They really are like in the post cards

April 16, 2011

Exams done, assignments handed in. Two weeks of nervous breakdowns and anti-socializing; FINITTO! All I can hear is Freedom!’90 by George Michael in my head (the difference between the first version of this song by Wham! and this one is quite interesting, you can decide yourself what I mean). I actually bought a double album of his greatest hits for only 50 cents a year ago. I wasn’t a big fan of his music, but buying a CD felt more tempting than a Snickers bar at that moment. Money well spent (though I like to use “invest” when it’s about music).

Anyhow, it was time to travel somewhere again. This is how the conversation went at the train station in the morning:
Maria: “I still don’t know where we’re going.”
Me: “Mean either, but we’ll see eventually we’re we end up.”
It was hard to know where we were heading since my flat mates were pronouncing the name of the place in ten different ways. But there was talk about seeing a flower parade and garden. Yes, it’s about time to be a true tourist again. 

Leiden Centraal is where we went, and caught the bus to Keukenhof, a famous garden in The Netherlands, and expensive. PFF €21 for entrance and bus. And the LINE! It took quite a while to get in the bus, that I and Maria had a quick sightseeing in Leiden. Well, only walked one street and back. 

The bus ride to the garden took about 25 min, and we got to see some interesting monuments of Leiden, but as we were approaching our destination, every now and then people went “WOOOW”, because of the impressive tulip fields. As we arrived there, we went to wait for the flower parade to pass by. Here I would like to emphasize the word “wait”. It’s ok for musicians to start their show late, but not an annual parade, which has a tight schedule and thousands of people from around the world coming to witness. After one hour of people taking pictures of single cars with people selling CDs, the parade finally started. 

First car. 10 minutes. Starts to rain a bit. Second car. 10 minutes. Announcement: “One of the car’s tires is flat; you will have to wait for a long time.” #):@(%#¤” Never mind let’s go to the garden, we’ve seen enough, besides we got the newspapers with the drawings of the cars that we could have seen. 

I don’t think we saw the whole garden, since it was so big. There were a lot of Spanish, Russians, Chinese, Indians etc. It was quite crowded, but I heard it can be even more crowded. 

iPad

I’m glad that I got my jumping photos and ran in the tulip fields. After the garden closed, we had to wait in a long line once again; luckily we weren’t going to Schiphol since that line was three times as long as ours. 

I remember us international students asking a Dutch friend of ours if the tulip fields in the post cards are real, and not photoshopped. She wasn’t lying.

Rockin' the Milky Way

March 30th

American girl, English guy. Great chemistry, but no, they are not a couple. Their fourth album is to be released 4.4. Though you can stream it on their website already: The Kills - Blood Pressures

Yes, The Kills give me the chills. They've been doing that for a few years now, and how great is it to go to Amsterdam for only the third time and visit the other famous venue; Melkweg, and to witness one of the coolest bands perform. What's that line they sing in the Outkast song? Aa, yes; "What's cooler than being cool? ICE COLD!". That's what was on my mind during the whole performance.

The gig started with the warm up band called S.C.U.M; the first thing I noticed was that the drummer was a female, who was pretty good, then the lead singer looked like Adam Lambert and the rest of the band members reminded me of the 70's. They had quite good songs, but somehow I couldn't take my mind off Adam Lambert, especially, when I just recently discovered he's dating Finland's Big Brother's winner. Huh?

After a while, it was time for the main act. They started with "No Wow", and just simply had a rocking start.

I was on the second row middle, and I had to look either one of them, since they were placed so far from each other. Mainly because they'd have a lot of space to move around. And for sure they did! It was sometimes difficult to take a photo due to that. Basically, it was dancing on the legs of a new born pony, left right left right, and damn that guy in front right of me has a big head.

One of the last songs they played is one of my favorites of the new album, it's called "The Last Goodbye". First time I heard it, I thought that pff what a cheesy song, it doesn't fit them all, but already after the first minute, it started to sound beautiful with its lyrics and Alison's voice, and for the first time I sensed some sort of matureness in the music. It did look like that she got teary eyes, and probably most of the fans when she sang the song. For me the song is starting to feel like something I would play in a funeral.

 

They played like 6-8 songs from their newest album, and I was so thankful that they gave a chance to stream it beforehand, so I had the chance to sing-along. And it was the first time they played Nail In My Coffin to anyone. I guess the sound was a bit circulating during that song, but hey the song is good, and it was a joy to see the band members laugh at each other after the song. However it was a bit of a disappointment that they didn't play "Cheap and Cheerful", which is the song and video that made me fall in love with the band.

In summary, what I thought; first time alone in Amsterdam and proud of finding my way and catching the train on time, even though it took a while to get out of the Melkweg and still managed to buy a shirt, catch the tram, though the tram driver kept stopping and yelling something to the back. Walking on the streets of Amsterdam was so nice with my own thoughts, maybe it would be nice to live there. Melkweg not that nice compared to Paradiso. Hating to travel by train to/from Amsterdam even more, especially during night. Blood Pressures album, perhaps being their best so far, though all albums are different form each other. Jamie such a good guitarist. Alison having smooth dance moves.

But most important of all; first time I saw a Domino band (Domino Records being my favorite record label). The Kills being a great live band. They rocked the Milky Way (=Melkweg). And yeah I also got my signed poster.