Halloween Party - Amsterdam 2006

Goliath, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
October 31st 2006
The Dreamside, Sophya, Courtesan, Letatlin

There had been a lot of advertising about this special Halloweenparty that would take place in a venue in Amsterdam, owned by Agnes Jasper. She's also known as a musician from the band Clan Of Xymox and as a fire artist. In Goliath she organises gothic "Bal Du Masque" parties.  For only €2,50 you would be admitted to this evening’s Halloweenparty where 4 bands had been invited to play for half an hour each. It was hard to find the venue because a few roads were blocked due to an excavated building-site around it. It seemed that Goliath was almost the only undestroyed building, standing in the middle this site. When I finally arrived the doors were still closed. There were already some people standing in front of the building. We heard that Agnes had been involved in a carcrash that day, so the evening started all but smoothly. Fortunately she was alright, but quite stressed about the course of this evening. And indeed, misfortunes never come single: also the necessary sound utilities hadn’t arrived, so the bands were unable to do proper soundchecks. The venue itself looked very cosy with a large bar and a small stage with red curtains hanging in the front.

The first band to enter the small stage was Letatlin. As literally mentioned on their website this Italian band got its name from one of the last works realized by the Soviet avant-garde artist Vladimir Tatlin. This work showed a machine which was developed to let a man fly by a mechanical device powered by human physical strength. This device has a recollection of a stylised skeleton shape of a bird. The influences of the music of Letatlin are initially wave noise and over the years progressively developed towards a less structured electric and electronic experimental attitude. The bandmembers are Marco de Piaggi (guitars, vocals, programming), Federico Caputo (guitars, vocals, programming) and Sandro Lezziero (bass guitar, vocals, synthesizer). http://www.letatlin.net/ / http://www.myspace.com/letatlin

Music
Experimental, strange old school gothic, that’s how I would describe their music. At some points it made me think about the music from the beginning period of Einstürzende Neubauten, but most of the time it sounded like  unpleasant film music and it started to get boring rather quickly. The three bandmembers were multi-instrumentalists and with every song every bandmember gets his leading appearrance behind the microphone. One of the bandmembers alternately talked, whispered or screamed through the microphone. The bassplayer had his microphone set to produce distorted vocals. The whole was supported by a drumcomputer from a keyboard, which was only used for that. At the beginning the mics weren't rightly adjusted. First it was hard to hear anyone singing and when the first song was almost finished the vocals started echoing very loudly. The titles of the songs were strange, for example "Naissance Du Robot" (birth of the robot) or "Mechanical Flower" and were sung, whispered or spoken in different languages, like French, Italian or English.

Performance
The performance of this band was so boring I almost fell asleep. I don't know if it belongs to their image, but the bandmembers looked very bored themselves and hardly moved on stage. It was as if they actually didn't want to be here, on stage. When the audience dutifully clapped after a song out of politeness, the band dutifully thanked the audience. Before the start of every new song one of the bandmembers held up a piece of paper with the title of that particular song, sometimes translated into English. When doing that he had a blank expression on his face. For some people this could appear somewhat humorous but most people just frowned at each other. In this venue it wasn't possible to create a brilliant lightshow. During this performance nearly only red lights were used and in the audience part there were some lights present on the left and right wall. Sometimes some stroboscope effects were used.

Rating
Music 5
Performance 4
Sound 3
Light 3
Total 4 (4,0)

The second band to play was Courtesan, founded in 2004 in The Netherlands. This fresh new band contains of four women and they're familiar with performing on Bal Du Masque, for their first show was held there, in the spring of 2006. They’re planned to play on the next Summer Darkness Festival in Utrecht, in August 2007. They describe their music as neoclassical dramatic feminine darkfolk. The bandmembers are Zarathoestra (singer/songwriter), Blanche (singer/keyboardplayer), Belmort (percussion/songwriter) and Drionine (programming/keyboards/guitar). http://www.myspace.com/courtesans

Music
I had never heard about this band before, so I didn’t have any clue of what to expect from them. When I heard the first song I was positively surprised. If I have to describe their music I’d say it’s poetic gothic/ambient with different vocal styles. Plain vocals were alternated with operatic vocals and a large part of the lyrics were spoken, like in poems. There was even a song with Dutch lyrics which was articulated very well, like well-trained actors do. The songs, with titles like “Idol Of Perversity” and “Siren”  have some kind of feministic character. In the middle 2 microphones were placed close to each other. In the beginning I thought that one was used for singing and the other one for scanning verses, because when Zarathoestra sang she used the one microphone and when speaking she used the other one. Later on they were used the other way round, so it wasn’t so clear any more what was actually the use of this. Also with this band the sound was quite awful and the bandmembers weren’t very comfortable with that. At first their monitor speakers didn’t work, so they couldn’t hear themselves and during the whole performance they kept having troubles with the sound.

Performance
The four ladies were dressed in Victorian-style dresses. They looked beautiful and they even matched with this venue’s interior, which has a Victorian-like style as well. Courtesan’s music isn’t really suitable to dance upon, so their performance was modest. The two singers seemed to look across the audience and the drummer was only looking at her electronic drumkit with a cold expression on her face. Their music was supported with video-images from old movies with scenes laid in the Victorian period and scenes from old Japanese movies and cartoons. If there hadn’t been any video-images the performance would have become boring to look at.

Rating
Music 8
Performance 6
Sound 3
Light 3
Total 6 (5,7)

Sophya is a gothic band which has been around for a while now. They were formed in the late Nineties in Amsterdam and shortly after that they signed a record deal with Xymox Control, owned by Ronny Moorings, the singer/songwriter from Clan Of Xymox. In the year 2000 they released their debut CD “The Age Of Sophya”. Now their third album “Third Wish”  has just been released and tonight’s show would also be their CD-presentation. The current bandmembers are Sonja R. (vocals, synths), Idan K. (guitars, synths, programming, vocals) and Mario Usai (bass guitar). http://www.sophya.net/ / http://www.myspace.com/sophyamusic

Music
Sophya’s music brings back memories from the gothic period in the 80’s. At least you wouldn’t be surprised if you would hear them on a collection cd with old school goth like “Goth Anthology” with songs from Bauhaus, The Mission and Skeletal Family for instance. At times their music sounds somewhat dreamy. Most of the time Sonja stood behind the microphone and sometimes the lead vocal parts were done by Idan K. Sonja handled the keys at these times. Idan’s third task, besides playing the guitar and the keyboards, to do the percussion, in this case to operate the digital drum computer. For a change Sonja used a tambourine on which she beat with a drumstick during a song. Also this band was having problems with the sound. Sonja’s microphone was adjusted too loud and her voice sounded somewhat shrill because of that. It was quite unpleasant to listen to, which was a pity because she’s not a bad singer.

It was obvious to see that these three musicians were enjoying themselves. Sonja looked a bit like a young version of Nina Hagen in stage. She regularly looked in the direction of the audience but didn’t seem to look at people in person. Idan K. really seemed to have become one with his instruments, his guitar and his keyboard. And Mario most of time looked down and had his hair in front of his eyes, but still visibly enjoying himself. The videoscreen was used to promote their new album, with the words “Sophya” and “ Third Wish” projected on it. Also with this band there was no extensive lightshow. The main colour was red.

Rating
Music 7
Performance 7
Sound 3
Light 3
Total 6 (5,7)

One of the most important reasons to visit this Halloweenparty was that one of my favourite bands, The Dreamside would play here. Since they don’t play live very often I had to grab this opportunity. The Dreamside was founded in 1994 by the Dutch/Italian singer Kemi Vita. In that year the band released the debut cd "Pale Blue Lights". After that they released the EP "Nuda Veritas" (1995), "Apaika" (1996), "Mirror Moon" (2001), the compilation cd "Faery Child" (2002), the EP "Open Your Eyes" and "Spin Moon Magic" (2005). At the moment the band is busy working on a new acoustic CD, a DVD and a re-release of the album “Pale Blue Lights“. The bandmembers are Kemi Vita (vocals), Fried Bruggink (guitar), Cees Viset (guitar), Roman Schoensee (bass) and Merijn Mol (drums). http://www.dreamside.nl/ / http://www.myspace.com/dreamside 

Music
Today they really had to make shift. They hadn’t been able to do a soundcheck and the stage was too small to place a normal drumkit on, so Merijn had to use a digital drumkit now which he was testing extensively before their show started. Finally, about 45 minutes later than planned the band arrived on stage. They had a short but varied setlist, starting with the dreamy song “Somewhere Before” with Merijn handling the kettledrum, a remake from “Nuda Veritas”, which sounded more danceable than the old version, “Open Your Eyes”  which was dedicated to Fried who had his birthday today and the last song was an acoustic version of “Apaika”, in which Merijn used a djembe, Cees an acoustic guitar and Fried was beating the kettledrum now (with normal drumsticks), and Kemi was singing with a tambourine in her hands. In spite of the bad sound the bandmembers took their jobs seriously. Kemi sounded powerful and Roman tried so as well although I’ve heard him better before. Merijn didn’t seem to feel very comfortable with his replacement drumkit and sounded somewhat insecure, but who blames him...

Performance
When Kemi entered the staged she looked stunning, like an ice queen, dressed in a snowy white dress and cold blue lenses in her eyes. She moved graciously, for as far that was possible on this small piece of floor. The male bandmembers looked sturdy, dressed in black. Their show started with the dreamy song “Somewhere Before” with Merijn standing behind his large kettledrum beating it in slow-motion with burning torches. I was a little bit surprised that it was allowed to do something with fire here. It could be dangerous because of flammable fabrics like curtains were present in the near surroundings Fortunately they didn’t set fire. Because the setlist contained a lot of variation in songtypes, their performance was in no way repetitive but entertaining. From held-in tension during “Somehere Before”, powerful during “Open Your Eyes” through modest during “Apaika” these 30 minutes flew by like 30 seconds.

Rating
Music 8
Performance 8
Sound 4
Light 4
Total 7 (6,7)

More photos on page 2

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