Columbiahalle, Berlin, Germany
12th February 2005
Within Temptation

We arrived at the Columbiahalle around 18h and several fans were already standing there for hours- to find a good spot watching the Within Temptation gig in the biggest Venue of the “Silent Force” Tour.  In all of a sudden it started to rain. Maybe it wasn’t that smart to leave our umbrellas at home. So we tried to protect ourselves and went a bit closer to the entrance. But the raindrops were constantly falling on us while Within Temptation was doing their sound check.

The doors opened at 19h and the drenched crowd runs into the venue to find a place next to the stage. Autumn entered the stage punctually at 20h and did a good job with warming up the nearly sold out venue. But a lot of people seem to be frozen because they were standing there without moving. After 45min they were finally defrost and donated Autumn with the applause they deserved.

Music
From the beginning the sound of Sharon’s voice and the blend of the instruments were very well. Although Sharon brought a nice souvenir with her from the gigs in the Nordic countries (she had the flu) she sung and acted on stage professional as always. With her typical way of dancing and her characteristic voice she caught the audience right away and “kidnapped” them into another world. During the encore Robert joined Sharon singing during “The other half”. His grunts were pretty quiet, compared to Sharon’s powerful voice they seemed to be very thin.    

Performance
The stage was covered with a big drapery which didn’t allow the audience to see what’s happening on stage. A few minutes past 21h the lights were switched off, the first beats of the “Intro” sounded and the audience started to cheer. The “Intro” merged into “See who I am”. Suddenly the curtain disappeared and Ruud, Jeroen and Robert stood in the middle of the stage and played the first accords of this fantastic song.

The first time this day the sun rose when Sharon appeared and everybody forgot about the “wet” waiting outside. The whole scene was covered in a wonderful mix of red and yellow lights. The sympatric front woman tried to enter the stage, but her new dress which is specially made for the tour was caught up in the stair – rail. I guess most of the people didn’t notice this because they were fascinated by the beautiful stage decoration.

Two oversized angels built the frame; next to Stephen and Martijn were two colossal pillars draped with ivy and painted with elf’s signs. Ruud and Robert were posing on two little podiums, light and fog emphasised and pointed up their moves. A big screen composed the middle of the setting. During the whole show mystical scenes where project from a huge beamer onto it. Flights over the rain forest, lava spitting vulcans or a huge waterfall were shown. The visual show was completely matched with the songs the band played. After one hour and 45 min, including two encores the performance in front of nearly 3000 exhausted, dry and enthusiastic fans was over. 

Setlist
01. Intro
02. See who I am
03. Dangerous Mind
04. Jillian
05. Angles
06. The Promise
07. Pale
08. Forsaken
09. Stand my ground
10. Memories
11. Caged
12. Running up that hill
13. Mother Earth
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14. Decipher of Fools
15. Aquarius
16. The other half (of me)
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17. Our Farewell
18. Jane Doe
19. Ice Queen

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 8 (7.7)

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