Live!

Live in Paradiso. Something to never ever forget.

It was 1997. Secret Samadhi was the third album I owned by Live. I had become fan around the time of Selling The Drama and I Alone, and had soon gotten myself Throwing Copper and Mental Jewelry. Secret Samadhi was darker, and that was very interesting. By the pure “luck� of a friend of a friend breaking his collarbone I could go to my first Live concert. The venue? Paradiso, Amsterdam. It was impressive. It was special. It was an intimate setting and the music was great! It was a seriously lifechanging experience. Ever since that concert, Live has been more special to me than any other band (even though their music had before that also achieved this goal). For years I've been longing for that same experience. The intimate setting. I've attended many concerts by Live since then, in Ahoy` Rotterdam, in Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam, on festivals. Never has that one special experience been repeated. Up until last Saturday. The dutch Live fanclub (Subculture of Live) had been able to, in cooperation with concert promoter The Alternative and a few sponsors, arrange a concert in Paradiso. When I read the news, I went completely nuts. It was special! Even though the new single, which was the only thing I'd heard of the new album up to the concert, was not as good as some other Live material, and they played a few other tracks from the new album, they also played a lot of their good old material. Opening with All Over You was a bit weird, but with the amount of songs they played (I think 20 or 21!) it couldn't be better. My personal favorites, Lightning Crashes and White, Discussion were played. Dance With You, the song we played during our wedding, was not on the setlist. But after the whole crowd went absolutely crazy, Live decided to end with Dance With You. And what a special experience this was! They ended with minutes and minutes of the whole audience singing and clapping, and Live abandoning their instruments to join in with this 1505-person “jam session�. Truly, this was a special experience. One to never forget. Though I still feel the '97 concert to be better (mainly due to the songs that were played though), thinking back and typing about the concert we had yesterday still gives me shivers. It was truly something special! Please guys, come back here in Paradiso every year from now on!
April 11, 2006 - tags: music