While not caring about this website for a while is fine with me, but invariably, stuff keeps piling up. So without further ado, tonight’s business.
Nightwish in Amsterdam
For years, I’ve had the idea that it would be great to go to a concert in the goth-scene (think Within Temptation, After Forever, Nightwish, et al) in a salmon pink shirt with a corn blue (or whatever totally gay color scheme) legend saying “I’m too gothic for my shirt”. This year, I finally had the right opportunity: Nightwish was coming to Amsterdam, and I was going. For my birthday, I got a very suitable shirt.
So there I was in the Heineken Music Hall on March 21st, donning my “I’m to[o] Gothic for this shirt” shirt. It didn’t gather a lot of attention. For one, we showed up when the support act (Pain) was about to start, thus missing all the die hard Goth-heads who were reportedly stood in line for several hours before the doors opened. Secondly, we were standing way in the back, near the bar, with all the other people who were not totally into this whole goththing. Like the fortysomething year old guy who was there with his son, and gave me an appreciative nod when he saw the shirt.
For me, one of the reasons to go and see Nightwish (even though I wasn’t exactly thrilled by their performance on their latest DVD) was to see how their new singer holds up in a live setting. Just like on the album, she did alright. On the new stuff. On the old songs, all four or five of them, not so much. For the rest, all the things that bothered me while watching the DVD — like not knowing exactly what was coming from tape or what was played by mr. Holopainen — still applied. Only this time, they added some pyrotechnics. Cheesy pyrotechnics. The worst part was when there were a series of orchestra hits: chord on keyboards – flames – chord – flames. Ad infinitum.
It wasn’t that it was a bad gig, it’s just that I couldn’t get past the cheese and over my initial skepticism. Next time, I’ll probably pass and listen to the album instead.
First Lines: Het zijn net mensen: Verhalen uit het Midden-Oosten
This book deserves more attention than I’m going to give it. Joris Luyendijk was a correspondent in the Middle-East, and in this book, he shows how the media only tells a miniscule (but heavily coloured and manipulated) slice of what is really happening.
Basically, this book was an eyeopener on how the media works, even though I don’t exactly know how much of this book I have to believe. Which of course follows from criticizing the media for not bringing the objective truth.
- Joris Luyendijk — Het zijn net mensen: Beelden uit het Midden-Oosten
Nog eentje?
“Goedemoggel”
Speciaal voor die mensen die vandaag de dag het nog steeds nodig vinden om de term “goedemoggel” te gebruiken: komopnouzeghé! We zijn ondertussen bijna een half jaar verder, en het was na drie weken al te afgezaagd voor woorden.