A Matter of Life and Death World Tour 2006

Brabanthallen, Den Bosch, 27 November 2006

I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since I was 13 years old. Ever since I watched the Live After Death video, I always dreamed to watch them live. Earlier this year I got a chance to make my dream comes true when I knew that Iron Maiden would include Den Bosch, Holland in the end year tour. Luckily I got the ticket quite early, since after a while the show was sold out.

Waiting impatiently until November, my adrenaline pumped faster when Iron Maiden released the AMOLAD album last September. Listening to this great solid album only triggered me to imagine the great live concert that would come.

Finally, the longest day was come. I started the day as usual, went to Den Bosch to work although my mind already soared away with Bruce's voice. During the day I got e-mail from Aleksandar that he would go together to the show. Great, I had company!

I arrived at Den Bosch train station around 6 PM to meet Aleksandar. There were already some crowds in Iron Maiden and Trivium t-shirts gathered there. After had quick dinner and met Aleksandar, we walked to the Brabanthallen. On the way we met someone who also went to the show. It turned out that he just back from the show in Stockholm and he was in the Bruce Air from Oslo to Stockholm. Wow man...I can't imagine to be in the plane piloted by Bruce Dickinson himself. We discussed other stuffs while walking: the set list (which I already had known before), the chance to meet Janick and Adrian in an Irish Pub in town after the show, and the picture he had with Bruce on the plane (damn lucky he was!).

We arrived at Brabanthallen around 7 PM. As my-concert-visit-ritual, I visited the shirt corner and bought one tour t-shirt, then we queued for the ticket check and entered the hall.

The Brabanthallen was quite a big hall. A seat tribune was set at the backside of the hall, and there was a pit in front of the stage. There were two large video screens on both sides of the stage.
The hall was about half full when we entered. Lauren Harris already started her act. Her performance was quite OK, supported with old-looking guitarist, bassist, and drummer. The songs were standard heavy-rock style, quite fit to her voice. On top of that, she was a good-looking girl.

Lauren finished her act at about 7.30 PM and the stage was set for Trivium. We decided to enter the pit to get a closer look to the stage. The background slide of the stage was the Trivium logo with images of their album covers, quite cool. They started their show with an instrumental opening, similar style as the Iron Maiden's Rock in Rio opening.

Trivium Stage

Trivium's performance was good in general. I must admit that I was not really knowledgeable about their songs, but I enjoyed the power and aggression of their performance. The crowd was also enjoying the act, some were already headbanging and moshing.
I recognized they played two songs that I know: Like Light to the Flies and the final song Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr.
They had solid skills and performance style. I especially enjoyed the cool style of Paolo, the bassist, who was headbanging most of the time. Matt Heafy also was quite communicative as the frontman, keep asking the crowd to headbang and mosh. His command was "I want to see some movements!"

After about 45 minutes full of heavy powerful songs from Trivium, we had another break. We got out from the pit to grab a drink, and back inside the pit right on time when the stage was nicely set.
The stage setting was quite 'minimal' for Iron Maiden show. The nuance was about war, with both sides and the back of the stage being raised and decorated as barrack walls with camouflage leaves and nets. There were two war spotlights and wires at both sides, with a hanging para soldier at one side. The backslide showed a ruin in fire-red colour.

All of a sudden, they entered the stage. Steve Harris with his usual Fender bass with Westham United logo, wore the Eddie war logo shirt. Dave Murray and Janick Gers wore Maiden shirts, while Adrian Smith in his usual outfit: vest and leather pant, the three amigos with their Fender Stratocasters. Bruce Dickinson wore a black shirt with monster head image. Unfortunately I could not see Nicko at all, he was buried behind his drums :).
The only noticeable thing from Nicko was his famous screaming to open Different World.

Great for opening song, Different World was performed very solid by Iron Maiden, although Bruce had a challenge at the high tone part. The crowd started to sing and headbanging in this heavy fast song.

These Colours Don't Run had a slower speed than the Different World, but more powerful bass and drums sounds. The backslide was changed to Eddie in military outfit grabbing Union Jack flag.

Dave and Adrian in These Colours Don't Run

Iron Maiden played directly the powerful Brighter than a Thousand Sons and continued with The Pilgrim, a fast melodic song with a nice guitar intro, that triggered the crowd to bang our head and raise our punches to the sky. I mostly enjoyed the drums and bass parts of this song.

The Pilgrim

The backslide was changed to newspaper stories about World War II when they played The Longest Day. Wonderfully the crowd joined the singing in these five songs, especially in this war-epic song..
"how long on this longest day...til we finally make it through...".
Also the guitar solos were wonderful.

The Longest Day

After The Longest Day, finally we had a short break when Bruce did his conversation with us. Greeting us then informing that this was one of the biggest tours in Maiden's career with most of the shows were sold out, including the one in Holland. He also indicated that they would play the whole AMOLAD album. One surprising part was after he finished, the whole crowd started to applause, screamed, and then chanted "Maiden, Maiden, Maiden,..." for about one minute. It was nice to see Bruce's face expression on this occasion. That was one of the amazing moments during the show. I still shiver if I remember this. I could not find this mutual loyalty between the band and the fans in the other live shows that I have watched before. Totally amazing!

After the speech Bruce gave us Out of the Shadows (and into the sun). It was amazing ballad with nice lyric, where some people lit the zippos, plus very nice guitar solos from Dave and Adrian.
"there is beauty and surely there is pain...but we must endure it to live again.."
Bruce led the crowd to clap during the instrumental part after Adrian's solo.

Then the backslide was changed to Benjamin Breeg. This first single from AMOLAD album was very dark yet powerful to be performed live. The opening part really made a creepy feeling on me. Bruce brilliantly sang
"Let me tell you about my life...let me tell you about my dreams...
let me tell you about the things that happen...always real to me...."

The show was continued with dark stage with only a spotlight on Steve Harris playing the opening of For the Greater Good of God. It is one of my favorite songs of the album, with nice bass lines, guitar rhythm, and great meaningful lyric. Again the shiver back to me when Bruce sang the final lines.
"He gave his life for us, he fell upon the cross
To die for all of those who never mourn his loss
It wasn't meant for us to feel the pain again
Tell me why....tell me why...."

After some softer songs, the crowd was jumping and banging again in the Lord of Light. This song was really great in live version, with complex song progression, strong guitar sound, and powerful sound of Bruce.

For the last song of the AMOLAD album, there were three acoustic guitars prepared on the stage. The Legacy is again a wonderful song from the album, with Genesis guitar style in the intro and rich acoustic sounds thanks to Janick Gers who penned this song with Steve Harris.
In this song Bruce turned on the war spotlight and blinded us.

After Bruce said "that was A Matter of Life and Death"...we knew that it was the time to go back to the great old era of Iron Maiden.
The stage was dark, creepy feeling came again, because of Fear of the Dark. I could not imagine myself as part of the crowd singing this brilliant song when Bruce sang.."Fear of the dark....Den Bosch..."

The crowd went crazy when Bruce asked Holland to scream for him (yes...the famous "Scream for me...Holland") and the band played very familiar riff of Iron Maiden. This song still sounded very raw and energic after more than 26 years!
To make it even more special, a real size tank appeared at the back stage behind Nicko's kit. Off course there was Eddie at the top of the tank with binoculars monitoring the crowd from side to side.

Eddie with the tank

After this adrenaline-pumping song, finally Nicko appeared to the front, throwing away few drumsticks and frisbees, then disappeared to the backstage with the rest of the band.

Off course we knew it was not over yet. Screaming and again chanting "Maiden..maiden..maiden..." until they were back on the stage. Bruce thanked us for the great show, informing that they will tour again in 2008 performing golden years songs. I believe that will be the Early Days part 2 with Powerslave and Piece of Mind as menu....aaarrghhh...I cannot wait to watch them again.

After that great announcement, the band played 2 Minutes to Midnight, another great song from my youth when I first knew about Iron Maiden. The backslide was showing the single cover of the song. Now I cannot really remember the detail anymore because I was in total ecstasy enjoying the song live performance.

2 Minutes to Midnight

Not finished there, they continued the ecstasy with the familiar intro riff of The Evil That Men Do from Seventh Son album. Similar with Rock in Rio live show, during the guitar solo Eddie appeared on the stage, but this time in green military outfit and helmet complete with a rifle. Always a pal of Janick, they played the guitar together with the rifle.
The song was ended with the crowd chanted "Eddie...Eddie...Eddie..."

Eddie

After the energic Evil that Men Do, the stage was darkened again, same creepy feeling again, then Bruce magically sang the intro of Hallowed be Thy Name. It was an ultimate dream came true to sing together the calm intro of the song with Bruce and headbanging along the powerful rhythm of the song.

The song marked the end of the show. The band came together to the front, bowed to the crowd, and the stage was reddened and darkened again, until finally all lights turned on and the crew started to clear up the stage. I went out of the hall together with the very pleased people and walked back to the train station with Aleksandar. He was a damn lucky fans because he went to the front row and got a wristband from Adrian Smith himself!

In conclusion, the show was terrific, classic Iron Maiden show with unbeatable quality, style and power. On top of that, the fans loyalty made the whole show as incredible experience. I still had the songs played in my head until two days after the show!

Thank you for Iron Maiden to make my dream to watch their live came true. Until the Powerslave show in 2008, and while waiting..Up the Irons!!!

Set list:

A Matter of Life and Death
- Different World
- These Colours Don't Run
- Brighter than a Thousand Suns
- The Pilgrim
- The Longest Day
- Out of the Shadows
- The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
- For the Greater Good of God
- Lord of Light
- The Legacy

- Fear of the Dark
- Iron Maiden
==========================
- 2 Minutes to Midnight
- The Evil That Men Do
- Hallowed be Thy Name

Nice pictures can be found at:
http://ironmaiden-trivium.fotopic.net/

Philips Concert 2006

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam,
October 12, 2006

Starting from year 2003, we regularly had been invited by Philips, the generous employer of my wife, for end-of-year concert in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. It had always been a classical music concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with qualified conductors and solists, performing fine classical pieces.

In the past years the concerts were held around end of October or in November, but this year it was a bit earlier. Fortunate for us, it happened exactly on our third wedding anniversary. A nice gift from Philips!

The event was started at 6.30 in the evening, and I arrived on time. I traveled by train from my office in Den Bosch and followed by tram in Amsterdam, alighted from the tram in the beautiful spot between the Concertgebouw and greeny Museumplein with nice view of the Rijksmuseum.

My wife arrived some moments earlier by the bus arranged by Philips in Eindhoven, and she was already in dinner queue when I arrived. It was the standard ritual: a buffet dinner at 6.30 followed by nice music at 8.15. We had the similar dinner as last year, with nice selection of appetizers: smoked salmon salad, beef carpaccio, tuna salad, and two different pasta salads. The main dishes were penne in mayonnaise, sausages, and meatballs in tomato sauce.

After filling our stomachs and nice chats during the coffee and tea, we entered the hall to start the musical part. It was still an amazing view entering the hall, with decorated ceiling and balcony and the grand organ above the stage.
That evening we enjoyed the 'Spanish-oriented' pieces by Wagenaar and Lalo before the break and Scottish Symphony by Mendelssohn for the ending.

After a short speech of Gerard Kleisterlee, the Philips CEO, the first piece was opened with castanets sound and we enjoyed the Spanish nuance of the Prelude to De Cid op.27 by Wagenaar, a Dutch composer. It was a pity that it was a pretty short piece.

The second piece was the famous Symphonie espagnole in D minor, op.21 for violin and orchestra, of Edouard Lalo. It was actually not a symphony, but a violin concerto. During his time, composers like to model their concertos after symphonies in which the soloist and orchestra were equal partners. Lalo went one step further, provocatively omitting the word 'concerto' in this piece, hence the somewhat misleading title.

The work contained five very colourful and highly virtuosic movements. All explored the beauty of violin to its fullest. The most symphonic movement, the first one, had a very catchy theme one would never forget once listened to it. The second movement started very light owing to the sweetness of the violin's high tone, but later developed back into similar Spanish rigor as the first movement. A sweet dark habanera rhythm dominated the third movement. The solemnity of the fourth movement, the only slow movement, was mostly sad although here and there sweetness and grandness appeared. The symphony final movement had a grand rigorous character of Beethoven alike and only managed a bit of Spanish flavour. The movement was closed with a special way of playing violin where the violinist simultaneously plucked (pizzicato) and bowed (arco) the strings.

After an uneventful break, the program continued with Mendelssohn 'Scottish' symphony no 3. Interestingly, the orchestra seemed to play the whole symphony without breaks. Perhaps they did not want hand clapping between movements as in the first part of the program. The symphony were very melodious but mostly very atmospheric. Apart from a familiar movement (probably the second), there was no theme easy enough to mumble home. Despite that, the audience honored the orchestra with a standing ovation at the end of the performance.

Cautious of missing the bus going back to Eindhoven, we hurried out the concert hall before the clapping died out. After queuing for wardrobe, we landed ourselves in the second bus back to Philips High Tech Campus Eindhoven and arrived back at some minutes pass midnight.

Blokart

Wijk aan Zee, September 30, 2006

My wife and her colleagues had been arranging some outdoor activities for several times. Last year they did hot-air ballooning, kayaking in Biesbosch, and tandem jumping. After vacuum for quite a while, recently they planned for blokart carting activity. Always fond of speed, I joined the event enthusiastically.

The activity was located at the Wijk aan Zee, a nice beach village near Haarlem. We traveled from Eindhoven by car together with two friends who did the tandem jumping. We arrived at the nice village around noon, and directly went to SunSeaBar cafe, the event provider. Waiting for other participants, we ordered drink and lunch. Finally we were complete, 10 of us, and we got introduced to the blokart.

The blokart was more or less the same size as the normal go-cart, except this one only had three wheels, one at the front and two at the back, bike-style steering bar, and no engine but a high sail above the driver seat.
We got explanation about how to enter the seat, and obligation to use the seat belt and the helmet. After that we were explained about how to steer and at the same time handle the sail. The basic principal was to pull the lower sail rope to accelerate and release it to slow down.

Ready to sail...

Having a sufficient theoretical knowledge, we were told that we would 'sail' along an 8-shaped route on the beach and we should take the corners against the wind direction on safety purpose. We got 5 blokarts so two of us need to take turn. I did the first turn, and the first long line sailing went perfect until I took the corner. Releasing the sail, I had no speed at all after the corner! Well, it happened to all five of us. After the same situation after few rounds, the instructor told us to reverse the direction, so we took the corner along the wind direction. It went much much better, although I felt we had not enough wind.

After about 15 minutes we changed turn. The second batch had stronger wind, and my wife happily took the corners in what seemed to be quite high speed. When I got my second turn, the wind was quite strong. With more experience, I could handle the blokart better and did fast-in fast-out on the corners. At that round I found out the best part of the blokart, which was the corners taking. It was fun to tighten the sail on the long track until the corner and release it on time so it would flap to get the wind force back and took you out from the corner fast. Another fun thing was to overtake on the corners and ensured that you would not hit the others.

Taking the corner

After changed turn one more time, we moved our track a bit because there were more people did the blokart. On that round we experienced the wind changed its direction, so we need to slightly release the sail on the long line instead of pulling hard. Luckily it gave stronger wind on the corners so we could take the corners in higher speed. Quite unfortunate for some of us, the wind was too strong and some blokarts were flipped over while turning. That made us understood the function of the seatbelt and the helmet.

Spending two hours for the blokart, we finished our event with some drinks back in the SunSeaBar. It was a fun experience.

Hong Kong and Macau

September 12-15, 2006

From our 22 summer vacation days to Indonesia, we planned 4 days to visit Hong Kong and Macau. For this plan we chose to fly Cathay Pacific from Amsterdam to Jakarta via Hong Kong and we decided to stop in Hong Kong on our way back to Amsterdam, as a nice wrap up of our holiday. There was a nice thing when we bought the ticket online at the Cathay Pacific website, we could directly chose our seats. So we could select the best possible seats for all our flights...although still in Economy class.

On Tuesday morning of September 12, we flew from Jakarta to Hong Kong, and we arrived around noon at Chek Lap Kok or Hong Kong International Airport. The airport was located on a sea reclamation area next to Lantau Island, the second biggest island in Hong Kong (after the Hong Kong island, unsurprisingly). After the immigration and collecting luggage, we waited a while before the bus took us to our hotel at Kowloon. Through a cloudy and rainy afternoon, we enjoyed the coast scenery along the hilly Lantau Island. To any Mickey and Donald fans, Hong Kong Disneyland is also located in this island.
After about 20 minutes we passed Tsing Ma bridge, the longest road-and-rail suspension bridge (2.2 km) in the world, heading away from the Lantau Island and not long after that we entered a tunnel and directly came out in a fully packed residential area of Kowloon. Finally the bus arrived at Majestic hotel, the place where we stayed, on Nathan Road, one of the Kowloon's main streets.

Not long after we checked in and dumped our luggage, we walked along the shops on the Nathan Road. There were just shops on both sides of the street, any kind of shops from electronic stuffs, clothes, until Chinese dried herbs and foods. We walked pass Park Lane shopping boulevard next to Kowloon Park, an area that reminded me of the Orchard Road in Singapore. After the boulevard we passed a mosque, quite a unique building in such area. After more shops and passed Tsim Sha Tsui MTR (Mass Transit Railway, Hong Kong's underground) station, we turned to Peking Road, a side street of the Nathan Road, which was also full of shops. We walked further to Canton Road, a street parallel to the Nathan Road and along the harbour of Kowloon, until we reached the seaside.

This southest end of Tsim Sha Tsui has several nice landmarks: Clock tower, old ferry terminal to the Hong Kong island, Cultural Center, Space Museum, Museum of Art, a nice long Avenue of Stars promenade, and a wonderful view of the skyscrapers on the Hong Kong island.

Hong Kong Island landscape from Tsim Sha Tsui in the night

After visiting tourist information center near the ferry terminal, we entered a shopping center to look around on souvenirs until finally we back to the Canton Road and further to the Peking Road, searched a place for dinner. I found a HMV store in that area, and managed to buy the newest Iron Maiden album there. Meanwhile my wife looked around and found a place that sold congee. So it was settled, congee for dinner. I picked the standard one, with shredded pork and century egg, plus the 'cakwee'. It tasted very good, the congee was soft and the egg was not too strong in taste.

Having our stomach full, we strolled back slowly along the still busy Nathan Road. The streets were nicely decorated with colourful neon signs in the evening. Near our hotel we visited a night market on the Temple Street. The whole street was packed with hawkers who sold many different things, from clothes until Chinese souvenirs.
After passing through the street completely, we were back to the hotel. We slept pretty well that night, saving energy for the next walk-till-you-drop adventures in Hong Kong.

The next morning we woke up and watched the heavy rain from our room window. After a filling buffet breakfast in the hotel, we bought a big umbrella at a small store in front of the hotel and headed to Jordan MTR station in the rain. We had planned to visit Po Lin monastery at the Lantau Island that morning. We took MTR to Thung Chung, the furthest point that reached by MTR in the Lantau Island. It was still raining when we reached Thung Chung. We went shopping for a while at a supermarket there, bought waters and a box of mooncake. From the bus terminal, we took the bus to the monastery. There was a new cable car track to the Po Lin monastery, but unfortunately it had not run yet when we were there.
The bus trip was through hills on the island, along a small up-and-down but smooth road. After about an hour we arrived at the monastery. The monastery complex was relatively big, but the amazing view was the giant Buddha statue in front of the complex.

The giant Buddha statue at Po Lin Monastery

Due to the rain and lunchtime, we decided to first visit the monastery to have a vegetarian lunch there. The vegetarian food was OK, made from very fresh ingredients. We also bought sweet dessert after the lunch.
After that we walked inside the complex, entered the halls and praying rooms full of incense smell. When the rain was a bit stopped, we climbed the Buddha statue. There was exhibition and archive room below the statue where we could see ancient Buddhism paintings and statues.

Satisfied with our visit, although we should be able to see more (for example walk the Wisdom Path) if it was dry, we took the bus back to Thung Chung and from there took the MTR to Jordan and walked back to the hotel.
After a short rest eating the mooncake, we took the MTR again, this time to Sheung Wan in the Hong Kong Island. From Sheung Wan we walked until we reached Mid-levels escalator, a walkpath along the old part of Hong Kong. It is a hilly area, so the walkpath was supported with series of escalators going uphill. We walked through Hollywood Road, along the pubs in Soho, and visited Lan Kwai Fong, an area full of restaurants. We stopped at Starbucks near the Lan Kwai Fong to plan the rest of the evening.

Finally we decided to move from that central area to Wan Chai, where we could see Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) and Hong Kong scenery from the seaside. We walked from the Wan Chai MTR station via the walkpath over the main streets of Hong Kong between the high towers. Finally we arrived at Hong Kong Convention Center and outside the building we could see the Reunification Monument and Bauhinia sculpture, both were located near the seaside. From that point we also could enjoy the nice view of Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon area.

At 8 in the evening there was a Symphony of Light show, a combination of music, lights, and lasers show from the towers and buildings in both Hong Kong Island and Tsim Sha Tsui area. We could watch the show from Wan Chai, with complete view of the lights from Tsim Sha Tsui and laser from IFC Tower, the highest tower in Hong Kong.

The show was ended in about 5 minutes. After the show we took the ferry from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui. Strolling again along the streets in Kowloon, we stopped at a noodle house. I had noodle soup with inner parts of beef: stomach, liver, and intestine. It was nice and really filling.

On the third day we started early to visit Macau. From the hotel we walked via the Kowloon Park to the ferry terminal to Macau. The ferry was actually a jetfoil boat with many comfortable seats. The one hour trip to Macau was passed smoothly on the big nice chair.

Arrived at Macau harbour, we took the bus to the old town of Macau, passing some big casinos along the way. We alighted from the bus near Senado Square, the main square in Macau with nice classic European style buildings in the surrounding.
After collecting city map from the tourist information center we decided to visit almost all of the touristic spots in the old town of Macau. Near the Senado Square we visited Macau Cathedral, St. Dominic's church and Lou Kau mansion. The last one was a nice old Chinese house that still had original interiors and furnitures.

Walked little bit further, we arrived at the ruins of St. Paul's, the facade of a burnt church. It was located on a small hill providing wonderful view. Next to the ruins we saw a temple of Na Tcha and a section of old city wall next to the temple. Walked to the other side we visited Mount Fortress, the old military fortress of the city. From the top we could see most parts of the old town of Macau.

Ruins of St. Paul's, Macau

Getting further we visited St. Anthony's church and Casa Garden, a classic red-white color building. From there we walked back to the Senado Square and had lunch in a small restaurant in the area. They provided Shanghai style dishes, slightly different style than the Chinese food I know, but still delicious.

After lunch we walked to opposite direction from Senado Square, passing St. Augustine's church with its beautiful stone pavement, Dom Pedro V Theatre building next to the St. Augustine's, and St. Lawrence's church before stopped at Lilau Square, an old natural water source in Macau. A bit further we passed Moorish barracks, an old military building that now turned into office. Our final destination was A-Ma temple, which was quite crowded either with tourists as well as worshippers. From the A-Ma temple we took the bus back to the harbour.
In general I found Macau as an interesting place. There was strong Chinese lifestyle, but the Portuguese culture was still very rich as well. The mixture of these two styles made the place unique.

Arrived back at Tsim Sha Tsui, we spent the whole evening in Kowloon. Once again we watched the Symphony of Light show, this time from Tsim Sha Tsui with full view of towers on Hong Kong Island. After the show we walked along the Avenue of Stars, a resemblance of Hollywood Walk of Fame for Hong Kong stars. We found palms print of Sammo Hung, Jacky Chen, Andy Lau and many others. From the long avenue we walked to the Canton Road and visited Hard Rock Cafe to buy a cap, as always.
Near the Jordan area, we found a restaurant with fusion style. I tried curry noodle soup. It was OK but not as nice as the previous dinners.

On the last day in Hong Kong, we visited the famous place in Hong Kong that we could not visit earlier due to the rainy weather: the Peak. We took the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hong Kong Central, followed with a double decker bus trip passing the high towers until we arrived at the lower Peak Tram terminal. The ascending trip in the tram took about 10-15 minutes, with a nice view along the steep rail track until we reached the upper Peak terminal.

View of Hong Kong Island from Tsim Sha Tsui in the morning

From the top we could see the beautiful Hong Kong Island and Kowloon landscapes in complete view. Luckily we had no rain that morning. We enjoyed the view from both the modern Peak Tower and the old Chinese-styled Lions Pavilion. We spent the whole morning at the Peak by enjoying the view as well as shopping for souvenirs.

View from the Peak

Around noon we took the Peak Tram downhill. From the lower terminal we walked along the busy streets of Hong Kong to the Stanley Street. We ate dim sum in Luk Yu restaurant, because it was one of the first restaurants in Hong Kong that served dim sum. We ordered about 5-6 types of dim sum. In my opinion the taste was not very special, but maybe because we did not order the correct types.

After lunch we walked to the Hong Kong Central ferry harbour and back to Kowloon. During our visit in Hong Kong, it was the first time we were in Tsim Sha Tsui in the daytime. We once again walked along the Avenue of Stars.

the Avenue of Stars

Around 5 in the afternoon we walked back to the hotel. Once again we stopped for the congee and we also managed to shop a bit before arrived at the hotel.
At around 8 the shuttle bus was arrived and we went back to the airport, leaving Hong Kong in its beautiful evening lights.

Jamie's Picnic

Arrow Jazz in the Park
Zuiderpark, Den Haag, 23 July 2006



Last week I got a nice surprise when I checked my mailbox, I had won two tickets for Jamie Cullum concert in Den Haag! So that was my second concert visit this month after Sting in Bospop.

So, there we were, me and my wife, went to Den Haag on a hot Sunday morning. We managed to make appointment with some friends for lunch in Den Haag. After a nice dim sum, we spent some times in the shopping quarter of Den Haag to find some gifts for our trip home next month. Only after 4 in the afternoon we took the tram to the Zuiderpark where the concert would be held.

Zuiderpark is located in the south part of the city (as the name indicates that, 'South Park'), a big green park that really perfect for a picnic with nice jazz music. When we arrived there the Arrow Jazz event itself already more than half way because it had started since 2 in the afternoon. We skipped those parts since we did not familiar with the performers (no offence for jazz lovers :)).
After collecting our tickets at the guest list counter, we queued for the picnic box, and then we were completely ready for the picnic.

The stage was located on a square where already pretty full of people who were enjoying the sun. On the other hand we preferred to stay under the tree shades, so we chose to sit on a further side of the park on a nice grass, reading novels (what a picnic!). We could not see the stage because it was blocked by a tree, but still we could enjoy the music. At that time a band called New Cool Collective was performing some nice dynamic tunes with rich percussions and brass sounds.

About half past six we got up from the grass and took a nice spot at the far side of the square. It was still under the shades and there were line of bushes in front of us, protecting people stood directly in front of us so we had a clear view to the stage.
Some times after seven, Jamie Cullum entered the stage with his band. He directly sat behind his grand piano and played Photograph, a song from Catching Tales, his newest album. He was accompanied with his permanent musicians: Geoff Gascoyne (bass), Sebastiaan de Krom (drums) and two new musicians: Rory Simmons (trumpet, guitar) and Tom Richards (sax, keyboards, and percussion).

They performed nice songs from Jamie's two albums, including the hits Get Your Way, Mind Trick, and of course Everlasting Love. Besides that, Jamie was very attractive on stage. He chatted with the audience, jumped tirelessly..on the stage and from the grand piano, played drums during Frontin' - while Sebastiaan sang the song, played guitar in London Skies, led the audience for a choir, and splashed water to the audience - and of course received some back - during Singing in the Rain. In my opinion he was a good entertainer.

After a nice High and Dry and watery Singing in the Rain, the band disappeared to the backstage, then back and performed All at Sea, the classic I Get a Kick Out of You, and finally Jamie asked the audience to jump endlessly during I Could Have Danced All Night until the show was ended and they bowed goodbye to us.

I enjoyed mostly the jazzy tunes and some calm songs such as What a Difference a Day Made (with bit of Oasis' Champaign Supernova in the beginning) and All at Sea. Nevertheless it was also interesting to watch Jamie tapped his hands on the piano and performed medley of hip-hop songs. In general it was a very nice picnic, relaxing atmosphere, and good performance.

The show was ended around half past nine, so more than two hours of nice music. We went back by the tram, thanks for the extra tram provided by organizer so we didn't need to wait too long.

Set list (may contain some mistakes here and there, I do not know all Jamie's songs):
- Photograph
- Get Your Way
- What a Difference a Day Made
- These are the Days
- Mind Trick
- Next Year Baby
- Don't Cha/I Got a Woman/Golddigger/One Thing - Frontin'
- Lover, You Should Have Come Over
- London Skies
- Everlasting Love
- Seven Nation Army
- High and Dry
- Singing in the Rain
-----------------------------------
- All at Sea
- I Get a Kick Out of You
- I Could Have Danced All Night

Kaasmaken, klompengolf, en TanteLoes

(Translated: Cheese making, wooden shoe golf, and Tante Loes)

15 July 2006

In a very nice summer weather, last Saturday we went to 'De BoerInn', a recreational farm house in Woerden, a small city near Utrecht in the middle of the country. We arrived at Woerden around 10 in the morning and drove through nice green landscape of Holland before reaching De BoerInn. The old farm house was located in a polder surrounded by small dikes.

De BoerInn offers some interesting summer activities that have connection with farm life: Polder competition, polder tour, indoor polder sport, polder challenge, klompen (wooden shoes) golf, and cheese making.
Because there were only 8 of us and some activities require minimum 10 participants, we decided to do the cheese making and the klompen golf.

The cheese making activity was started around 11. We entered a small room and being welcomed by the farm lady herself. She was ready with a big bowl containing 10 liters fresh milk that would be used to make the cheese. During about one hour with her, she explained the process of turning the milk into cheese from the very beginning as well as interesting information about storing cheese, different kinds of cheese available, the difference between farm cheese and factory cheese, and possible side products from the cheese making process.
Naturally, during the same one hour we were also being involved in the process. We stirred the milk to separate the solid from the liquid until we had a nice white soft curd similar to tofu in texture. After that, one of us moved the curd to the cheese mold. The mold then placed under the pressing block to force the remaining liquid out from the curd.
In general those were the steps, and after that the curd would be salted and packaged. We could taste the difference between the curd with the finish cheese in terms of saltiness.

Pressing the cheese

In the end of the activity, we could pick one cheese block for free and we chose the young natural one. Some of us also bought another block for 7.5 Euro, my wife picked the one with Italian herbs. The free one was cut by the lady and was served to us for our lunch, yummy.

After a nice lunch, with the nice cheese, we went to the backside of the farm house to play the klompen golf. The golf field was a block of polder with a narrow dike in the middle and some cows that grazing on the field. Before started the real thing, we got explanation about the techniques and rules. The golf club was a wooden stick with a klompen-shaped head and the ball was about the half size of a volleyball. The rule was the same as the normal golf, we needed to finish 18 holes with minimum stroke. We could practice the swing and chose the best club before start.
The real game was really fun. We got variety of holes anatomy: easy long ones, some with bunkers and hills, few with waters in the middle, and majority with cows (and their residues) around. I hit one of the poor cow that blocked my shot. We finished the 18 holes in about 2 hours and the best of us got a winning yellow shirt.

Klompengolf...hit the cows :)

We spent the hole 19 (I've told you, it was pretty same with the normal golf) drinking at the farm house. Some of us preferred to take a shower for refreshment toward the dinner (yeah, sure, there must be a nice dinner in our activities). Unfortunately two of us could not join the dinner, so there were six of us who drove to Rhenen, a small town besides the river Rhine. The trip itself took about an hour via the highway near Utrecht and passing part of the green Utrechtse Heuvelrug.

The restaurant was called TanteLoes, a nice white building directly on the side of the Rhine. We got a table at the back terrace facing the river, a beautiful view with the church tower in afar. The food selection was quite fine, although not really special. I ordered onion soup for appetizer and a nice thick tender tournedos as the main course. Had no more appetite for dessert, I just ordered a cup of coffee meanwhile the rest were having more proper dessert :).

TanteLoes

After dinner we shortly visited the riverside and afterward we drove back. Me and my wife were dropped at Utrecht and we took the train back to Eindhoven. It was a nice day.

Sting at Bospop Festival

Sting - Broken Music Tour
Bospop Festival, Weert, 7 July 2006



For these two years, 7th of July was a special date for me. July 7 2005 was the evening when I visited Coldplay concert in Arnhem. One year after, July 7 2006, I went to one of my dreams come true concert: Sting!

During summer of 2006 Sting toured in Europe with title 'Broken Music', the tour that was inspired by his autobiography, to back to his basic rocking music style. In Holland the show was part of Bospop Festival in Weert, south Holland. I went there directly from work by train in a nice cool summer afternoon. The festival was lcoated in Boshaven, a nice wide park about 20 minutes walking from center of Weert. I arrived there around 7 in the evening. The park was already quite crowded, people were sitting on the grass, enjoying foods and drinks. First I stopped at the official tour store to buy a Broken Music tour shirt, then I walked around visiting some interesting shirts and CD/DVD shops. I just realised there, in one of the shops, that Pulse DVD was already released officially, finally.

The main festival stage was relatively big for the park, giving a nice view from any spot in the park. I chose to stand on the front, first row, at the left side in front of the huge speakers (later on I realised that it was really loud!). The stage was already set for Fiction Plane, the first performer. Fiction Plane is a British pop rock band, fronted by vocalist-guitarist Joe Sumner, son of Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) himself. Joe and his three band mates were the opening act during his father's Broken Music tour this year.
They entered the stage some times after 7, relatively on schedule. Joe resemblance the look of his father, also bit of the voice and stage act. The songs were mostly in modern pop rock style, pretty similar with Coldplay or U2. It was enjoyable, fit perfectly for warming up.

After about an hour, they left the stage with nice applause from the crowd. The stage was rearranged for the second performer, The Charlatans. They are British band from 90's era with music style similar to Oasis. Some songs were pretty much the same as Oasis' songs with heavy-crunchy riff style, also the vocal style kept reminding me to Liam Gallagher. Some other songs had some reggae style. I was impressed with the bass sound, very deep and dynamic.

The Charlatans performed also about an hour. After that the stage was rearranged again. Being in the front row, I could say that the stage crews worked very good, efficient and fast. The crews from Sting were old guys, looked very experience. It was a nice view on its own to watch them set the instruments and did the sound check.

Around 10 o' clock, when the sky was already darker, I saw Dominic Miller (guitar), Lyle Workman (guitar), and Abe Laboriel Jr. (drum) entered the stage. They directly started with intro of Message In A Bottle, and Sting entered the stage and took the center position, ready to rock with his Fender Precision Bass. As promised, this song was really rocking, very energetic opening. Two thumbs up for powerful drum style from Abe Laboriel Jr. (Paul McCartney band).
After the blasting opening, Sting directly continued with Synchronicity II, another powerful song. It reminded me to the first time I knew The Police about 20 years ago.

Little bit slowing down, they performed If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, a song that could be easily joined by the crowd. Then back to the old time we got the Walking On The Moon. After a heavier style of Englishman in New York, Dominic Miller changed to acoustic guitar and they performed Shape Of My Heart. This soft song got a perfect nuance by the light rain poured down from the sky.

The rain was getting bit heavier as Sting back to heavier stuff: Driven to Tears, followed by old time favorite Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. Sting really knew how to arrange the setlist, alternating fast and calm songs. We were little bit cooled down again by Why Should I Cry For You and the beautiful Fields of Gold. It's terrific to watch Dominic Miller's fingers dancing on his acoustic guitar.

Not letting the crowd getting too cold, they performed Beatles' A Day In The Life, If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, and some other songs from The Police era, with a nice solo sessions by Dominic Miller and Lyle Workman. I was pretty close to Dominic position and it was a wonderful view to watch his solo. At one point Sting also switched position with Dominic, and that was the time when I was closest to Sting in my life :).

Never enough with the classics, the crowd went crazy when Sting started "Roxanne...you don't have to put on the red light...". The song was getting longer than usual with a nice inclusion of So Lonely at the near end of the song.

After a short break they back to the stage with an additional Arabic percussion player. Yes, it was time for Desert Rose, a different tune from Sting. They played heavier version than the original with Dominic played the eastern melody. The crowd went more energetic after that when we heard the famous intro of Every Breath You Take. We were singing along, clapping, jumping, and shouting during the song because we knew it was almost the end of the show. The climax was reached when they performed another song from Outlandos d'Amour, Next To You.
It could be a perfect show with an opening and ending from the first two albums of The Police, but it was much better when I saw Sting replaced his Fender with an acoustic guitar. It was indeed couldn't be better to end the show by reminding all of us about how fragile we are. With a wonderful ending solo acoustic guitar, Sting ended the show. Four of them said goodbye to the crowd and that was it.

In my opinion it was a great show. The pieces were almost equally selected from The Police and Sting releases, and it was a nice feeling to be able to watch Sting performed the old songs. The sound quality was good (I found that The Charlatans was much noisier than Sting). The stage layout was nice, with brilliant but not overdone ceiling and background lighting. The weather was friendly as well, little rain but still tolerable. Overall, I had a very nice evening.

The complete set list:
- Message In A Bottle
- Synchronicity II
- If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
- Walking On The Moon
- Englishman In New York
- Shape Of My Heart
- Driven to Tears
- Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
- Why Should I Cry For You
- Fields Of Gold
- A Day In The Life
- If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
- Voices Inside My Head
- Solo
- When The World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
- Roxanne/So lonely
-----------------------
- Desert Rose
- Every Breath You Take
- Next To You
- Fragile

Oslo, Norway

June 2-5, 2006

In a long weekend of Pentecost Day me, my wife, and two friends of us spent nice spring weather in Oslo, capital of Norway. It was not a really well-planned and well-learned holiday, we just booked the tickets and hotels and flew there. It quite different with our normal vacations, where we searched information about nice and interesting places to see at our holiday destination.

Me and my wife flew to Oslo from Schiphol on Friday evening after office hour. It was a quick flight, about 1.5 hours, after a long wait during the check-in. We arrived quite late in Oslo Gardermoen airport. Before landing we saw beautiful scenery of sunset over hilly landscape of Norway. The airport itself is quite small but nicely designed, especially for cold winter weather. Most of the external doors are double and it has wooden floor.

We took express train from the airport to Oslo central station. The train was very modern, clean, and fast. We travelled through green hills and small villages and some tunnels before reaching the city. The Oslo station building was not very impressive. It was shabby and looked quite old. We waited for our friends there before taking the bus to our hotel. For first two nights we stayed at Radisson SAS Park Hotel. It was located in nice green area quite outside the city, about 20 minutes by bus.

We started pretty early on our first morning in Oslo, full of spirit to explore the city. After a nice and filling breakfast in the hotel we took the bus and alighted near the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace is the residence of the Norwegian Royal Family. It is a yellowish big building with a park at the back and a nice view to Karl Johans Gate at the front side. From the palace we walked through the Karl Johans Gate, the main avenue in Oslo that laid from the palace until the train central station. Along the way we passed the National Theater building, university building, nice park with fountain and statues, and the parliament building.

From Karl Johans Gate we walked to the City Hall building. It is a big red brick building with twin towers, a good landmark located by the waterfront of the Oslofjord. The front side of the City Hall building has U-shape and is decorated with wooden friezes about Norse mythology. The inside part of the building is mainly a big reception hall where the annual Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held. The walls are decorated with colorful paintings.

Oslo City Hall

Behind the City Hall we directly reached the Oslofjord with view of Akershus Fortress on the left side, modern harbour part Aker Brygge and Nobel Peace Center building on the right side. We had a wonderful bright shiny day on that morning to enjoy the scenery of the harbour.

Because of the perfect weather, we decided to visit Frogner Park and Vigeland Sculpture Park that is located inside the Frogner Park. We took the tram from the Aker Brygge that passed through shopping and residential streets of Oslo before reached the park. The Vigeland Park maybe the most famous park in Norway. It was designed by Gustav Vigeland, a Norwegian sculptor. There are 212 sculptures in bronze and granit that modelled by Vigeland himself. The theme of the sculptures is 'human life'. They were divided into several parts: the Bridge with mostly sculptures about children, the Fountain, the Monolith Plateau, and the Wheel of Life.

The Monolith in Vigeland Park

We already could see the Monolith from the bridge while we were enjoying the detail human interpretation in the statues. The most popular statue on the bridge is Sinnataggen, the 'Angry Boy'.

The Angry Boy in Vigeland Park

The Fountain is located more or less in the center of the park, very relaxing place thanks to the water fountain and nice wide green parks on both sides of the fountain. Some people were enjoying the sun on the green grass, also some were doing the sport and there was also a cheerleader group practicing there (who got some applauses from the tourists on difficult acrobatic movements).
The best part of the park is the Monolith Plateau. It is located higher than the other parts of the park. There are 36 granit statues arranged in 12 lines along rising circular stairs and the 17 m high monolith on the top of the circle. The circular shape somehow reminded me to Borobudur temple in Central Java that has similar circular shape.

A statue in the Monolith Plateau, Vigeland Park

The statues still have humanic theme, mostly showing adults in different poses. The monolith also carved with human shapes that intertwine with each other.
Walk further from the Monolith we saw a sundial that decorated with zodiac figures, and at the furthest part of the park stands the Wheel of Life, a sculpture of women, men, and children holding on each other as wheel.
More detail information about Vigeland (the person and the park) can be found here.

From the park we went back to Aker Brygge for a quick lunch. After lunch we took boat to visit Bygdøy, a peninsula on the west part of the city. There are several popular museums in Bygdøy. From the stop of the boat we walked through a street with nice wooden houses until we arrived at Viking Ship Museum. It is a small museum, showing three wooden Viking ships that were used for burial in the Viking era around 9th century. Two of the ships (Oseberg and Gokstad ships) were still in a good shape and we could see the detail of the boat design. The museum also displayed items that were found from the ships, for example the burial chamber, small boats, and several grave goods.

From the Viking Ship Museum we walked to different corner of the peninsula to visit Kon-Tiki Museum. This museum showed boats from Thor Heyerdahl expeditions, the Kon-Tiki raft and the papyrus boat Ra II. Ra II was located in the first room, where we also could follow the story of the expeditions, how the team designed and built the papyrus boats (Ra I and Ra II) as well as the expedition trip description crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Marocco to Barbados.
In the next room we could see the Kon-Tiki balsa raft, that was used by Heyerdahl and the crews crossing the Pacific from Peru to the Tuamotus archipelago. Besides these two main expeditions, we also could see some findings from Heyerdahl's later expeditions to the Easter Island, Polynesia, and Galapagos.
Personally I found the Kon-Tiki Museum was much more interesting to visit than the Viking Ship Museum.

There is another museum located in front of the Kon-Tiki Museum, the Fram Museum. It showed the Fram, a ship that was used by Amundsen to reach the South Pole. We did not enter this museum, just looked briefly the big ship from the entrance, before we took the boat back to the Aker Brygge.

Aker Brygge

The last trip on that first day was a short Oslofjord boat tour. We went with a boat circling the fjord with some explanations by the tour guide. We had a nice view of Oslo and the Bygdøy peninsula from the boat.

After a short rest in the hotel, we went out again for dinner. We aimed for a decent meal with reasonable price due to very expensive food price in Oslo. We visited the area near the train station and found a traditional Indian restaurant in a quite 'international' neigbourhood. They served quite authentic Indian food, curry and tandoori, complete with the traditional Roti Prata. After the dinner we back to the hotel to get our sleep.

The second day, again we started with nice breakfast from the hotel. It was the last breakfast in the Radisson hotel because we moved to KNA Scandic hotel that located nearer to the Oslo city center.
After got our room in the Scandic hotel, we went to the train station. We planned to go out from Oslo because we already visited most touristic places in Oslo on the first day. Unfortunately the train ticket price was quite expensive to visit some far places, so we decided to take local train to Kløfta, a village between Oslo and Gardermoen airport. With a very minimum knowledge about the place, we walked around the village, found nothing interesting at all, only in the end we arrived in a church on a small hill. The church had cemetery complex surrounding it, and we just sat on a bench enjoying the graves while eating our snacks. Quite an experience, had a picnic in cemetery!
From Kløfta we took the train back to Oslo and we stopped at Lillestrøm, a suburb of Oslo. It was bigger than Kløfta, and we spent a short time enjoying the peaceful riverside near the train station before we continued our trip back to Oslo.

In the evening we went to the area near the train station, again to find a place for dinner. We found a nice Vietnam restaurant that served quite real Vietnamese food. I found the pho was very good, more or less the same taste as the pho in Indonesia.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel via the Oslo Cathedral and through the long Karl Johans Gate until the National Theater.

Akershus Fortress

The last day, we started also with a nice breakfast from another hotel. We had a relax planning then because we only had about half day anyway before we need to go to the airport. After breakfast we walked to the Akershus Fortress. There is a castle inside the fortress, which was quite beautiful and had several rooms and things to see, for example royal mausoleum where King Haakon VII and King Olav V were buried with their wifes.
The fortress itself gave nice view to the Oslofjord as well as the city of Oslo.

From the Akershus at the seaside we took the tram continued by local train to visit a much higher place in Oslo, Holmenkollen hill where the ski jump arena is located. From there we could see the Oslofjord until far away in the horizon.

Holmenkollen Ski Jump

Back to the city of Oslo, we had lunch in a local restaurant. I had typical Scandinavian meatballs with mashed potato and peas. Actually it was the only time we ever had local food in Oslo. After lunch we picked our bags in the hotel and rushed away to get the train to the airport. In the airport we spent our last Norwegian Kroner on ice creams and a piece of bread. Then we flew back to Holland, enjoying the scene of the Oslofjord for the last time from the plane.

Rembrandt - Caravaggio Exhibition

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
20 May 2006

It's been a while since we visited Amsterdam the last time, and last week we 'need' to go to the big old city two times. The first visit was to meet my good friend from Indonesia. It was a quick visit on Thursday evening. We walked around the famous Red Light District and had a dinner in the Chinatown area. Then we walked to the Dam and went back to the train station. We got delicious pempek from Indonesia, thanks!

The following Saturday we went to Amsterdam again. We visited the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition in Van Gogh Museum. The exhibition was an effort to compare the masterpieces from both great artists side by side, who worked using similar Impressionist style that use lots of light on their paintings.

Before went to the Museumplein, we had Chinese dim sum for lunch. It was not really special, but good enough so we decided to have dinner there after the museum visit. After lunch we took tram to go to Museumplein, and we arrived on time to queue. It turned out to be a popular event based on the long of the queue, and it was full as well inside. Sometimes we need to 'fight' to get to the front of the paintings.

They provided audio tour from where we got explanation in detail and background story for every paintings. The exhibition itself was located on two levels. There were several highlights on the first floor. There was betrayal topic, where we could see the Betrayal of Christ by Caravaggio placed side by side with the Denial of St. Peter by Rembrandt. On the other corner there was seductive women topic, which compared the Blinding of Samson by Rembrandt and the Judith and Holofernes by Caravaggio.

The second floor provided more interesting paintings. The Abraham's Sacrifice by both artists, the emotional expressions on A Schoolboy at His Desk by Rembrandt and A Boy Bitten by Lizard by Caravaggio, and the peaceful Jewish Bride by Rembrandt.

As an extra, there was another floor that filled in by stories connecting Van Gogh to Rembrandt. It was interesting to know that Van Gogh, who claimed that he could only paint real and current events and not something from the past, was still influenced by Rembrandt, artist from two centuries before him. It was known that Van Gogh used to stay in front of the Jewish Bride painting when he visited Rijksmuseum. In the end of his life he adapted the Raising of Lazarus painting by Rembrandt into his own style. It was known as his last work before he passed away.

After about two hours enjoying the paintings, we walked from the Museumplein to the Leidseplein. We stopped there to get some drinks at the nice outdoor seat, enjoying the spring weather of Amsterdam. Then we walked back to the China town area to have our dinner.

Exhibition website: Rembrandt Caravaggio website

50 Years TU Eindhoven

April 27-28, 2006

Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Eindhoven Technical University (TU/e) was held big, not only in the university but also in the Eindhoven city center.

At the Eindhoven city square there was a big stage for two days. This was the biggest stage I've ever seen in the Eindhoven city center. And for these two days there were live music on that stage, totally free for everyone!

The headline at the first night was BLØF, one of the most popular Dutch bands. They played for around two hours from 10 pm until midnight. The city square was totally packed with people, students as well as older people. The performance was great. Although I was not very familiar with their songs, but BLØF surely can be considered as good musicians.
The sound quality was almost perfect, non-stop music for two hours. The stage lighting also good, with a wide screen at the center background.
For you who are not familiar with BLØF, their style is kind of U2 and Coldplay combined together, with Dutch lyrics.

The second night was totally different atmosphere. The music was from Philips Symphony Orchestra with Celtic Tenors for some vocals and Geert Chatrou for some whistles. The stage was arranged for full orchestra, and they played broad selections, from famous Dutch songs until Broadway musical pieces. The Celtic Tenors sang Yesterday and Hey Jude from The Beatles, some Spanish and musical pieces, Nessun Dorma, Danny Boy, and closed the show with We Are The Champions.

Those were very nice evenings, free concerts with big stage and good quality artists. Congratulations for TU/e!

The Musical Box - The Final Lamb Tour 2006

De Vereeniging, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
12 January 2006

In my opinion not only a few progressive rock fans know that there is a band that being authorized by Genesis members and Peter Gabriel to reenact the old time Genesis shows. The band is called The Musical Box, originally from Canada, which was since 1993 performing Genesis shows from Foxtrot until The Lamb era. Their tours were mostly successful, with many sold out and extra shows, and particularly the recent The Lamb Lies on Broadway tour in Europe was appreciated very well by the European fans.

The old and present Genesis members also appreciate the existence of The Musical Box. Steve Hackett once played with them for an encore, and in 2005 in Geneva Phil Collins sat behind the drum kit to perform The Musical Box (ah yes..this is a song title :)).

Realizing these facts, I grabbed my chance to watch them during their final Lamb Tour in Europe. They planned to perform three shows in Holland (in Amsterdam, Den Haag, and Nijmegen). Based on the show date and location, I chose the show in Nijmegen. The hall (De Vereeniging) has classic appearance that I thought can give more old time nuances for the show.

For me watching The Lamb in live actually would never be possible, because the original show was dated before my birth date :). So this show was really something worth it, also because I consider The Lamb is one of Genesis best albums.

So there I was, entering De Vereeniging with my wife from a cold winter night in Nijmegen. The hall lobby already quite full of people but the environment was relax, no rushing because everybody had numbered seat. I spent some times looking at tour souvenirs, t-shirts, tour book, CD of David Myers (the keyboard player of The Musical Box) performing Genesis songs in piano. I bought a shirt with The Slipperman image at the front side and at the Lamia image with list of countries visited in the tour at the back side. Then we entered the hall.

The hall was really old-fashioned, rectangle-shaped with arranged chairs facing the stage and balcony seats at the three rectangle sides. The stage was already set for the show, all the will-be-used instruments already placed. Most of the audiences were quite old, I think around 40-45 in age. So we were quite the youngest ones there. Our seats was at the sixth row in the right section from the stage, pretty close and nice view of the stage, except that the people sitting in front of us were quite tall. I waited impatiently for the show to start.

(Note that here I refer to original Genesis members name, for the sake of perfect imagination of Genesis show.)
Then they entered! It was very real, Peter Gabriel narrated the intro story about Rael and then they performed The Lamb Lies on Broadway. The lighting and slides show were exact replicas of the original show, even the costumes also were 70's style.
The performed songs were followed the original order of the album, and Peter Gabriel changed costumes for several songs. The musical skills were perfect and it was very nice to watch the old instruments being played. I enjoyed the most watching Mike Rutherford (left-handed, but with same skill) with double neck guitar and the bass pedals, and Phil Collins (almost identical, bald, left-handed, and similar voice) with the complex drums and percussions set. And off course the frontman, with unique vocal style and theatrical expressions.

The highlights were Fly On A Windshield (with Peter's smoking style during 'smoking Winston cigarettes' part), Cuckoo Cocoon (Peter only had his head visible, singing and playing flute on the stage floor), In The Cage (the best song..nice drums sound), and sensual slideshows during Counting Out Time.

After The Chambers of 32 Doors, Peter Gabriel narrated the story again for the last time before the second half of the show. The second part was more theatrical, with colorful Lamia cone, Slipperman character (Peter needed to pump some balloons for this one), and off course the wonderful-powerful It. At the ending part of this song the played instruments were only drums, bass guitar, and keyboard, and it struck me to see only those three existed Genesis members (you know who they are!).

After the complete Lamb Lies album, they performed The Musical Box and Watcher of the Skies as encores. The Musical Box was brilliantly played, with introduction narration about Henry and Cynthia, perfect instrumental parts, and nice ending with Henry as an old man (with the old man voice singing ...she's a lady, she is mine..brush back your hair, and let me get to know your flesh... until collapsed after repeated now, now, now, now).

Watcher of the Skies sounded much more majestic than the studio version. Peter Gabriel wore a colorful robe and a mask, acting as the watcher. With powerful bass and drums, this song was really the best one for closing the show.

I conclude it was a brilliant show. I expect to watch The Musical Box again in 2007, performing Selling England by the Pound as their farewell tour.

The Musical Box:

François Gagnon as Steve Hackett
Electric guitar
6 strings acoustic guitar
12 strings acoustic guitar

Sébastien Lamothe as Mike Rutherford
Bass
12 strings electric guitar
Bass pedals
Back vocals

Denis Gagné as Peter Gabriel
Vocals
Flute
Oboe
Percussions

Martin Levac as Phil Collins
Drums
Percussions
Vocals

David Myers as Tony Banks
Keyboards
12 strings acoustic guitar
Back vocals

Napoli and Pompeii

December 29-31, 2005

This is the last part of the story about the Italy trip after the first part in Toscana and the second part in Rome.
After a rainy morning in Rome, we drove to Napoli. The weather on the road was not getting better, even at some points we had snow. Entering Napoli, once again we were confronted with complex highways and only after several wrong directions we could find the correct way to the hotel in Castel Volturno, a village near the coast, about 45 minutes driving from Napoli. On the way there we drove via nice landscape of Napoli. The city of Napoli is located on a bay and it has hills surrounding the city. The highway was on the hills so we could see the whole city.

We arrived at the hotel around six in the evening. After a quick rest we went out for dinner. We asked to the receptionist at the hotel about the nice food, and we were suggested to go to Pozzuoli, a small town between Castel Volturno and Napoli. We went to a restaurant in the main road in Pozzuoli after we rounded the city hopelessly trying to find the harbour. The menu covers quite wide selection of pizzas and pastas, as well as seafood dishes. We ordered combination of pizza, pasta, and fish. The food was nice and we could see how the pizzas were made from the dough until finished from the oven. After dinner we went back to the hotel because it was raining the whole evening so we would not be able to enjoy anything in Pozzuoli.

In the following day, we spent most of the times in Pompeii. We started early in the morning and had our breakfast at a small cafe in Pompeii. After that we entered the famous historical ruined Roman city of Pompeii that buried under the ashes from the eruption of Vesuvius. We started from the west part of the complex, where the amphitheater is located. The amphitheater was used by Pink Floyd to film the Live at Pompeii.

Teatro Grande, Pompeii

We explored the area further, looking at what used to be houses and streets. There were also big buildings, such as the theaters, the gladiator barrack, the city square, and old temples. In the end we visited the Villa of Mysteries, one of the big villas in the area. It was a nice big building that used to be owned by upper class people in Roman time.

We went out from the excavation area around lunch time, and we had quick lunch in our way back to the car. And then we had to decide where to go next. The options were to visit the coast area of Amalfi or to climb the Vesuvius. We chose the Vesuvius, and there we went. Unfortunately we could not climb until very high because at a point the road was covered by snow and our car could not perform very well on snowy road. Finally we drove downhill, back to Napoli.

The Forum, Pompeii

That night we stayed in a hotel in the city of Napoli. It was raining for the whole evening, so we only went out to the main streets of Napoli and had a dinner. It was not a very nice city to visit actually, very crowded and very busy traffic.

And that was it. The following morning we took the train back to Rome to catch our flight back to Eindhoven.

Rome

27-29 December 2005

This is the continuation of previous story about our Italy trip. The first part can be found here.

After visiting nice cities in Toscana, we visited Rome, the famous beautiful city and the capital of Italy. The first time we entered the city, Rome reminded me about Jakarta, with the busy highways and traffic jams. Luckily we reserved a hotel that is not located in the city center so we did not need to spend hours on the streets. The hotel provides shuttle bus to the nearest metro station so it was convenient for us.

We arrived some times before dinner time in the hotel, so we took the metro to the city center to have dinner. It was rainy in the whole evening so we could not do much sightseeing. We decided to stop at Barberini metro stop, and had dinner in the Hard Rock Cafe at Via Veneto. The street is a famous street of Rome, full of high-class restaurants and hotels. The HRC was full of people as usual, and we needed to wait for about half an hour before got our table.

After dinner we hurrily walked back to the metro to catch the last shuttle bus to the hotel. Once we reached the platform it turned out that there was no metro at our direction. We went back to the street and luckily could get a bus to Termini station, the main Rome station and the only metro junction. We managed to take the metro heading to the hotel and catched the last shuttle bus to the hotel. But that was quite a tense evening, first night in Rome and struggled about the transportation.

We started early on the second day because we had an important appointment with an important person...the Pope Benedict XVI! We attended the papal audience that is held every Wednesday morning. Before visiting the Vatican we were split, me and my wife went to Termini station to buy train ticket for next trip between Naples and Rome and the other two of us went to Santa Susanna to collect the ticket for the papal audience. We spent quite some times to obtain the ticket, and when we arrived at Vatican it was already quite crowded, especially the queue to the Vatican Museum.

St. Peter's Basilica

Even though, we still managed to stop in a souvenir shop to buy rosaries and postcards before entering the famous St. Peter's square. The front-half of the enormously wide square was arranged of chairs for the audience, and almost half of the area was already full of people. To avoid undesirable things, we needed to pass metal detector before entering the square.

After little struggle finding best place, we managed to get seats quite in the back rows, already near the obelisk at the center of the square. The stage at the entrance of St. Peter's Basilica looked so far from our seat. But it was still a good place because it was near the alley that was the entrance route of the Pope.

We waited about an hour in the cold windy square before finally the Pope arrived. As being reported in the medias, he was wearing camauro, the traditional Pope's cap that was used the last time in 1963. Applaused by the crowd, the Pope sat on the stage and begun the audience procession. It basically contained welcome messages from the Pope to pilgrim groups from all over the world. The introduction messages were announced by several different priests in different languages and then for each languages the Pope greeted the groups, which were always replied by the targetted groups. We could follow the speeches on the large screens on both sides of the square.

Swiss Guard, the army of Vatican

After the greetings, the Pope met one of the pilgrim groups on the stage, meanwhile the audience started leaving the square. We left the square and went to the post office to buy Vatican stamps for sending postcards.
From Vatican city we went to Castel Sant'Angelo, a castle on the side of Tiber river. In front of the castle lays Ponte Sant'Angelo, a beatiful bridge crossing the Tiber. At both sides of the bridge we could see angel statues designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. While crossing the bridge we could see the St. Peter's Basilica in a distance. It was a very nice view of the Tiber, the castle, and the dome of basilica from the other side of the bridge. The only minus point was that the bridge was full of tents selling souvenirs so we could not really expose the beauty of the bridge.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Heading further away from Vatican to the center of Rome, we stopped for lunch at a small pizza restaurant. One thing to be noticed in Rome, in every restaurants there is additional service fee on top of the food price. The extra can be quite big and shocking if we are not prepared :).
Back to the journey, after the nice warm pizzas we walked further to Piazza Navona. This is a nice crowded square hidden by surrounding buildings. There are two fountains at both ends of the square and one main fountain in the middle. The main fountain, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers), is another Bernini's creation. Symbolizing four great rivers (Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio de Plata), the fountain has statues of river gods, animals, and on top of it an obelisk with a dove at the top. The other two fountains are Fontana di Nettuno and Fontana del Moro, less spectacular then the main fountain but still beautiful and fit very will with the piazza.

Fountain of the Four Rivers, Piazza Navona

From Piazza Navona we walked via the small streets of Rome to the Pantheon. The huge building was originally a Roman temple and converted into a Christian church in the seventh century. The entrance is constructed by pillars and the main building is round shaped roofed by dome with a central hole (oculus), which serves as the natural light source. The inside walls were full with statues and paintings. Despite the building size, I found the Pantheon was not so attractive.

From the Pantheon we went to the Roman Forum. We passed the monument of Victor Emmanuel II and Cordonata staircase before reaching Capitoline Hill, one of the hills in Rome with a temple from Roman era. The Forum was located behind the hill and we had a nice view of the complete area from the hill.
Entering the Forum, we walked around the historical ruins, looked at the remaining pilars of old temples. At one point we met a free guided tour so we joined the tour to hear explanation about the ruins. After the tour was finished we walked through Via Sacra to the Colosseum. It was almost dark when we reached at the Colloseum, and then it was suddenly raining, so we rushed to a bus stop and hopped in to the bus.

Roman Forum

In the evening we back to Vatican to visit the St. Peter's Basilica. The interior of the basilica was spectacular. It was very big and full of beautiful masterpiece arts, such as the pieta by Michelangelo, the canopy over the altar by Bernini and many statues and chapels. Unfortunately in the evening we could not enter the dome.

From Vatican we went back to city center and visited the famous Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. The area surrounding the Spanish Steps are shopping streets so it was nice to walk there until reaching the Trevi fountain. The fountain is large, with nicely crafted wall with statues about Neptune. It was crowded with people, because the fountain is famous for throwing coin legend. One coin could ensure you will return to Rome.
From the fountain we took the bus and then the metro to back to the hotel.

Trevi Fountain

The last day in Rome, we planned to visit the Vatican Museums in the morning. But the queue was incredibly long, so we cancelled the plan and we decided to enter the Colloseum to spend the morning. There was a guided tour inside the Colloseum, which explained the history and several different materials used to build the huge gladiator arena. We explored several levels of the tribune before we went out and back to the hotel to collect the car.

The Colloseum

It was the last trip in Rome before we continued to Naples and Pompeii.