Dutch (Female) Metal History

On a rainy Sunday Night off to Poppodium 013 (Tilburg, The Netherlands) for two bands with quite some history related to Dutch (Female) Metal. The headliner, The Gathering can be seen as one of the founders of metal with a female singer. Especially the period with Anneke van Giersbergen was very successful worldwide. Although with some periods of limited activities, at 013  they played as part of their 30^th Anniversary Tour.

Support was Autumn. Not yet 30 years old but with 24 years also quite some history and in addition some similarity with The Gathering. Also Autumn had some periods with limited activities, and don’t play that often either. Over the years they moved from Gothic Metal to more progressive rock/metal. In the past (2010) they had some touring experiences with The Gathering too. Quite some of the set list was for their recent album “Stacking Smoke”. Although the space to move was a little limited, even with 3 guitarists they were able to create a dynamic show. And most of all, they seemed to have a lot of pleasure in playing. Singer Marjan Welman was in shape, the musicians claimed their moments. A special moment was when Marjan went into the crowd (headbanging) at the long instrumental outro of the show. All fitted very well together. High level music and performance, nothing wrong with a start like this.

Where Autumn closed with a long instrumental outro, The Gathering started in a similar way. The almost forgotten “How To Measure A Planet” has  a long instrumental intro, so it took a while before singer Silje Wergeland was needed on stage. A great opener for a set with great (classic) songs. The sound was very good at 013 and that supported the layered music of the founding brothers Hans and René Rutten. Original bass player Hugo Prinsen Geerligs joined again after the long break. Frank Boeijen on keys missed only the first  year. Norwegian Silje can be seen as a ‘newbie’ with only 10 years. The show was quite static except for Hugo. The applied projections and the nice lightshow added to the visual concept. Music is still key in a show of The Gathering. Next to lesser known ‘No One Spoke’ and ‘Bad Movie Scene’, more classic songs like ‘Saturnine’, ‘Probably Built In The Fifties’, ‘Éleanor’ and ‘Great Ocean Road’. Clearly the audience reacted better on these songs but the lesser known songs were appreciated too. ‘Heroes For Ghosts’ closed the regular set, however an encore was to be expected. ‘On Most Surfaces (Inuït)’ an audience favorite opened the encore and the show finished with the intense ‘I Can See Four Miles’.

Both bands made it a great evening and looking at the crowd at the merch (with band members) it was not just my opinion.
Additional sets: The Gathering, Autumn