16.11.2011 Within Temptation

E-Werk, Cologne (Germany)

Originally this concert was planned for end of March but as Within Temptation front women Sharon den Adel got pregnant for the third time the whole tour had to be delayed without hesitation. Meanwhile a lot had happened: New drummer in the band with Mike Coolen, Sharon and Roberts third child was born and due to that Robert had decided to the beginning of the tour to retreat from the active tour business to be able to spend more time looking after his kids. But he will stay in the band but more in the background and support them with developing new ideas for songs and shows. So I was able to see his substitue Stefan Helleblad for the first time who had to do with the band already for a long time as sound engineer.
The anticipation of me was huge and so it was also for the other people at the completely filled and sold out E-Werk. Towards 21:00 it finally was the time that the video to "Mother Maiden" began playing on a large LCD panel and short time afterwards the band entered to the sounds of "Shot In The Dark" the stage. Afterwards it continuedd stroke upon stroke. The concert was of course formed by songs of their current album like "Faster" or "Where Is The Edge" where the already known videos from the First Challenge concert at Ulft were playing in the background. But also older songs like "The Howling" or the wonderful "Angels" may not be missing. The compilation was really well done, the band really had fun playing and also the audience went with them. It was quite impressive how many loudly sang along and that all had their arms up in the air when some started or they were encouraged to do so by the musicians.
With this concert they made us forget the not so good one named The First Challenge at Ulft. This evening everything perfectly fit together: No glitches, great sound (at least where I stood), terrific audience and musicians really conveying the impression of having fun. If there is anything to complain about then that the concert was quite short. From beginnning of the show until leave of the stage 90 minutes. Sound like a normal concert in the beginning but you have to think about the fact that the concert began with the full "Mother Maiden" video (taking app. 8 minutes). Then before "Sinead" luckily the shortened version of the video was shown (app. 2-3 minutes) and at the end of the show there were credits, photos and the recording of a word shouted by the audience (the band did not want to tell what they want to do with that at the end of the tour). If you subtract all that there only remain 70-75 minutes of concert. That was up to now the shortest Within Temptation concert (except the one as support act for Iron Maiden) that I took part of. I would like to have heared some more great songs like e.g. "Murder" of the current album or "Frozen". But overall that is grumpin on a quite high level.