Anneke van Giersbergen – Flint, Amersfoort; January 13th, 2024

When Anneke van Giersbergen announced her Heavy Strings tour for the Netherlands I was immediately interested. Metal songs, covered with a string quartet and sung by Anneke? Sounded awesome to me. Assuming, she would not take the tour elsewhere, I picked the most convenient weekend show and ended up in Amersfoort. It was a brilliant night with a great selection of songs, some familiar and some unknown to me. I liked it so much, when she announced a tour in Germany after all, I bought another ticket.

The trip to Amersfoort was easy enough, and since my hotel was also a bar, I got a good vegan burger for lunch. I had enough time to take a walk and even relax a bit at my hotel, before heading to the venue. I was one of the first people there and sat down for a while, until more people showed up. I was not the only one who had traveled from Germany. Once inside and at the front, I had a great chat with the guy beside me, who had been following anneke around for many years. How cool. We agreed that with her talent she should be filling stadiums and not just small to mid sized venues.

Soon, they walked on stage and we all cheered for them. First up was Faith No More’s ‘From out of nowhere’ and the string quartet sounded wonderful. The perfect backdrop for Anneke’s voice. She greeted us, briefly mentioned her KAte Bush tour and then explained how she got he idea of this project. At least I assume thats what she did. I only got bits of pieces, as she was speaking Dutch, but she mentioned a lot of band and then all the genres she would cover, ending with “Heavy Metal”. That brought us to Iron Maiden’s ‘The Trooper’. I absolutely loved it! Having seen Iron MAiden not so long ago, this was especially fun (in other words: I was happy to recognize a handful of songs and not having to look up all of them afterwards. ;))

Next, they started with a lovely piano melody – yes, there was  apiano too, not only a string quartet – and played the gorgeous ‘Burning Heart’ (Vandenberg). I think my own heart melted a little. She announced a Mastodon song next, which prompted a bunch of people to yell – yeah. It’s a band I don’t know jack about, but I had fun listening. It felt very proggy indeed, with great driving strings. It occurred to me that I might enjoy pretty much any music, as long as you add a string quartet or Anneke is singing it. 😉 The song? ‘High Road’.

She spoke about her parents and about her mother, who had passed away not too long ago. I think she said the song reminded her of her mother. It was Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and it was gorgeous. Next up was ‘Supercrush’ by Devin Townsend Project, who Anneke has worked with. She talked a lot, but I have no idea what she said – I think it was the story how she met Devin. The song was rather dramatic. 🙂

She talked about different metal genres next, had even made a list that she read to us. It was long and made me laugh. I had no idea there were so many sub-genres. It seemed somehow logical that AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ would follow and most of the room yelled “Thunder!” in time with the music. THat was so much fun! Next up was Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, which I didn’t know by name, but it sounded familiar. So far I was having a great time.

When she announced a Slayer song next, I had a hard time not to laugh out loud, especially as someone inthe audience yelled “Slayer!” in response. It reminded me of her tour with Árstíðir, where every night, without fail, someone would yell “Slayer!” when asked which song they should play. The one she chose was called ‘South of Heaven’ and a pleasant surprise to me.

Anneke told us about her own heavy metal band Vuur and how they had written songs inspired by cities. The one they played for us was ‘Your glorious light will shine – Helsinki’. It was amazing! She spoke about how metal songs make us feel (I think), then thanked us all for coming and the set ended with a fantastic version ‘November Rain’ (Guns ‘n’ Roses). <3

We all jumped up to cheer for them and they soon returned to play some more.The first encore was Black Sabbath’ ‘Changes’ started by Anneke a cappella and then supported by strings. It was beautiful. She introduced the band and crew and we cheered for each of them. Another Sabbath Song, ‘War Pigs’ followed, including a pretty good clap along. She thanked us once more and ended with Roger Glover’s ‘Love is all’ that everyone but me knew the lyrics to. It was a great big sing-along and a fitting finale to the show. 🙂

I knew barely one third of the songs, but enjoyed all of them. It proved to me once more that I will like anything Anneke does. Definitely worth the trip to Amersfoort.

Setlist

From Out of Nowhere (Faith No More cover)
The Trooper (Iron Maiden cover)
Burning Heart (Vandenberg cover)
High Road (Mastodon cover)
Nothing Else Matters (Metallica cover)
Supercrush! (Devin Townsend Project cover)
Thunderstruck (AC/DC cover)
Kashmir (Led Zeppelin cover)
South of Heaven (Slayer cover)
Your Glorious Light Will Shine – Helsinki (VUUR song)
November Rain (Guns N’ Roses cover)

Encore:
Changes (Black Sabbath cover)
War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)
Love Is All (Roger Glover cover)