Contrary to having my car window smashed by some hack crackhead thief while at the Within Temptation show this past Sunday, this was not the highlight of my day. No, actually having the privilege of sitting down with the absolutely lovely Sharon den Adel was the highlight of an otherwise disastrous day. The second highlight was the Within Temptation show with Amaranthe opening, as the band nears the end of its North American run before going a criss-crossing international run.
As you can see in the video interview in the player above, we conducted our interview in her dressing room (how jealous are you?). More than graciously, she welcomed us into her temporary place of solitude and offered us some refreshments from her rider. Her rider wasn’t anything extraordinarily over-the-top, but it was definitely health conscious. Despite being her last interview of the day, before doing her portion of soundcheck, she made us feel more than welcome and took her time to answer all our questions as thoroughly as possible.
She’s truly the Dutch queen of symphonic metal.
We talked a bit about Halloween and how the holiday is celebrated in her native land (which is a growing tradition, to let you know since that portion of the interview was cut from the video); about her first heavy metal memories; about her biggest surprise with the band’s latest release, Hydra; about what she’d be doing if she weren’t in the music business; and about her perception of the band’s genre. Also not making the video cut was some interesting information about getting Dave Pirner on board for the track “The Whole World Is Watching.” Apparently the former Soul Asylum frontman is a tough guy to track down.
Within Temptation Show Review:
For obvious reasons, the majority of the songs Within Temptation played were from their latest release, Hydra. However, only 7 of the 19 songs played were off that album, which makes sense since the band’s back catalog spans nearly 20 years. Speaking of how long this band has been in action, it really shows that they know what they’re doing, and not just with the stage setup and the visual offerings, but in how fuckin’ good they sound and their excellent crowd interaction. Clearly this isn’t an aggressive thrash band, a shocking death metal troupe, or an angry punk band, so the interaction has a softer, feminine touch.
Being that the venue was small, Within Temptation’s stage theatrics weren’t on the grandest of scales, but they did have a great video backdrop, and excellent backlighting that gave off an incredible silhouette of the band. If you’re wondering how they handled the tracks that feature guest vocals, well, obviously those were pre-recorded, but the video was shown on the screens.
I don’t know why, I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised by the demographic of the audience. I expected a higher than usual female-to-male ratio, but I didn’t expect an older crowd. Maybe its because I was standing in the rear. Also, the crowd was far less “metal” than normal. That’s all good though.
The point here is that the Within Temptation show was top-notch, with excellent sound, excellent performances from the members, excellent crowd engagement. It was definitely a pro show worth 5/5 skulls.
Within Temptation Set List:
1. Paradise (What About Us?)
2. Faster
3. Let Us Burn
4. In the Middle of the Night
5. Fire and Ice
6. Our Solemn Ground
7. Stand my Ground
8. Summertime Sadness
9. The Cross
10. And We Run
11. Silver Moonlight (w/ Henrik Englund from Amaranthe)
12. Dangerous
13. Angels
14. Edge of the World
15. What Have You Done
16. Mother Earth
Encore
17. Covered by Roses
18. Sinead
19. Ice Queen
Rock Hard \m/
