Concertgebouw

We entered the Grote Zaal around 7 pm and the atmosphere captured us immediately. Strange metallic sounds like as if giant tubular bells would crash into one another came creeping out of the speakers from differed arbitrary directions stimulating our appetite. It made a perfect match with the visual impression of the pipe organ. The band began at 8 pm and played an incredible program for nearly 3h. Larks Tongues IV was outstanding. I am very happy to have heard the Lizard suite full blown and a lovely Moonchild. We sat in 4th row right in front of Gavin and were able to observe his virtuosity in detail. What has been written here about sound problems matches rather well what I have heard from a friend of mine who attended the Munich concert on July 17th. He sat on the balcony as well. In contrast my sonic experience in front of the stage was very good. I was able to differentiate well between the three drums even at climaxing parts. This is probably because a great amount of the sound I received came directly from the drums on stage and not so much from the PA or the reverb of the concert hall. I suspect the Concertgebouw is soundwise not very neutral generating a considerable amount of response which is likely not easy to handle. The concept of having three drums worked out pretty well for me. I love to observe the interaction of the characters, how they split tasks and how they pass the balls to one another (e.g. Indiscipline). - After the show we were kind of exhausted and very much satisfied. A deep experience that I will live on for a long time!

I was there with 8 familymembers and friends, seats spread over different parts of the front balcony. Well, I remember the concert in the Concertcertbuilding Nov. 23rd 1973, my first rockconcert as a young boy. So this was a treat, seeing the King at the same place again last Friday, this time not starting at 2 o'clock at night -like in 1973 (then: due to problems with the Rolling Stone mobile Recording Truck)- but at 'normal' time. I also was at the King's concert in Utrecht 2015. Lovely to witnessed Moonchild live for the first time, and I was very excited to hear the song ITCOTCK in such a good version. Due to the more volume on the mellotrons, this version was more vivid than the one in Utrecht 2015. The same goes for all the Lizard tunes that were played and this wonderfull Islands-song....really great! Overall the volume of the mellotrons in Amsterdam was good, comparing to the mellotron volume in Utrecht 2015. I was glad about this, because when a mellotron climax is to be played, the climax has to be heared. In Utrecht 2015 however -due to the lack of this volumething, climaxed changed into anti-climaxes. In Amsterdam, last Friday, however this was worked out fine! I was very fond of the Lizard Suite ( did Prince Rupert die, by the way?). The honour of Lizard is restored, beautifully played with great love. A real treat. But this longtime fan has some comments as well: 1) The sound on the balcony was not very good, when the band came in full power, especially when the drums and bass were doing their part together. we experienced a hollow sound mash. A pity because the climaxes in the King's music are the important parts. One of the guys in our group left early because of this, and the others of the group experiences the same thing. During the break some other people talked about it and referred in this to the 3 drums. 2) The drums. I know that much of you will not like what I write here, but I repeat my statement of 2015. When there are 3 drummers, 3 drummers will want to do their part. So there is more drumming. Does the King's music need more drumming? I don't think so: two at the most would be fine, but one will do. It always did. I know that the drummer with the hat did a lot of extra keyboard stuff, that was great. I feel however that the sound of three drums forces the the others in the band to pump up the volume of their own instruments to cope. This may result in the blur we experienced on the balcony, especially at the heavy parts. The lack of power on the saxes of Mel the Great at certain moments maybe was a result of that. Besides all of this, I was very glad again to witness this 'party', as Fripp call it..... My heroes from long ago.