Standing outside the Melkweg, the sight of a line of people going on and on onto the Leidseplein and beyond was amazing enough, making it hard to believe all those people were going to fit inside. So that’s what a sold out Melkweg looks like.

Autumn
We eventually did get in, and were welcomed by Autumn, who had started their set already. The programmers had made a good choice by making Autumn the support act, because the band put on a show that seamlessly blended with the main act.

Autumn is a relatively new Dutch gothic act, ready to release their debut album soon. As well as Within Temptation the band consists of four men and a female singer. This does not mean that the band is an exact copy of WT, though.

For people who like to try something else besides WT and, say, After Forever, Autumn is a nice addition to their collection. Well-made songs, good sound and good voices. In fact, the bass player’s grunting is actually better than that of WT. No offence, but it just seems that it just takes more than you would think to come up with a good grunt.

Within Temptation
And then the main act. As Within Temptation recently experienced an enormous boost in fame with their chart-hitting “Ice queen”, it was no surprise that the show sold out completely, and then some. You need a big act to make the Melkweg seem too small, and right now Within Temptation ARE big.

Dressed in a -very appropriate- white dress, singer Sharon had no effort at all to win the audience’s affection. From the word “go” she interacted with them intimately, making the show a joint effort; the success of the show was as much thanks to the audience as it was to the band.

But Within Temptation had a reason to celebrate anyway; just the day before, they had heard that their album “Mother Earth” had reached gold status. No surprise then that “Ice Queen” was the second song on the setlist, as it is mostly thanks to this hit song that the album sells the way it does.

The rest of the show was equally good. The band played quite a lot of old songs, but that did not make any difference to the audience. No matter which song they played, everybody knew - and sang the lyrics flawlessly.

Since I am not too familiar with the repertoire I can’t name all the songs they played, but I think that it is even more astonishing for an unfamiliar act to grab someone’s attention the way Within Temptation did, than for a band you know very well.

As usual, the end of the show came way too soon. But, as usual, this was only to get the people even more enthusiastic for the encores. Not one or two songs, but four encores in total completed the show, although nobody would have complained if they had played another two hours.

Here’s a theory: The problem with an act that has just made their public breakthrough is often that they only have one hit song. So then there’s the question whether to play the song at the beginning of the show or at the end. Each choice has its own pros and cons.

If you put it at the beginning of the set, you set the atmosphere and satisfy a lot of people early on. However, this leaves nothing to finish with, and you do want to finish with a blast. So you can also play the hit song at the end of the set, but then you don’t have a strong opening.

The ideal situation would be that you have either none at all or at least two hits, so that you either have no problem at all or can satisfy your audience completely.

The reason I launched this theory is because this was the only weak spot in the set list of Within Temptation, who had no other choice than to play “Ice Queen” twice. Which is not bad at all of course, but is not perfect either.

(Review: Vincent Burger
Pics: Sebastien Sam)