After Forever - Leiden 2005

LVC, Leiden, Netherlands
March 18th 2005
After Forever

It´s still a mystery to me how we finally got a parking place in the neighbourhood of the venue. When we drove to the city of Leiden nearly every street was closed. Not even GPS was able to help us going through this labyrinth of streets.
In the end we arrived at the LVC and a couple of After Forever fans were already standing in front of the venue. It took around twenty minutes to get inside because the guy who checked the ticket and sold the drinking tokens seemed to be swamped with doing these two jobs at the same time.

 

After Forever

Music
At around 21:00 hrs the audience peered to the stage which was covered in darkness. Suddenly cries of little children break through the gloom and the scene was dipped in wonderful blue light. During the first sequences of “Childhood in mirror” the male band members entered the stage, closely followed by Floor. Right from the beginning the sound was ok and Floor exhibited the whole spectrum of her powerful voice. The grunting of Sander and the singing of Bas (specially during “Two sides”) were pretty well done. Accentuate and always nice to watch is Joost interacting with his red keyboard with the others on stage.
The set list was dominated by the songs of their latest album 'Invisible Circles'. But also classics like “The evil that men do” and “Beyond me” belong to the array of this evening.

Performance
Floor and Co. presented a very compact and good show. The interaction with the audience was brilliant - as always. The band enjoyed themselves and blend well with each other. The election and the composition of the lights was an eye catcher and well balanced with each song.
In the middle of the gig two After Forever Fans made use of a short break the band made between two songs. They entered the stage. Accompanied by drum roll the two guys hand over gifts to Sander. During he unwrapped the presents a big smile was shown on his face. (Probably some of you know that Sander is a huge 'He-Man' fan and has a enormous collection of action figures.) He presented the audience a nice T-Shirt which shows Sander in the typical position of 'He-Man' – with his guitar in form of the 'Sword of Power' in his hands. Floor and the audience requested Sander to get off his dress and wanted him to try the new shirt. The female fans started to cheer when they saw the naked upper part of the body of our re-nominated 'Hero'.
In the middle of the show Floor introduced the drummer, who deputized for André. Everyone started to scream for the sympathetic, ill drummer André Borgman. (We want you back behind your drum kit as soon as possible. A show without you is defiantly not the same!)
After approximately one hour and thirty minutes the show ended with 'Follow the cry'. The complete stage was illuminated in a bright white light- a perfect setting for the last song. As almost every time, the band gathered at the merchandise stand and the fans had time to chat with them or snatched a picture with one the members. All things considered it was a felicitous gig and new fans, die-hard ones or those who finally found their way back to the band and their music had a good time.

Setlist
01. Childhood in minor
02. Beautiful emptiness
03. Between love and fire
04. Sins of idealism
05. My pledge #1
06. Beyond me
07.Digital deceit
08. Through squared eyes
09. The evil that man do
10. Yield to temptation
11. Eccentric
12. Forlorn hope
13. Two sides
14. Glorifying means
15. Line of thoughts
16. Monolith of doubt
16. Follow in the cry


Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 8