As for the support acts, I can be frank. Brant Bjork and The Bros. is simply a great band. Nice slow jams that turn into epic rock songs. The former Kyuss drummer had a tough time convincing the hardrockers in Utrecht and Eindhoven, but to a minority it was a great opener. What to think of Quit Your Dayjob however? Three Sweeds. One punk rock guitar player and a leadsinger with a horrible accent. One drummer that has yet to find the other components of his drumkit besides the snare and the bassdrum. And to top it off, a bald idiot keyboard player playing house melodies and other retard junk. Horrible. Awfull. Terrible. Listening to Quit Your Dayjob is one of the worst things in the world. Somebody shoot me.

 

Back to the headliner. The first night at the Melkweg proved to be a promising teaser for the rest of the weekend. Danko Jones had picked a fine choice of kick-off for the current tour, the nearly ten year old song ‘Alive and on Fire’, followed by the intense ‘Sticky Situation’ of the new album. Furthermore, not a lot had changed in their success formula. A superb combination of punk, metal and rock sounds in the form of catchy song material on the one hand, and topnotch audience pleasing remarks and a complete lack of self relativity. Danko rules, the city he’s playing in tonight rules, rock rules. Yes, you hate it or love it, but believe me, the 5.000 paying visitors throughout the three nights loved every second of it. Danko still is one of the ultimate entertainers. Making the audience boo him, just to fire him up. And of course there was a decent piece of boasting the other Dutch gigs. In Melkweg it was cursing the people who were going to Danko on Friday and Saturday (cause the Thursday crowd got shit to do tomorrow, the Friday and Saturday crowds ain’t got shit to do. Friday and Saturday crowds are the fucking pussy crowds!). In Utrecht it was (Eindhoven Rock City? Fuck no. Utrecht rock city!), and in Eindhoven it was nothing but (Eindhoven Rock City), rightly so since the Eindhoven crowd rocked the hardest with the wildest moshpits and pogo action.

 

The setlist was one big treat to both the rock n roll fanatic as well as the true Danko fans. The classics: “Sugar Chocolate”, “Mango Kid” and so on. And the new material that caught on very well, songs such as “First Date”, “Invisible” and “Don’t Fall In Love” turned out to be fantastic live material. Quite remarkable were the amount of rougher, more up tempo songs in the form of the edgy “The Cross”, the punkish “Wait A Minute” and the sickeningly moshable “Sleep Is The Enemy”. And to top that off, the three Dutch cities were of course treated with the smash hits in the form of “Baby Hates Me”, “Play The Blues”, “Lovercall”, "Way To My Heart" and “Forget My Name”.

 

Every night the set ended with a double treat, right before the encore we got to enjoy a renewed version of the Born A Lion hit "Love Is Unkind". A version of somewhat five or six minutes, that turned into a frantic energy explosion. Good choice! After the short break it was time for the Danko tradition of playing ‘The Mountain’. A song, never released on disc or vinyl, but is unmistaken one of their best. If you want to hear it, you gotta come to the show! How’s that for fighting the crashed cd-market!

 

All in all this was one of the best Danko Jones tours to ever hit the lowlands, both in atmosphere, ticket sales and setlist. It seems that Danko Jones hasn’t yet hit their peak, they’re still climbing the mountain. And that the bond between band and fans is a two-way affair can be proven by just one picture.