Antimatter records DVD in front of cheering Dutch fans

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©John Verhagen-AntimatteR-5795Friday 25th of March Sweden’s Kristoffer Gildenlow and British Antimatter played De Boerderij, Zoetermeer, Netherlands. Kristoffer was set to present his 2nd solo album, ‘The Rain’, for the first time ever. His show started with the into of his latest album, a beautiful composition of thunderstorm sounds, rain and violin. It must be said, there was an element of surprise to this performance. Quite strangely for people in the audience, there was a veil hanging in between the stage and the audience. It was transparent and was used as a background for projections. And while it looked kind of beautiful and bizarre, it added some feeling of separation between the audience and the band. Nevertheless, the overall performance was quite amazing, with the band going through each and every song of the new album, filling the room with atmospheric sounds. Finally, the curtain fell, and the audience was able to clearly see performers saying goodbye. It was a nice, but unorthodox way to release an album. Well done.

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After changing the stage it was time for the electric performance of Antimatter. Mick Moss, the driving force behind Antimatter, announced earlier a DVD recording would take place in De Boerderij. The band was touring quite extensively for 2015/2016, promoting the latest Antimatter’s album, a jewel called ‘The Judas Table’. And what could’ve been better to capture the prime of it, then to record a DVD in front of the always welcoming Dutch fans.

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After all preparations were done, all the cameras were enabled, all the people were ready to rock – the band hit the stage with the opening song, a song from their latest album, called ‘Killer’. There was so much passion at the start, Mick destroyed one of the strings on his guitar, proving the name of the song. Well, that happens, strings were changed (watch it full on DVD, hehe), and “the show must go on”. And so it did, with ‘Paranova’ and ‘Firewalking’, two massive songs from the ‘Fear of a Unique Identity’ album. The band was performing like a Swiss clock, in a manner built by quite an amount of shows recently.

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It was an utmost pleasure to hear old masterpieces, like ‘The Last Laugh’ and ‘Over Your Shoulder’. Those songs came from an era long time ago; a very intense, quite dark and melancholic time for Mick. A lot has changed since then and it was in contrast to their later songs. But one thing stayed common to all songs – the charisma, the piercing vocals, the intense lyrics. As it soon became clear – the setlist proved to capture all the highlights of band’s career. The gig wouldn’t have been full without some tracks from ‘The Judas Table’, that included blockbusters like ‘Can of Worms’ and ‘Black Eyed Man’. Neither would have been full without probably their most well-known songs from the previous albums, ‘Leaving Eden’ and ‘Uniformed and Black’. And as it wasn’t enough – the closing tracks were selected to fit the whole mood of the event like charm.

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Covering old classics, like Pink Floyd, is always both challenging, but usual. Not in case of Antimatter though, because their cover version of ‘Welcome to the Machine’ could’ve been called a new song or taken from the old material. It was played in a totally different manner, that helped the band to not lose the identity while covering Pink Floyd’s material. The finishing track, rightfully put there, was ‘Stillborn Empires’, a single from the latest album. If you had heard this song – you would know it’s a perfect closing track, both lyric and music-wise. As expected, event proved to be exactly what fans might have expected – honest, intense, marvelous performance by both bands. There was a feeling of completeness from both performances.

Foto’s (c) John Verhagen. More photo’s at Facebook [link]

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