You always hope for these shows that near perfection.
Agalloch have managed that with their last show in the Netherlands.
This was the fourth time I saw them and their best gig ever imo.
I got in the W2 a little early; Don saw me and still recognised me, how cool!
They started the show after Mely and Dornenreich.
The incense sticks brought the perfect atmosphere right away.
The smell reminded me of catholic church …. John was giving them away and I got one, yay 😀
Then the songs….They started of with some of the old work: Dead Winter Days and As Embers Dress the Sky from the album Pale Folklore.
Then they went on to play songs from The Mantle: I Am the Wooden Doors and In The Shadow of Our Pale Compagnion.
The sound was a little bad at first (could barely hear John’s vocals)
but that got better and better. It was loud…loud…but good.
I felt in heaven. I was all up front together with a friend (Nik) who
came all the way from London with his wife Milla to see Agalloch here as well.
We consider ourselves to be hardcore fans 😀
Agalloch also played Limbs, Not Unlike the Waves and Bloodbirds from Ashes Against the Grain. That was their ‘first’ last track. Don recognised Nik and me up front and waved at us. The audience yelled for more and got more.
What a suprise, the played The Lodge (dismantled), a 9 minute postrock/postcore track. They ended (as they mostly do) with NOISE. Don ripped strings from his guitar and John even gave me and Nik his guitar-effects-thingie to play with.
That was awesome! I made ‘music’ with John Haughm. For me, as diehard
fan that was a wish come true! It even got better when John grabbed my hand and Nik’s hand and the three of us shared a minute or so just going into the noise, sharing our energy. It was a spiritual experience for me and I cannot believe how lucky I got to be able to share a moment like that with one of my heroes. This proves once more that music is a binding factor for humans. We can go ‘into’ music and move beyond the ‘real world’, into the spiritual world. I felt energetic and insanely happy.
After the gig we saw Don very quickly. John also came out and also recognised me and we talked for quite a bit. We made a pic with the band + Nik and me. There was chatting with John and Don for awhile longer and I bought the last tshirt from merchandise and a poster that everybody signed.
John told me that Aesop (the drummer) bought lots of weed that he has to smoke in one night so that guy is prolly fucking wasted right now as I write this.
All in all it was an awesome experience from the best band of earth.
I invited them to come and play in Utrecht next year so hopefully they’ll listen to me, their hardcore fan 😀
PS: Dornenreich was also very cool, but due to me being exhausted now I won’t write a review about them.
