03.05.2014 Within Temptation

Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

After a short break for preparing the stage which I used for moving from the upper tier into the infield to be closer to the stage the intro movie began right on time at 21:00 after that the first chords of "Let Us Burn" were intonated. To that sounds the members of Within Temptation came onto the stage to really display the fireworks during the upcoming two hours.
The tour was around their latest album "Hydra" which formed the main part of the set but also great classics from former albums may not be missing. Additionally just like the concert the day before at the same place it was recorded to be included on the later released DVD of their anniversary concert at Antwerp two years ago. In keeping with the motto of "Let Us Burn" huge flames were fired on stage to directly generate a suitable atmosphere. But that was really not necessary as the audience was brought to working temperature already by Delain. During the first released track of the current album "Paradise (What About Us?)" the former Nightwish frontwoman Tarja Turunen could be heared but as usual she is not personally there but her voice is coming off the tape whilst she can be seen inside the video played on the huge LCD-wall (it was also handled like this for the other songs with guest singers like "Dangerous" with Howard Jones, "And We Run" with XZibit and "What Have You Done?" with the Live Of Agony frontman Keith Caputo).
Great classics like "Angels" or "Stand My Ground" of the "The Silent Force" album or "Mother Earth" of the equally named album made the audience loudly sing along also without asking them to do so. A nice moment as well was "Silver Moonlight" where Robert Westerholt sang his grunts personally on stage. In that regard it was a very interesting track as he had not taken over grunts for a very long time (the last time was on the album "The Dance"). The quite considerable encore contained also an accoustic block which was a small teaser for the upcoming theatre tour.
I was completely pleased with the concert. Many elements you already knew but the stage with the two huge heads and the big screen in the background was quite impressive. Also the always very well suitable videos as well as the light, fire and fog effects were great as usual. I only felt a little bad for keyboarder Martijn Spierenburg and drummer Mike Coolen as they seemed a little bit lost on their platforms. Way more present were the other band members. Singer Sharon den Adel used the catwalk into the audience quite often to be right in the middle of them, to encourage them to sing or jump along. Also the two guitarists Ruud Jolie and Stefan Helleblad often used this possibility during their solos. Meanwhile bassist Jeroen van Veen stayed more subtle in the background but I have rarely experienced this to be any different. The crowd followed them directly from the beginning and so everyone was really having fun. Although the concert took nearly two hours the end came way too early but I liked the crossection across all albums very much (that the major part of the set was formed by the album "Hydra" was clear). For me it is still valid: Also in future I will again join concerts of that band if they are nearby.