ANNEKE VAN GIERSBERGEN
21.04.2012, *MIXTAPE 5* club, Sofia

words by Christina Dimitrova, photo: Elena Nenkova

The usual praise about what a great audience we are tonight got to a whole new level, as it turned out that we are a lot better than the Dutch farmers, in front of which Anneke Van Giersbergen of the angel voice and her band of merry troubadours often have to play.

Since I have a pretty vivid imagination, I instantly pictured a hastily built wooden stage in the middle of a muddy field of tulips with a windmill in the distance and a group of very stoned farmers with pitchforks, coveralls and wooden clogs.

But the ambience in the exceptionally pleasant Sofia club Mixtape 5, which for many years before was a bingo hall and later an extremely unpleasant sleazy hole, in front of which drunken teenagers were barfing and passing out each Saturday afternoon, is far from any muddy tulip fields, though the weather did its best to provide us with enough mud and I notice that the municipal tulips are in full bloom.



Our favourite radio station has the charming habit to celebrate its birthday for at least two months and this time, for the sixth consecutive year, it stuck to it. Besides, our favourite radio has the even more charming habit to organise concerts mostly for connoisseurs, instead of the tedious mass events at which a third of the audience doesn't know what they went for.

It may be not awfully successful in financial terms, but it surely is nice that there are people who are not doing it for the money, but for the sheer pleasure of doing a good job, the joy of the fans and the feeling of something special.

The fourth gig of this year's celebration was indeed meant for connoisseurs. - Not many, but enough. And though Anneke underwent a considerable metamorphosis from the cult The Gathering to the current lighthearted pop-rock, she certainly gained more fans than lost.

After all, in her spare time she sings (and how she does!) in the albums of Napalm Death (!), Devin  Townsend Project, Anathema, Ayreon and Within Temptation, to name a few, and often performs with them on stage.

Quite logically, the concert starts with three songs from her current album 'Everything is Changing'.

The audience is happy and applauding, Anneke sings sweetely, smiles charmingly and the band around her plays hard. It is pleasant, undoubtedly, Anneke indeed sings divinely, but it seems that everybody is waiting for something more exciting to happen.

Contrary to my expectations, the majority of the audience is male, some of them with the traditional black t-shirts of the usual suspects, but nobody hollers “Slayeeer” in the pauses between the songs, as is the custom in my dear fatherland.

Gradually the audience warms up and Anneke, who initially seemed somewhat apprehensive, eventually relaxes, grabs a guitar and transports us back in the Agua De Annique era with 'Beautiful One'.



The people start moving, Anneke dances, while the guitarist with the shaved head seriously rocks out. 'Fury' and 'You Want to Be Free' follow, while at the beginning of 'Circles' Anneke's husband Rob Snijders walked away from the drumkit and hid somewhere.

It is followed by 'Down So Low' by Chocolate Genius, a jazz soul song, which I bet nobody in club (including me) hasn't heard before. It is being sung with such an acapela passion, that everybody holds their breath and gapes in awe.
 
If someone in the audience has ever doubted that Anneke's voice had been somewhat tweaked in album post-production, the thought will never cross his mind again. Not after this shaking performance. The finale is drowned in wild applause and cheers and the air is electrified.

After this lyrical interlude comes the climax of the evening. After the soul passion of 'Down So Low', the contrast with the angry passion of 'Saturnine' (the only song of The Gathering period for the evening), enhanced by the rumble of guitars, bass and drums, simply wipes out the place.

The audience roars, the hands are in the air, here and there people throw the horns, at the end of the song Anneke also throws the horns. Now this is what I'm talking about!

The first heavier song (a total of two) from 'Everything is Changing', 'Stay', confirms my opinion that such songs suit her much better and give her a lot more opportunities to demonstrate her remarkable voice. - The lighthearted pop-rock tunes are pleasant to listen to, but are far less impressive vocally and Anneke is loved precisely because of her divine singing (and because she is exceptionally charming and radiant, of course).

The “official bit” ends with 'Slow Me Down', 'Too Late' and '1000 Miles Away From You'.

We still haven't heard our all-time favourite 'Hey, Okay', but it will probably be in the encore.




The usual sketch - “the concert is allegedly over, but yow want more and we know it, so we will be back after the break and meanwhile, fell free to applaud, chant and even stomp your feet, if you like ” is pleasantly brief and Anneke and her band soon are back on the stage for two more songs from the new album and one of my personal favourites, 'Hyperdrive', from the album of the slightly loopy genius Devin Townsend, 'Addicted'.

Somewhere here, the already apparently impressed Anneke, tells us about how they play at various festivals in Holland in front of several thousand Dutch farmers who would rather drink and talk, instead of watching the band and that it is much more pleasant to play in a club for their fans who look them in the eyes and know all the songs. 

After those three songs the band goes away again, this time for a bit longer. We still haven't heard 'Hey, Okay'. Probably there will be another encore.

There is, but it is 'Witnesses'. Hmm... They took a bow, threw the picks, the drumsticks, etc. and went backstage again, for good, it seems.

We, however, do not give up easily and keep on chanting and applauding.

Since Mixtape 5 is always by default almost dark, the houselights don't happen, so there is no way of knowing if we will manage to get a third one. But, then again, the musical background (the new Paradise Lost album – oh, joy!) is still not on. So, we keep on chanting.

Our perseverance pays off and Anneke, somewhat confused and apparently very moved, comes back on stage with a cardigan across her shoulders – it seems that she didn't plan to do any more singing tonight.
  

 “I was already heading home, but you, people, are still here and chanting”, she says, while her guitar is being tuned. “I will sing you 'Hey, Okay' as a special treat for you and Vassil's wife who really loves the song.”

“Your eyes, your shoes, it's hard to choose, but the best thing about you...” We sing together the first verse and the chorus and then Anneke forgets the lyrics.

We never really knew them, but sing enthusiastically with “nah-nah-nah” and at the chorus. The only possible way to describe this performance is “sweet”.

More applause, bows, chants, joy. Then, pleased and charmed, we head for home.

Well, I also wanted 'On Most Surfaces', but one can't have it all.

In conclusion, I'd like to note that I really don't know why Anneke was so surprised by the enthusiastic reception. After all, this was her third visit to Bulgaria and I hope she will come again, but she should have already known that the local audience is quite hospitable in general.

Perhaps the first time, when she was with Danny from Anathema, she thought that the people are there more because of him, though I personally think that the love was in equal measures for the both of them.

I have no idea what was it like last year at Spirit of Burgas, but there is always a difference between a festival gig in the middle of the night in front of the already quite exhausted (and drunk) audience, and a club gig. I, personally, would go for the club gig anytime, especially at such pleasant places like Mixtape 5.

GALLERY