Paula's note: We haven't corrected the spelling/typing in Chris's first review as that's exactly how he sent it after the net cafe computer ate it three times... and we love it! Hey maybe he was writing in Dutch. ;)
Rotterdam, Friday 24 January: Well It seems like I've been talking to myself for the past hour as I've wroyte this email 3 times now and the chuffing internet cafe and chuffed up three times ... so this version is goijg to be very short andf probaby full of mistajkes ...
quick set list:
shadowlands (I think - it waasd now a long tiome ago _
wanderer abnd his chuffing shadow
vampire song
guitare man
love is music
AND a couple others that I can't remember or I can't be bothered to type in again for the chuffing 1/3 rd tiem !!
crowd - noisy - until he did his break a sting routine during the jeff buckley bit of love is music ... but that was a tad too late!!
spoke to him about various thing s ... one ... he's planing on NOT touting again untiul his nbew CD is ready !! but he will be doing the festival ciruit this summer ... so I mentioned Croperdy .... and the fact that there was a big demand for him playing there ... he knew nothing about this, but said that it would be brilliant and that he would have a word with his promoter about it!!
right I daren't write owt else cos I just know that teh chuffing internet cafe will not send this ... *****!D I hope iut does ... off to Tilburg tomorrow to join up with Paula and Jan !!
Tilburg Folk Festival, Saturday 25 January: Just woke up after my 3 days in Holland... and I'm still not really with it yet... just too much "coffee" from the Amsterdam coffee shops! This review shouldn't have as many mistakes in as the last one (therefore probably not as amusing!)... looking back at the Rotterdam review, to me it looks like a bit of Dutch writing was included for authenticity, as the internet cafe's keyboard didn't have a working delete key. ;)
I met up with Jan & Paula in Breda on Saturday, en-route to Tilburg where the festival(?) was being held. Basically it was a 3 venue building with one ticket that allowed you to see what you wanted. The problem was that Nick wasn't on the bill and so no one (except us 3) expected him to play. What made this situation even worse was that he wasn't playing on the same stage as the Levellers, in fact he was playing in a smaller room... but the band before him and after him was the same band! So it meant that the packed out crowd just used the 1/2 hour that Nick was on to go to the loo and bar etc. Nick didn't even get an announcement that he was playing, so there were only about 20-30 folk in the room for him and the majority were there just to save their space for when the previous band returned! So we reckon there were only really about a dozen (at most) who were interested (i.e., not talking) during Nick's set. By the way, after Nick's set, at least two groups of people [who had seen him open for the Levellers] came up to him and were upset by the fact that they had missed him . He just needed that announcement!
I think the set list was as follows: Building Our Own Temple / Guitar Man / "The Vampire Song" / Headless/Love Is Music/Grace.
The latter was brilliant. How he could thrash his guitar as mad as that and NOT break a string [and believe us, he was trying! - P.] was amazing... one of the best renditions of Headless for a long time. And (I may have said this before) I just love that Jeff Buckley - Grace bit ... really adds to the overall superbness of the song (IMHO).
We talked with Nick before and after his set. The only real gem of news that I could remember from Saturday night was that he definitely wants to do a tour and album with a band! This of course won't happen for a couple of years, as he will finish his new CD [possibly titled Bloodsongs] and do a tour to promote that... and then think seriously about the band idea. So with the fact that his current tour is very entertaining, the prospects of his new CD are excellent and the idea of touring with a band... we are in for a lot more excellent stuff from the man in the years to come. Oh just remembered - he also mentioned that he wants to do some sort of European tour this year, so another trip to Amsterdam should happen sooner rather than later!
As regards the Levellers, they are actually on-form and are brilliant. I hadn't seen them for a couple of years and the last CD I bought was the IMHO too-different Hello Pig and thankfully they don't seem to be playing anything from that CD on their tour. They are certainly popular in the Netherlands as both gigs seemed to be sold out and there must have been at least 2000 of 'em in Rotterdam... well 1999 as I was obviously there for Nick.
As this weekend wasn't exactly the cheapest I've ever had, I'll have to cut down on the number of UK Nick/Levs gigs that I'll be attending, so I hope to see some of you at the Aylesbury gig ..... and maybe at Preston too!
See photos from the Rotterdam gig at this site
See photos from the Tilburg Folk Festival here
