5 posts tagged “paradiso”
It's been a bit of a rough week this week, leaving me a little tired. Right now I'm trying to keep my eyes open, while I'm supposed to be digging through some software configs. I've been a little fluey the last couple of days. Not sick enough to be sick, but just annoying enough to be annoying.
Yesterday I had a dinnerparty with my colleagues. We went over to this place called Bazaar, which serves Moroccon style food. What I never expected possible in my previous job, happened just now. It was interesting to find out the person behind the colleague. I've always kept work and personal life firmly apart, because, well, the people in my previous job weren't really people I'd normally spend a lot of time with. We ended up in a pub and I spent most of my night talking to a colleague about the goth culture, roleplaying and going to festivals. Oh, and some technobabble too, but it's hard to avoid, I suppose.
Last night I went to see Joan As Police Woman at Paradiso. Last time she played there, it was in the little upstairs room. It didn't sell out this time, but I'm sure it was close. I went in straight from work, and had some really nice sushi beforehand at Moshi Moshi. Apparently well known at the Paradiso too, because Joan's bassplayer and sound engineer were there too. Duh.
The gig started off a little rocky. Paradiso can be really, really noisy, especially around the bar. Joan has a strong, powerful voice, but her songs are soft, more voice than instruments, which means the talkers at the bar become disturbing. Add the plastic unbreakable glasses Paradiso uses and you can imagine what it sounded like. Joan joked about it sounding like she was playing at a wedding.
However, her songs became so quiet, so full of raw emotion and power that while the set went on, even the most die hard smoker, drinker, talker and screamer shut up. I even stopped taking pictures, as my (relatively quiet) shutter just sounded disturbing to me. Stupidly enough, the only sound coming from the audience was the beep-beeping of people taking pictures with their camera phones. Very strange and mildly disturbing.
There's a lot of things to be said about Joan. She's a striking presence, often dressed a little over the top in sparkling dresses or (in this case) MC Hammer like jumpsuits. She's an attractive woman and I am sure her choice of dress or materials that offer a hint of see throughess captures the imagination of many a bloke there and possibly a couple of girls. Then there's her behaviour on stage. She's joking around, sometimes throwing in little anecdotes that only make sense to her and then bursting out laughing in a little party of her own, only to launch into the next dead serious song.
The audience loved her and just got won over more and more. The applause before the encore was spontaneous and kept going well after what's considered polite, only to be repeated in full force after she had finished her set.
For a moment she seemed to bask in the afterglow of her performance, while the audience virtually carried her on their hands, only to then finally disappear. Not for long though, because even in the 1000 headed Paradiso, Joan is kind enough to pop into the merchandise stand to sign anything people ask her to.
It's amazing how Joan Wasser has grown, from being one of the backing band for numerous people to a somewhat fragile support set for Rufus Wainwright, onto the 300 head room in Paradiso, and the 30 people FNAC in store in Paris I was at last year. And then finally this powerful performance in a well filled venue all of her own. Just excellent and quite a feat in her genre.
Last night I went to the London Calling Festival, a festival which is turning into a bit of a hype over here. This was the first time in history it was completely sold out before even a single band name was announced to be playing. The concept is pretty simple, take young, promising Brit bands, put them all together and let people go nuts. Some of the bands that it helped break over in The Netherlands and maybe even Europe: Placebo, Blur, Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand, the Kaiser Chiefs and more.
Over the years the festival has turned into a bi-annual two day event and it's still growing. The last time I saw them The Pigeon Detectives were the big breakers. This time around I was a little slow getting tickets, until Keith told me his nephew's band My Luminaries would be playing too. Of course, by then it was sold out and all the scalpers were putting 200% on the original ticketprices, so I just kind of gave up. Thanks to the internet however, I had absolutely no chance finding myself a last minute ticket, so off I went, camera in tow.
The line up for this evening was: Our Lunar Activities, The Wombats, Kate Nash, The Twang, My Luminaries, The Long Blondes, We Are The Physics, Pigeon Detectives and a few more, but I bowed out after that one.
Our Lunar Activities had the difficult task of being the first band to start off in the little upstairs room. Not everyone had arrived yet, so it was a little quiet audience wise. I thought they were an alright band, not very convincing, but it's possible they'll grow in future.
The Wombats started up with a little itty ditty a capella clap along, which hit off a storm. Not a bad feat when your slot starts at 8 pm when everyone is just starting to trickle in from having dinner. After that it was very happy and loud, which really got the (very young) audience going. Nice little band; I don't think this will be the last we hear of them. They seem to be hardworking and enjoying themselves, which for me are the most important things to make a band. I suppose having catchy tunes helps, and The Wombats certainly did.
Next up, Kate Nash. She didn't quite fit into the rest of the lineup, which mostly invites pogoing and stage diving. Her repertoire is more voice heavy and less beat, drums, guitars and noise and explores the more alternative side. She's got that very cute girl next door kind of appearance, including bright red hair. I was well surprised by her and think she could be a great performer. Strong vocals with an alternaive edge to it. I will probably check her out again if she plays in the area.
Then The Twang. What a bunch of losers. Their music didn't appeal to me at all and came across on me as very white boys trying to be hip hoppy cool. Or maybe I just didn't stick around long enough to really listen. No sex appeal, no charm, no catchy tunes, gouchers. 'Nuff said.
Then the surprise of the evening, the one band that no one expected anything off and completely blew everyone away We Are The Physics from Glasgow. A high energy band, with speedy catchy songs, band members with a sense of style and the ability to completely turn the audience to their hand. In no time the audience took over the stage and the crowdsurfing began in earnest, along with people dancing on the stage. The lead singer egged them on and the guitar player joined right in. London Calling being London Calling, filled with promotors and people trying to find the next best thing to sliced bread, this is one band we'll undoubtedly be hearing more from in the near future. They blew me away! Check out their site for samples of their work. They have to be seen live though.
Last band I saw were the Pigeon Detectives. They played the previous edition of the festival as well and were then the big breakthrough. If I remember correctly they also supported the Kaiser Chiefs at the Melkweg earlier this year. It's undeniable, they're a fun band. With a singer that has a lot of charisma and doesn't mind joining the masses in stagediving and crowdsurfing he appeals to a lot of the members in the audience. I think I may have cracked a few ribs in the chaos that ensued, but their performance was a very nice ending of the evening. Not a bad night at all for a mere 20 euros.
Of course, I just missed the last regular bus home, so I had to wait for the night bus, which took forever to get there. All in all I ended up in bed at 3 am, which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been for my buddy storm jumping right on top of me at 7:30 am going HELLO! IT'S A BRAND NEW MORNING! WAKE UP AND PLAY WITH ME! MEOW! He's a very persistent little bugger :)
I had a hard time waking up and came along slowly while editing some pictures when I got a call from the saddle fitter at 10:20 am, to ask me if I was at the yard yet. Uhm, not exactly, I was sitll in my sleeping gear, heh. So I had to rush to the yard to meet him and fit Solon's new saddle. So I now have a saddle that was almost more expensive than what I paid for the horse in the first place... Typical. It seems to have really improved a few things though, so I'm touching wood here and hoping that this will mean the end of some of the troubles I have had with him.
Tomorrow I'll be going to the beach with Solon and two friends. The weather is supposed to be brilliant and I'm really excited about going. Not a great thing to do to a brand new fitted saddle, expose it to salty water, but what gives?
Man, what a weekend! It started friday evening, rushing out of work to chuck some food in the horse, then off to the Paradiso for the London Calling Festival which ran more or less for 2 days straight. In between I did find some time to excercise Himself, who went completely nuts with the great autumn weather.
But, back to London Calling. Just wow. I felt a bit apprehensive at first, because I was surrounded by tons and tons of people, who could not have been more than 16 years old, at most. Actually, most of the bands these days seem to be younger than me, looking to be straight out of highschool. Maybe that's why I like these old geezers musicians better, because they make me feel young! Har. Whatever. London Calling kicked off with the Holloways in the small upstairs room at the Paradiso. And I liked them! They really set the mood for the whole festival. While I saw a few bands I did not like so much, there were many yummy ones to counter for them. Some managed to bring everybody to their feet, resulting in crowdsurfing in the little upstairs room, people grabbing the mics after jumping the stage and singing along, bands sending off security who were trying to get the people off the stage and singers, guitars and everything disappearing into the audience. I
Tomorrow I'm off to Den Bosch to see Muse, though I'm a dunce and forgot to ask the time off... So now I can only get half a day off and that I have the kindness of my boss to thank for (he did tell me to bring the UMTS card, so I can dial in from Den Bosch if I have to.
Oh, by the way, more pictures on my flickr page.
The Killers seem to have made When You Rock And Roll With Me a fixed part of their set now. Truth be told, the most memorable thing about the gig was the atrocious sound, which means it basically took me about half a minute before I realised Brandon had slipped into the Bowie song. It was reverb after reverb after reverb. Enough sound to fill a stadium, except the Paradiso is like a little ex-church club that only holds about 800 people. I think this was the worst the sound has ever been in there, even surpassing the quality of sound (or lack there of) of David's show at the Amsterdam Arena(-ena-ena-na-a).
However... this didn't seem to bother the audience at all, who just went completely nuts. It was awesome to see, and feel the entire crowd shifting, jumping and generally going insane. Band seemed high on the energy coming from the crowd, which fueled some action-reaction thing, where both started feeding of eachother. Great too watch.
For me, it was a revalation, as the only times I saw The Killers before they were playing support for U2 in huge arenas, which must be the most unthankful job on the planet. They kind of got lost in the sheer size of the stadium then, whereas today they were drowned by the audience, who sang every song word for word (which of course made the sound worse =) )
Anyway, I took a lot of pictures, but here's a small selection:
There's some more pics of them up on my flickr page 
I wouldn't mind seeing them again at the High Line Festival actually. Hint hint.
I think I just outshone myself when it comes to stupidity.
I know I bought a ticket to see Joan As Police Woman in Patronaat somewhere before I went to Dublin. I distinctly remeber spelling out the name to the girl behind the counter in the post office, and feeling like a right plonker doing so. I also remember the total amount was, like, 16 euro or something...
...the only thing I can't remember is where I put the damn thing.
I found my Cat Power ticket this morning and just bought a Nina Nastasia ticket at the post office, but had the worst deja vu feeling about the JAPW ticket.
So where the fuck is it?
On a different note altogether. The Nina Nastasia ticket came to EUR8,65 including service charges. Now that's a great price. Girl at the post office said I was lucky, because it was almost sold out. Not surprising, considering the price and the little place in the Paradiso only holds about 150 people.
Oh, wow. Just checked the Paradiso site, and guess what... The Drones are playing this coming tuesday at the little place in the Paradiso too. I'd been meaning to check them out and way hey, going to the gig is actually cheaper than buying the cd. Nuts. Will have to leg it, since I'll be coming straight in from Leeuwarden though. Then Teddy Thompson is playing the Paradiso Nov 1 & 2 supporting Lucinda Williams. Wouldn't mind seeing him, but I can't be bothered with Lucinda Williams, really. And god, MC5 on December 5. I know for fact that some of those are actually dead, so what's the story? I may check them out just for kicks. Sadly, Razorlight on December 6 is sold out.
Oooh... and Kashmir November 8 in the Melkweg.
Why on earth did everyone collectively decide on November to tour?
AND WHERE IS MY JAPW TICKET? Damnit.
