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11/06/07 -
THE AHOY, ROTTERDAM Review by Robin Los: When we entered the arena I got surprised though. As I wrote on the forum we were planning to go for the B-stage this time. I wanted to do something different since I had seen Bryan pretty close to the mainstage 5 times already. But when we entered the arena we started to doubt our plan. The floor was pretty empty and we looked around and calculated that we could easily make it to something like the tenth row at the mainstage. We decided to go for it and we wouldn’t regret it. When everybody stood up and moved into their standing positions we managed to get right in front of Keith’s amp at about 7 or 8 meters from where he would be standing. This would be the closest I had ever seen the guys and I was anxious to see the show get started. At 19.50 the Support act started a little early. It was a band from Austria called She says. Band consisted of a drummer, bass player, guitarist and a blonde lady singer that also strummed some acoustic guitar here and there. To my surprise they actually sounded pretty good. I’ve seen tons of live shows and many support acts and this was definitely one of the better ones I’ve seen. The sound was reasonable, the girl could really sing and the guitarist was a decent one (very important in my book being a guitarist myself). She says played for about half an hour and then left the stage. The crew quickly got things into place for Bryan and the boys and I was thinking that they would actually manage to start the show before 21.00 hours. And they did.
20.50 the lights went out and the crowd started to roar. The people around me kept looking at the front, not knowing that BA would kickoff the show all the way in the back at the B-stage. At the big screens you could see the guys walking through the catacombs of the Ahoy to the stage. Bryan hit the B-stage and started There will never be another tonight. Not on an acoustic like in prior shows of this tour but on an electric Gretsch. At this moment I regretted not being at the B-stage. Being far far away from the stage and barely being able to even see Bryan it was quite surreal. It didn’t feel like a real gig yet. After the band joined in on There will never be another tonight they steamrolled into Can’t stop this thing we started. The band left the B-stage leaving Bryan there all alone with his acoustic. He played a beautiful Please forgive me. I still can’t believe that there were some people around me talking through almost the entire first verse of the song. I was just about ready to kill them when they finally shut up.
After Please forgive me the band appeared on the mainstage while Bryan was at the B-stage. They played The best of me and Bryan walked towards the mainstage. Unfortunately not really through the audience he passed the crowd on the side. It appeared to me being this close that Bryan is actually not a very tall guy. I barely saw him when he climbed the barrier almost directly in front of me maybe 5 or 6 meters away. Having finished the song and saying his ‘hello’s’ to the crowd I was expecting to hear Somebody. But Bryan surprised me and played the Kids wanna rock riff. It really rocked the house. During the breakdown he did a great guitar battle with Keith. The guitarplaying itself wasn’t that good, but the interaction they had was great. Keith played some very sweet notes and Bryan made a tearface. Which made Keith do a bigger effort and play some really fast licks. At the end Mickey had his usual short solo and the crowd went wild when the last chord was struck. Somebody was all you expect from it, great singalong song. Then for the first time in my life I heard This time being played live. Never liked this song, but everything is just a little better live. I really liked it. Keith sounded very sharp on his fender and Bryan’s voice was great. He made a small mistake when he went to the microphone at the side of the stage but didn’t arrive in time. He had to make a little sprint and then had to squeeze the first words of the lyric in really quickly. Open road was played next and it actually resulted in a lot of singing along by the crowd. The catchy chorus really worked out here and the atmosphere was great. Bryan played some nice harmonics and Keith wrapped it up with a somewhat shorter solo then he used to do on the Room service tour. 18 til I die followed and was great as ever. After this Bryan took a little brake to talk to the audience. He started to talk about his new album. It should’ve been finished by now, but unfortunately it wasn’t completely done yet. Suddenly I hoped that he was going to play a brand new song, but I was disappointed in that. He promised though that next time he would be in Holland it would be as a tour for the new album with 12 new songs on it. Right now it wasn’t finished, but we were gonna make this a night to remember. Back to you got a decent bounce going and Gary played a nice keyboard solo. Keith’s slide solo kind of fainted away in the bad soundmix, which was overall really good, but the high tones of the slide just weren’t clear. I think about you was nice. Never seen it live before. I still think the unplugged country version is better, but this one would do. At the end of the song Bryan changed some lyrics and sang “the album is coming, very soon. Yeah, I think about you….etc”. After I think about you bryan picked up the green Gretsch and we all knew what was coming now. For the first time since 2003 a full rock version of 69. It’s needless to say that the roof almost came off of the Ahoy. It rocked the house. The crowd response was phenomenal. I’d like to mention that Keith used a beautiful semi-hollow Gibson guitar. On a side note, Keith seemed to literally be very hot. The sweat poured down his guitar. Since it was a hot night the Ahoy was really warm. I’m still very thankful of the girl with the colabag on her bag pouring me ridiculously expensive cola. I needed it though because I wasn’t too far from fainting and her sweet smile was worth it. But you don’t want to know about that. Two acoustic songs followed. Nothing special here. Though I must say that the amount of acoustic songs during the entire show was limited compared to earlier shows and that is definitely a good thing. Bryan did what he does best and that is rocking. Cut’s like a knife was good as usual. The crowd didn’t need any motivation by Bryan for the ‘na na na nas’. They started on their own and it was LOUD. The When you’re gone girl was very enthousiastic. She was called Willemijn. Bryan asked where she was from and she answered with “Groningen”. Bryan replied with “you work in a laundry??? Ok, but where are you from?”. She again replied with “Groningen”. It took Bryan 3 times to pronounce it and to be honest, it still sounded pretty bad. Willemijn was sudying to be a dentist. Bryan asked the band if anyone needed a checkup, but they were all doing fine. So did Willemijn on the song, she could sing pretty well and did a lot of dancing with Bryan. Before the show started I swore that I would booh Bryan if he was going to play It’s only love on an acoustic. Thank god he didn’t. Though he still played the slow intro. Wasn’t great, but the ending made up for it. Keith just went completely out of his mind. Bashing solos were played. Guitar in the neck, a swing around with his guitar around the back and he got the crowd to sing. He would play some notes and we would have to sing/hum them. He played some variations and then kept going faster and faster and faster until he reached like a death metal tempo, on which the band kicked back in and finished off the song. Keith amazes me again and again. He always comes up with something new and every time you are tempted to say that it was better then all the others. After heaven and TOTTLGOMIY the band took their bows and left the stage. To return and play Cloud no. 9. The crowd nicely performed the arm swinging. All in all the crowd was slightly above decent. The crowd wasn’t the best I’ve ever been in (nothing can ever beat Ahoy 2004 when even Bryan kept mentioning how unbelievable the evening was) but it was above standard and had a good atmosphere. Run to you ended the show on the mainstage. A small run was made towards the B-stage where the boys played some old school rock n roll. It sounded great and I wish I would’ve seen something like the Secret show in Barcelona in the early 90’s where the band played nothing but covers. Bryan is really good at it. The show ended with two acoustic songs with just Bryan on his guitar and harmonics and again a promise that he would give us a new album soon. After All for love it took a long time for the lights to go back on so everybody rushed back to the mainstage. But neither Bryan nor the band was reappearing. The gig was over. All in all Bryan played for little over 2 hours and 20 minutes. The band really was in top shape and technically played a very very good show. The crowd was into it, but not outstanding like in 2004. All in all a great show and I hope Bryan will be back soon, with a tour for his new album. Ow, I’d almost forget: Norm…he was in the band as always playing his bass licks superbly without being really noticed by anyone. I couldn’t just let him go unmentioned :)
Setlist: ********** Review by Wouter: Let me start with telling what I actually had planned on doing this day. As I had no ticket for the show or whatever, I really wanted to go to just meet the band (and in particular the man himself.) Arrived at Rotterdam Central station at 12, after which I called some friends of mine, Marloes and Dave (`partners in crime`), to see what they were up to. Shortly after that I met them close to the hotel the band were staying in. It was quite early when Gary came out, and he was very friendly to us (Marloes held a banner up for him the day before.) We asked how he was doing and he asked us how we were doing, and if we would go to the show tonight. I told him that I had no ticket yet, on which he said “well just give me your names, and I will try to get you on the list”. We were really lucky he kind of knew one of us. So I wrote down our names on his paper after which he went for a short walk to a lunchroom to read his paper. Before he went reading we asked him if he wanted to answer some questions for the Dutch Fanclub magazine. As we were still thinking of questions he came back to us and talked about the tour so far, the Breit Brothers, his gear, how he got involved with the band, how he learned the songs and more things. He was really cool and very friendly and gladly made some time for us. He seemed very relaxed and went back to his hotel room. About an hour later he came back for a walk through the city centre. He came up to us and told that he had passed on our names, and he was fine with us taking some pictures with him. Keith came out to step into the car, and before that we talked briefly to him. We spent our time drinking something.. and waiting off course. While in the meantime, all of us got calls from people at the Ahoy` who wondered where we were. When Gary came back he kindly waved at us, so did Keith, who had gone shopping with his driver. Then it lasted quite a while before anything else happened, the drivers had told us that the band would leave at 6 to go to the Ahoy`. Shortly before 6, Mickey, Norm and Gary arrived in the lobby and stepped in their car, we just said `enjoy the show` as they really had to go.. Then almost exactly at 6 p.m. the man himself walked out the hotel and he straight bumped into us. He was very friendly and relaxed as we were still the only persons there. We shaked hands and he asked how we were doing. This was what I really wanted. No chaos and other people, just me and him, face to face. I really was nailed to the ground, I forgot about all the things I always wanted to asked him. We just stayed cool, no autographs or pictures, but just talked briefly with him about the last week of touring and how he was doing, whether he was tired of travelling the entire week and so on. Then he had to go and we said goodbye and wished him all the best. Then shortly after that Keith came out and we said once again, “enjoy the show”. We then went to the Ahoy` ourselves, to see what Gary had arranged for us. It were tickets for the show, we thought it would be backstage passes. We tried what we could, but apparently someone made a mistake. Keith promised us when he entered the Ahoy` that he would try something. After a while Jody came out, but he couldn’t do anything.. and besides that, the band would leave very soon after the show. We were not really disappointed as the entire afternoon had already made our day. We then decided to go to the show and just see what would happen. We ended up at the back of the b-stage, where the band were supposed to get on the b-stage. I’ll keep it short for the show itself, as it was basicly a standard show like the entire week and the UK tour. It had some cool things, and it was a good show for sure, but it didn’t really stand out. I got two high fives from BA, when he entered the
b-stage and during `the Best of Me` again. We left before Bryan played the acoustics. We already knew Bryan would leave straight away. There were a few others as well. As he drove out he didn’t even look outside, but when he saw us he waved kindly at us. He had no shirt on, he was changing himself in the car. A few minutes later, more people gathered at the exit. I met a few people there, who I would have met in the afternoon, but that all went not as planned. I was the only one to get the chance to thank Gary and wish him a nice flight, and he signed the envelope I got the ticket in. The people I talked to couldn’t believe I was on the bands guest list.. Shortly after that a friend of mine came up to me if I wanted to drive along with them, which I gladly did… All in all, it was an unbelievable day! Fantastic, still stunned, and I feel blessed.. and I’m `not back on earth` yet at this moment. We talked to Gary for quite some time, I got a ticket to see the show as his guest. Talked to Bryan in a normal way, not in a hectic situation.. Fantastic day! | |||
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Pics by Lizy Same setlist structure as previous gigs however BA chooses to move 'Kids' up a couple of slots and kickoffs the mainstage with with it... a great choice!
BA rockin' out
Keith on a mind-bending solo!
Keith!
BA on a strat
BA on an acoustic |
