Thrice - Good times!
On a beautiful day in spring me and my good friend Maurits went to Amsterdam to see Thrice. After a nice Italian dinner near the Leidseplein, an interview with Thrice and some beers we were joined by Buzzin Hornet and entered the venue. Before Thrice would play it was time for two support acts.
First band up was The Valley Arena. Eddie from Thrice told me he went to high school with these guys. For the rest I didn’t hear of them before, it’s always interesting to experience a band unbiased. I thought they started out pretty weak. The sound was just terrible, the guitars were way too noisy, drums too loud which kind of made it impossible to hear any song definition. Usually the sound in The Melkweg is great so it really must have been their own bad. Halfway through their set it improved, so I was able to get a better impression of them. Well, to be honest, I thought the whole thing was pretty forced. The way the guitarist and bassist acted on stage, doing their chaotic moves, the mandatory tempo swings, the staccato riffing, it all gets done by a hundred different bands nowadays. They’ll have to bring more to it to convince. But Maurits and Buzzin Hornet were there and while enjoying some beers we had nice conversations and a good laugh. Good times anyhow.
I was curious to Hundred Reasons. My man CarpeSiem gave them a pretty good plug in his Metalrage review earlier on, and the material I heard on the internet was quite appealing. Their live performance however didn’t live up to my expectations. Especially the vocalist didn’t do much of a good job. The whole thing was rather boring so I got distracted soon by some nice girls who were standing on the opposite side of the venue. Good times anyhow!
So after two disappointing support acts it was time for Thrice to make up for that. Thanks Thrice for succeeding! Thrice showed in anything that they are a creative and professional class act. And even though drummer Riley had the flu, he sat down behind his kit and gave his best. The set was a balanced mixture of older material and songs from their new album ‘Vheissu’, of which the keyboard additions proved to work out really well on a live basis. The crowd was enthousiastic and everybody seemed happy. Unfortunately we had to leave early to catch the last train home. Ah well, good times anyhow!