On Sunday October 15^th 2006 Papa Roach got to Holland for a gig and to do some promotion for the new album. Of course Metalrage.com was there. After an interview with these nice guys and some sushi I together with CarpeSiem and Buzzin Hornet went to the venue to see the show. Which promised to be a memorable one again on beforehand.  

 

First on was The Bangkok Five, a glam/cockrock band. These guys gave me the best time I’ve had with a support act ever. Not because of their great musical qualities, but merely because of the crowd reaction. Which wasn’t rather positive. Okay, they had a show going on. There were some hands in the air. There was some minor movement. But then there was that awful singer. What a complete Captain Fartface! This guy, who was at least somewhere in his late twenties, thought it was shocking to treat the Dutch crowd with jokes about masturbating. Which was, I’d say, pretty childish. But most disastrous, and probably most decisive for the crowd verdict was his multiple mistaking of Holland for Belgium. What happened was some booing and some middle fingers. Instead of a sensible reaction, this singer took offense to it and decided to provoke some more. He started throwing bottles of water into the crowd and shouted “Yeah! Bring it!”. He made a total ass of himself. Bottles obviously got thrown back and some 2000 middle fingers were pointed at The Bangkok Five now. The guy totally missed the point of it all, resulting in an all-time low of him challenging the crowd to come see them at the merch stand to settle things personally. One of the other band members, who at least possessed some brains, decided to end the mockery by grabbing the mic from the singer’s hands and proclaiming: “Thanks Holland!”. Hooray.

 

Added advantage for Papa Roach was that the whole crowd felt as one. When Jacoby Shaddix entered the stage things cleared up immediately and Papa Roach started delivering like only Papa Roach can. The first part of the set was mostly devoted to tracks from the new album ‘The Paramour Sessions’, which already got huge responses. Though the new album sound is pretty smooth, the songs proved to still have that powerful Papa Roach signature when played live. After that, it was time for some ‘oldies’. ‘Dead Cell’ kicked in and brought back some sweet memories. Also songs from the other albums for example like ‘Scars’ and ‘She Loves Me Not’ were perfectly played. They wrapped it up with the classics 'Broken Home' and 'Last Resort'. After that the band went backstage shortly, only to come back for the inevitable encore.

 

This time lights got dimmed and Jacoby came on stage to do 'Roses On My Grave', a theatrical rock ballad that suits the band perfectly nowadays. Jacoby showed once again the excellence of his vocal skills. Papa Roach proved to have grown once again, and certainly showed to be gradually moving towards the so much desired stadium rock status. Since it was the last show of the European tour it was time for some fooling around. During the last song the drummer from The Bangkok Five came on stage and backed up Dave Buckner on floor tom. Dave decided to let him finish the job and walked around on stage like a Yeti. Which was quite funny.

 

Papa Roach will be back soon (probably early 2007). I will once again visit that show blindly. Papa Roach is addictive and seems to have an ambition to go on until eternity. So this can only mean one thing: they will keep playing shows and I’ll keep visiting them till death do us part.