmerk who has missed Therion MegaVilágos in Miskolc and will be reminded of that ever after. This one goes also to Pavel, but this time to Pavel Troubil. He had very good oportunity to join us, as well as enough money and time. Therefore I classify him as major noob and more importantly moderate criminal for not taking this chance.
That much from my side, thanks for reading and I would please other guys to add their comments, to see what for a Világos it was for them.
Világos forever! I'm glad that you liked it, although obviously not as much as I did. :-) Oh, and you have my jealousy, having a nookie while having a metalvilágos, now that does for some multiplier! :-D
Also, I had to laugh several times while reading that. I like your style, you should blog more often. ;-)
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