London Calling Paradiso, Amsterdam, March 30/31, 2007
FRIDAY
So, after a night of sleep Anneke and I woke up early to go to Amsterdam. Our main activity was to pick up our Maxïmo Park cd's and we knew we were going to get a poster with them, so we planned to go home afterwards so that we wouldn't have to carry them with us all the time.
At the recordstore (unfortunately we didn't spot William this time) we got our cds, posters (mine was huuuuuuge) and even a free Warp-tshirt! After that we did some other shopping, H&M (didn't buy anything) and then we got a delicious lunch, a sandwich and the best drink ever:
banana/coconut/some orange smoothie hmmmm
ze poster (yes it's almost as big as my bed)
Back at Anneke's house we sang along to the cd with the album booklet (which must've been horrible for the neighbours) and eventually we took the bus back to Amsterdam.
We didn't have that much time, went to another recordstore but didn't buy anything, waited 17 hours for the tram and picked up Franzi at the Central Station.
After the tradional dinner at McDonald's we went to Paradiso, the doors were already open and we went to the small hall.
The first band to play were Our Lunar Activities, they weren't really terrible but not very good either. The bassplayed looked like Pete Wentz lol and the singer sounded like Brian Molko with a frog in his throw-it. Ha.
After that, we got some nice places at the balcony and saw The Wombats in the big hall. They were quite lovely, they started off with an a capella, Hot Club De Paris-esque song...
...but they did use instruments for the rest of their songs. They're not really earthmovingly innovative but they were a nice surprise. Because we wanted to get good places for Kate Nash, we left a bit early and those places worked out fine.
Kate Nash was really surprisingly good! I already knew quite a lot of her songs, but most of them were of crappy live quality. However this was probably just due to bad recording systems, because she's amazing live! She was also apologizing for her hangover she got from the night before, because she got signed! She really deserves it, hope her album will be released soon.
VIDEO: Caroline's A Victim (acoustic)
After her gig Ines joined us! We sat on the balcony for a while, watching The Twang who were absolute CRAP. Seriously I don't get why they are 'the next big thing' in England and why they got such average reviews of this festival (I mean, not too positive but also not too negative) since they were really terrible. Anyway. Anneke and I went down after a while, Ines and Franzi stayed upstairs, but we wanted to get good places for The Long Blondes.
We watched My Luminaries on the screen for a bit, but I can't remember anything of them so they probably weren't that amazing.
We saw The Long Blondes for the third time in the same venue, musically I think this was the best show of them but they really didn't interact with the audience like they did last time. Pity. There were a lot of boys in front which was kind of funny :D one of them got on stage and asked Kate for a kiss (she didn't give him one of course) but when a second guy tried to do the same, she almost kicked him off the stage.
charming eh!
setlist (Anneke got it)
Spazzing, waiting for The Pigeon Detectives and seeing we are THE PSYSICS on the screen, who by the way were amazing. Shame we weren't there upstairs, but apparently the hall was packed already.
The Pigeon Detectives were entertaining, I think that's the best word to describe them. Their music is okay, nothing special, but their performance was funny to watch, especially from a safe distance.
VIDEO: I'm Always Right
These New Puritans were okay, I kinda liked them but not extremely much.
After their show we took a cab to the station (BEST IDEA EVER) and a nightbus to Purmerend, went to sleep bla.
SATURDAY
We woke up at 10 AM (?) and after showers and such we went to the local supermarket to get food and drinks. Took the bus to Amsterdam, first we visited the Waterloo market, Anneke got the cheapest but nice shoes and I wanted to buy a bag but a girl just bought the last one of it right before me. Oh well. Then we went to the Bijenkorf to use their toilets...
scenester alert, went to Kitsch Kitchen and a record store, didn't buy anything but picked up some free posters. After a longggg walk in the sun where I may have accidentally set a trashcan on fire, we went to the Irish Pub near Paradiso.
I had a latte, Ines and Franzi a coke and Anneke's thirst for alcohol was quenched with a pint of cider. We stayed there for a while, then we went -traditionally- to the Italian restaurant to get pizza.
When we finished our meals, we went to Paradiso.
The first band to play this day was Moke. They're Dutch actually, or at least some of the bandmembers are, I'm not really sure. They reminded me a bit of Interpol vs. Oasis.
After that, we saw The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, two girls and a backstreet boy, they were a bit scary but good!
We left halfway their set or something, to get good places in the main hall for GoodBooks (yaay!). We ended up in the first row and for the March 2006 spirit we wanted them to play You Can't Fool Me Dennis, so I wrote it on my hand:
but later we decided that it would look as if we didn't even like them, for wanting them to play other band's songs during their first show in the Netherlands, so I didn't show my hand to them. They did play a lot of new songs, I didn't even know about half of them! They were lovely though, they even played a small bit of Maccabees during a song (I didn't even notice but heard it later on a recording).
(a failed attempt to get the drummer in the picture)
This is where the boring part of the evening starts: The Strange Death of Liberal England on the screen, Air Traffic from the balcony, The Kissaway Trail also on the screen (although they weren't as boring as I thought they would be)...
We went downstairs and got some places near the middle for The Enemy. Anneke and I didn't like them too much though, so we went to the small hall after two songs to get good places for Ox. Eagle. Lion. Man. !!!.
Waiting there was definitely weird. Frederick was standing in front of the stage all of a sudden (he literally appeared out of the nothing), walked around all the time, Peaches Geldof and her people she paid to make her look cooler friends were sitting next to the stage, but eventually they started playing.
It was lovely, Frederick making the weirdest moves, I realized I knew their songs better than I thought. Or at least, the ones I knew, because they also played some new ones.
craziest crocodile shoes
VIDEO! The Last Lifeboat
(notice: this is currently the only OELM video on Youtube!)
Then these guys came on stage, which was actaully kinda funny:
When they were finished, Anneke and I found Ines and Franzi again and we watched a bit of Switches from the balcony. I quite liked their songs but they were a bit boring live, so we decided to leave so that we could take a tram and didn't have to pay extra for a cab or the nightbus!
