Post by Bisley on Jul 10, 2013 13:11:12 GMT
I thought it would be nice if we had a thread for posting write-ups of AM gigs we've been to, to share the experience with our follow forum members. To give you ideas, here's a write-up I wrote for my blog about seeing AM for the first time in the Netherlands in April this year. Be warned, it's quite long and very detailed!
Date: 13/04/13
Location: Tivoli de Helling, Utrecht, Netherlands
I went to the gig with fellow forum member Sprirt. We arrived 45 minutes before the doors even opened, which had been the plan all along to ensure we were at the front (We'd travelled a long way and paid a lot of money, standing anywhere but the front was not an option!) but it seemed we rather overestimated how busy the gig would be and spent the next 15 minutes sitting on the floor near the entrance in the rain, not seeing another soul, aside from the odd passer-by on bike. Luckily, our boring wait was interrupted when Renaud and Jan came out to check their van. And then Jakob came out, saw us and waved to us. At this point I’m slightly disbelieving this is actually happening because we’d just spent 15 minutes discussing how we’d react if the band came out while we were waiting. Then all three walked over to us and Jakob said something in Dutch. My Dutch skills are non-existent (unless I want to say good evening, yes, no, goodbye, please, thank you, violinist or help. In which case I suppose I could have said “Good evening, violinist, help, goodbye” before passing out but…) so I blurted out “Err we’re English!” (Which isn’t even true, I’m English, but Spirit is Scottish, luckily he didn’t beat me up for this faux pas) and they all looked quite surprised and Jakob asked whereabouts we were from and I said “Edinburgh, so we’ve travelled quite far to see you” and Jakob said “Just to see us?!” and Renaud and Jan were all smiley and happy and then Jakob said “In that case we shall be magnificent!” (like there was any doubt) and I told them how much I was looking forward to it and they were happy and said “See you later!” and went to get food or something. As they were leaving, Jan shouted over his shoulder “Have fun!” . A little while later and once some more people had showed up, the doors opened and we went in.
Spirit and I headed straight for the room with the stage and stood alone in there for about five minutes before we realised there was probably no danger of losing the front row if we went out and had a drink, so we did, whilst I glared at anyone heading for the doors to the stage. After a potentially embarrassing moment at the toilets trying to work out which was the ladies, we went back in and resumed our position right in front of the stage. In fact we were practically on the stage. We spent the wait for the support by sneaking a look at the set list (didn’t help with the excitement seeing as most of my favourites were on it) examining Bert and Renaud’s pedal boards because we’re both music nerds and playing ‘Spot the interesting object’.
The support was The T.S Elliot Appreciation Society, a solo artist with a harmonica, a lovely voice, some wonderful guitar skills and some tough feet (he was percussively stamping his feet on the stage a lot). I liked him, he was good. When he left, Renaud and Jan came on stage and turned on amps and tuned their instruments and such then they left but pretty soon returned with the rest of the band and they started. A lot of people say AM are a live band and their recorded sound is nothing compared to the energy and passion they bring to the stage and that night I was finally able to see that first hand. They were incredible, I even danced and sang along and that does not usually happen to me ever. They did a nice mix of old and new, the usual crowd pleasers like My Heroics and Envoi with some old funky classics like People of the Pavement and Ask Me Anything. There was plenty of delightful rock in the form of Stuck in Reverse, Plane Song and Mary’s Hotel, interspersed with lovely quieter songs like Space and Papillon. Some highlights (apart from the entire thing) included someone shouting in a slightly panicked voice “You forgot your guitar!” at Bert when they started Ask Me Anything (a song with no guitar) and making the whole band crack up. Bert’s funky jive dance during Ask Me Anything. Bert accidentally knocking his mic across the stage when adjusting the stand, then sheepishly having to pick it up and test it whilst Renaud looked on with an amused look of pretend despair. And Stuck in Reverse. More specifically Bert yelling that it was our last chance to “JUMP” and his look of glee when the whole audience was jumping during the awesome, crazy last third of that song.
After an encore they left (despite cries for a second encore) and people started to leave. Some girl ran up to the stage and immediately stole Renaud and Bert’s set list, whilst another guy stole Jan’s set list, so we had to stand there patiently until someone came on stage so I could ask for Jakob and Sergej’s set list. My set list was all nice and intact and unripped unlike those losers who stole the others. We went out and went to the merch stand bought a CD and a t-shirt and talked to their merch guy for a while about how far we’d come just to see AM (you might notice a theme develop), and then we started to queue for our coats. After about a minute, I turned around and looked at the merch stand and Bert and Renaud were standing there. And then Jan and Jakob too. Forgetting I ever owned a coat, we made our way back to the merch stand when Jakob saw us and came over to ask if we enjoyed it. I think I managed not to completely freak out with joy and got him to sign my CD, then he passed it to Renaud and Jan who were all smiley and lovely. I thanked them, they thanked me and then I went over to Bert. I told him we’d come from the UK just to see them and he said “Wow that’s….. FANTASTIC!” he asked if it was worth it and I managed to say yes without saying “WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY, ABSOLUTELY, I’D DO IT AGAIN TOMORROW!” which was what was in my head. He signed the CD and I went back over to Spirit and Jakob who were talking about Amsterdam and where AM were playing next (Jakob was looking forward to the warm Turkish weather) and when I came back over Jakob asked if I’d got everyone. I said yes except Sergej who was nowhere to be seen and Jakob was very helpful in locating Sergej by telling us he was almost certainly on stage, fussing over his cables because he’s very protective of his cables and to go back in and shout at him. So we did and Sergej came over and signed my CD. Anton was being Scottish at him and Sergej looked at him and then me with the best look of confusion I’ve ever seen on a face and Spirit said “Sorry, I’m Scottish…” and Sergej went “OH Scottish, English! I understand now, I thought you were speaking an obscure Dutch dialect” ahaha. We had the same conversation with him as with the others about travelling a long way and was it worth it etc. and then he thanked us and shook our hands and went back to his important cables. We went back and got our coats and hung around a bit longer but the rest of the band went to help pack away so we left and went and found A BUS (my insistence), went back to the station, got on a train, tram and fell into bed in under an hour. After assuring ourselves that was the best day EVER, we went to sleep.
Setlist:
Date: 13/04/13
Location: Tivoli de Helling, Utrecht, Netherlands
I went to the gig with fellow forum member Sprirt. We arrived 45 minutes before the doors even opened, which had been the plan all along to ensure we were at the front (We'd travelled a long way and paid a lot of money, standing anywhere but the front was not an option!) but it seemed we rather overestimated how busy the gig would be and spent the next 15 minutes sitting on the floor near the entrance in the rain, not seeing another soul, aside from the odd passer-by on bike. Luckily, our boring wait was interrupted when Renaud and Jan came out to check their van. And then Jakob came out, saw us and waved to us. At this point I’m slightly disbelieving this is actually happening because we’d just spent 15 minutes discussing how we’d react if the band came out while we were waiting. Then all three walked over to us and Jakob said something in Dutch. My Dutch skills are non-existent (unless I want to say good evening, yes, no, goodbye, please, thank you, violinist or help. In which case I suppose I could have said “Good evening, violinist, help, goodbye” before passing out but…) so I blurted out “Err we’re English!” (Which isn’t even true, I’m English, but Spirit is Scottish, luckily he didn’t beat me up for this faux pas) and they all looked quite surprised and Jakob asked whereabouts we were from and I said “Edinburgh, so we’ve travelled quite far to see you” and Jakob said “Just to see us?!” and Renaud and Jan were all smiley and happy and then Jakob said “In that case we shall be magnificent!” (like there was any doubt) and I told them how much I was looking forward to it and they were happy and said “See you later!” and went to get food or something. As they were leaving, Jan shouted over his shoulder “Have fun!” . A little while later and once some more people had showed up, the doors opened and we went in.
Spirit and I headed straight for the room with the stage and stood alone in there for about five minutes before we realised there was probably no danger of losing the front row if we went out and had a drink, so we did, whilst I glared at anyone heading for the doors to the stage. After a potentially embarrassing moment at the toilets trying to work out which was the ladies, we went back in and resumed our position right in front of the stage. In fact we were practically on the stage. We spent the wait for the support by sneaking a look at the set list (didn’t help with the excitement seeing as most of my favourites were on it) examining Bert and Renaud’s pedal boards because we’re both music nerds and playing ‘Spot the interesting object’.
The support was The T.S Elliot Appreciation Society, a solo artist with a harmonica, a lovely voice, some wonderful guitar skills and some tough feet (he was percussively stamping his feet on the stage a lot). I liked him, he was good. When he left, Renaud and Jan came on stage and turned on amps and tuned their instruments and such then they left but pretty soon returned with the rest of the band and they started. A lot of people say AM are a live band and their recorded sound is nothing compared to the energy and passion they bring to the stage and that night I was finally able to see that first hand. They were incredible, I even danced and sang along and that does not usually happen to me ever. They did a nice mix of old and new, the usual crowd pleasers like My Heroics and Envoi with some old funky classics like People of the Pavement and Ask Me Anything. There was plenty of delightful rock in the form of Stuck in Reverse, Plane Song and Mary’s Hotel, interspersed with lovely quieter songs like Space and Papillon. Some highlights (apart from the entire thing) included someone shouting in a slightly panicked voice “You forgot your guitar!” at Bert when they started Ask Me Anything (a song with no guitar) and making the whole band crack up. Bert’s funky jive dance during Ask Me Anything. Bert accidentally knocking his mic across the stage when adjusting the stand, then sheepishly having to pick it up and test it whilst Renaud looked on with an amused look of pretend despair. And Stuck in Reverse. More specifically Bert yelling that it was our last chance to “JUMP” and his look of glee when the whole audience was jumping during the awesome, crazy last third of that song.
After an encore they left (despite cries for a second encore) and people started to leave. Some girl ran up to the stage and immediately stole Renaud and Bert’s set list, whilst another guy stole Jan’s set list, so we had to stand there patiently until someone came on stage so I could ask for Jakob and Sergej’s set list. My set list was all nice and intact and unripped unlike those losers who stole the others. We went out and went to the merch stand bought a CD and a t-shirt and talked to their merch guy for a while about how far we’d come just to see AM (you might notice a theme develop), and then we started to queue for our coats. After about a minute, I turned around and looked at the merch stand and Bert and Renaud were standing there. And then Jan and Jakob too. Forgetting I ever owned a coat, we made our way back to the merch stand when Jakob saw us and came over to ask if we enjoyed it. I think I managed not to completely freak out with joy and got him to sign my CD, then he passed it to Renaud and Jan who were all smiley and lovely. I thanked them, they thanked me and then I went over to Bert. I told him we’d come from the UK just to see them and he said “Wow that’s….. FANTASTIC!” he asked if it was worth it and I managed to say yes without saying “WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY, ABSOLUTELY, I’D DO IT AGAIN TOMORROW!” which was what was in my head. He signed the CD and I went back over to Spirit and Jakob who were talking about Amsterdam and where AM were playing next (Jakob was looking forward to the warm Turkish weather) and when I came back over Jakob asked if I’d got everyone. I said yes except Sergej who was nowhere to be seen and Jakob was very helpful in locating Sergej by telling us he was almost certainly on stage, fussing over his cables because he’s very protective of his cables and to go back in and shout at him. So we did and Sergej came over and signed my CD. Anton was being Scottish at him and Sergej looked at him and then me with the best look of confusion I’ve ever seen on a face and Spirit said “Sorry, I’m Scottish…” and Sergej went “OH Scottish, English! I understand now, I thought you were speaking an obscure Dutch dialect” ahaha. We had the same conversation with him as with the others about travelling a long way and was it worth it etc. and then he thanked us and shook our hands and went back to his important cables. We went back and got our coats and hung around a bit longer but the rest of the band went to help pack away so we left and went and found A BUS (my insistence), went back to the station, got on a train, tram and fell into bed in under an hour. After assuring ourselves that was the best day EVER, we went to sleep.
Setlist: