Anneke van Giersbergen / Floor Jansen – Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen; May 7th, 2023
Somewhere in April, Anneke van Giersbergen posted on Instagram that she was touring with Floor Jansen and I immediately bought a ticket. I already love Anneke and having seen Floor at Raskas Joulua before, knowing what a great voice she has, I was sure I’d enjoy the show. It was absolutely worth it.
Arriving at the venue before 17:00 I was surprise to see around 30 people already in line, especially considering the shitty weather forecast. I joined a group of people on the left and when the doors finally opened, the first of us held spots for the rest. Thus, front row was surprisingly easy. Not without drama though, because one of us, a teenage girl, who had come with her mom, fell on the way upstairs and mom was overly concerned and would not leaver alone so naturally she started crying. Eventually, they had some paramedics check her out and we were left guarding their spots. Not a big deal, but a “thank you” would have been nice when they returned halfway through Anneke’s set. *rolls eyes*
Anyway, Anneke was out sooner than expected and started off with ‘Lo and behold’, just playing acoustic guitar and using what I think was a loop station. It was fantastic, with people clapping along from the start. Apparently I was not the only one in the audience who was there to see her. She was all smiles and greeted us in German, then switched to English, speaking about her latest album. The beautiful ‘Agape’ was next and after missing the tour for that album I was happy to get to hear some of the songs live.
Next up was a song by The Gathering and when a few people cheered, she joked “Oh, five people like it, wonderful”. 😀 ‘Saturnine’ was great. Next, she spoke about her Kate Bush tour and when I cheered she pointed at me and said “You were there!” so I nodded. Of course she played ‘Running up that Hill’, probably the best known of all Kate Bush songs. <3
Anneke talked about writing the next song with Arion and played us ‘Valley of the Queens’, the followed it with ‘I saw a car’ from her latest album. She told us, how she wrote it when the album was nearly finished. “It is strange, but I like it”. The song worked well and got a good clap-along going.
A cover of Chris Cornell’s ‘Like a Stone’ followed. I don’t think I knew the song before. It was gorgeous. For the finale she had to retune her guitar, “dropping down to D” and complained that “new strings are assholes” before she got it right. The set ended with a wonderful version ‘Hurricane’. What a great selection of songs.
Setlist
Lo and behold
Agape
Saturnine (The Gathering)
Running up that Hill (Kate Bush)
Valley of the Queens
I saw a car
Like a Stone (Audioslave)
Hurricane
It did not take long to change the stage setup and before long Floor Jansen and her band stepped on stage. This was different for me, because I didn’t know any of the songs beforehand, but I enjoyed it just as much as Anneke’s set. Their first song was the powerful ‘Fire’ – I loved it already.
Floor, who had been on “Sing meinen Song”, spoke German to us, said she had practiced and wanted to try saying everything in German. She abandoned that idea eventually, but I loved the started that way. We learned that this was the first show in Germany. She continued with ‘Storm in a Glass’, an older song of hers and it rocked. Not only is she an amazing singer, but has a great band too. 🙂
I really loved the piano in ‘Invincible’ and was smiling widely already. It had been a great decision to come to the show. She talked about “Sing meinen Song”, talking German and how she had said Johannes Oerding’s name wrong, then covered his song ‘Anfassen’ – it was great. Floor spoke a little about her fanclub and the great people in it, then played us ‘Armoured Wings’ from her new album. Someone brought her a fluffy chair and she commented it was soft like a bunny. The sweet ‘Bridle Passion’ followed, just accompanied by a guitar.
She was up and rocking again for ‘While Love died’. I enjoyed the energy of the show. It was so much fun and when I wasn’t watching her moving all about the stage, I watched her fabulous band play. ‘Energize me’ had us all clap along again. 🙂 “Damn, the house is on fire!,” Floor commented and realized she would not be able to introduce the next song in German. It was ‘Paragon’ (not to be confused with the album of the same title or the song ‘My Paragon’). She explained that when she wrote it she wasn’t quite satisfied with herself and that it took her ten years to get to a place where she realized that sometimes you have to tell you “You’re enough”. True and a great song too.
‘Storm’ was brilliant. She got her chair back, telling us how she guested at one of Metallica’s shows and that she does not have a big belly because she at too much – “there is an actual baby in there” and gave as “the smallest song on my album”, ‘Hope’. <3 She told us that Nightwish would take a break after the next show and the one Nightwish song of the evening was ‘Our Decades in the Sun’. She explained that it is “a love letter to our parents” and dedicated it to hers, who were in the house.
Floor told us, she had written ‘Strong’ for her mother and that it was still a current song. So she dedicated it to mom. It was a beautiful one. It was time “for a lighter touch” and ‘Me without you’, followed by the wonderful ‘The Calm’. Then she rocked again with ‘Face your Demons’ – yeah!
The evening was going to be over too soon and thus played Clueso’s ‘Zu schnell vorbei’, telling us how poetic his songs are and how great the times at “Sing meinen Song” was. It was a solid cover of the song. She ended her set on a high note with ‘Come full circle’. It had been an amazing night so far and I joined everyone else in cheering for more.
Soon, Floor and the band were back for an encore. She asked us to impress them and be loud on the count of three. We did our best and t was loud indeed. ‘My Paragon’ had us all clap along. She thanked us for the wonderful night an offered us one more song for more screaming. We gladly obliged. The grand finale was the beautiful ‘Daydream’. What a great night!
On the way out, I ran into I., whom I’d met at the Ezio show the previous night. I knew she was gonna be there, but still had not expected to meet. Small world. We spent the train ride back reminiscing about the show. Once home, I bought a ticket for that one Nightwish show in June. 😀
Setlist
Fire
Storm in a Glass (Northward Song)
Invinvible
Anfassen (Johannes Oerding song)
Armoured Wings
Bridle Passion (Northward song)
While Love Died (Northward song)
Energize Me (After Forever song)
Paragon (Northward song)
Storm
Hope
Our Decades in the Sun (Nightwish song)
Strong (After Forever song)
Me Without You
The Calm
Face Your Demons (After Forever song)
Zu Schnell Vorbei (Clueso cover)
Come Full Circle
Encore:
My Paragon
Daydream