Texel Island

May 25-28, 2007

During the Pentecost weekend, we rented a bungalow with some friends in Texel, a small island on the North Holland. It was my second longest self-driving trip after the Zeeland trip on Easter. We started on Friday after office hour, directly drove from Den Bosch after I picked up Sri at the train station. Due to peak hour plus beginning of the long weekend, the traffic was quite bad. We drove through the busy part of the country, Utrecht and Amsterdam. Luckily the traffic was better on the north side of Amsterdam. We used the highway passing Purmerend and Hoorn until we arrived at Den Helder, where we took the ferry to Texel island. The trip from Den Bosch took about 3 hours and it was around 9 in the evening when we boarded on the ferry.

The ferry was huge, at least compared with the familiar ferries serving Java-Madura or Java-Bali routes in Indonesia. The Texel ferry had two floors for cars and another floor for passengers. I think the ferry could load more than 200 cars on one trip. The crossing was pretty short, about 20 minutes. The weather that evening was good and some people attracted the seagulls by throwing bread on them.

Landed on Texel, we drove through the flat landscape of the island in the twilight sunset. Somehow it was not so easy to find the bungalow, due to incorrect ending point on our driving route direction. We got lost in the middle of nowhere on a narrow village roads. Fortunately our friends already arrived in the bungalow and we got guidance via phone call until finally we could reach it.

The bungalow was actually part of a farmhouse, converted as a guesthouse by the owner. It was located near De Waal, a very small village in the middle of the island. The house was well maintained and clean. It had a spacious living room with kitchen and three bedrooms. We got a bedroom at the attic with slanted roof. One minus point was that the toilet was combined in the bathroom, not really handy for 6 persons.

On Saturday, all of us woke up pretty late. After brunch we drove to the nearest beach from the bungalow, on the east side of the island. It was called 'surfer beach', although no one surfed and in fact it was empty. There were several Texel sheep on the grass near the beach and there were lots of shells on the sea line.

Texel sheep

Next we went to De Koog, the most touristic village in Texel. The center of the village was quite big, with several restaurants, shops, and bike rentals. It was quite crowded by tourists. We walked in the center for a while and did small shopping in the supermarket.

The next visit was Ecomare, the nature center of Texel. It was located near to De Koog, in the National Park Dunes of Texel. In Ecomare we could see many things related to the nature life of Texel and North Sea. The building had three floors. After the entrance gate we could see several small artifacts of ancient habitat in Texel, animation of evolution of Texel land and sea for the last 1500 centuries, and some models of animals that live or lived in Texel including one real-size rhinoceros from many centuries ago.
The adjacent room provides information and animations about exploitation of the North Sea.

Outside the building we found seals and birds sanctuaries. The seals were located in several pools. We arrived in time to see the feeding time. While throwing fresh herring to the seals, the caretaker told some information about the seals. Some of the seals were already quite old and some were blind. The caretaker showed that a seal was blind by attracting a fish in front of it. The seal could not see the fish, only when the fish was close enough for it to smell, then it ate the fish. One big seal growled like a dog to attract the caretaker to throw a fish to it.
The seals feeding time attracted most of the visitors to watch, as well as some seagulls that competed to get fish with the seals.

Seals feeding

After watching the feeding time, we visited the basement floor. There were several aquariums with small fishes, starfishes, and crab. There was also a hole to watch the seals in one of the pools, and an information board about different kind of seals and their location all over the world.

The upper level of the building hosted models of birds that could be found in Texel. I did not visit this floor, just saw them from the ground floor.

At the backside of the building, next to the seals sanctuary, we entered the dune. There were three different walk routes based on the total distance. Not having much spare time, we chose the shortest route, which was about 1 km walk. Along the path we could see the dune landscape with its typical bushes and few sea birds. At several spots there were some explanations about the dune, how it stores water beneath the surface and how people in the past maintained and exploited the dune.

The dune of Texel

The walking path led us back to Ecomare. We entered the building again. Me and Sri visited a storm animation corner where we could experience the storm in Texel on large projector screen and the howling wind sound. After that we back to the car, right on the closing time of Ecomare.

We spent the evening back in De Koog. We walked through the city center to the seaside. The sandy beach was quite wide and very long. It's a pity that it was quite windy and cold, so we had no real interest to spend long time on the beach.
Walking back to the center, we found Noordzee restaurant and we decided to have our dinner there.

The dinner was pretty good. The restaurant served some interesting dishes. I chose Texel lamb trio: three pieces of lamb with natural meat sauce. The lamb was quite tender and had no distinctive lamb smell. We also had salad from the buffet, french fries, and fried eggplants accompanying the main dish.

After dinner we went back to the bungalow, then we played Carcassonne board game until quite late.

Combination of staying late the previous night, strong wind, and rain forced us to wake up late again on Sunday. We stayed inside the whole morning and only went out after lunch. We visited Oudeschild, a harbour village on the east side of the island, facing the Wadden Sea. We walked along the harbour, where there were several sailing trip operators to see the seals on a shrimp-catcher ship.
Next to the harbour, there was Maritime Museum. Unfortunately it was closed during the Pentecost weekend. We entered few souvenir shops before we back to the car and drove away from Oudeschild.

We took a route following the coastline of the island heading to the northeast. We reached another village at the north side of the island, called De Cocksdorp. We stopped for a while there and walked to the seaside, but the wind was so strong we could not stand it. We drove further to the north to visit the Texel lighthouse. On the way there, we stopped by in a restaurant to drink coffee and warm chocolate milk.
The lighthouse was not open for public, so we only saw it from a distance. Next to it, there was a wide sandy beach. But again it was too windy to play on the beach.

Texel Lighthouse

We drove back to the bungalow and spent the evening inside. We cooked for dinner, and played Carcassonne and Cartagena.

The weather was not improving on Monday, which was our last day in Texel. Again we stayed until lunch in the bungalow, finishing our food stock for breakfast and lunch. After packed our stuffs and cleaned the house, we spent another time to play Cartagena for the last round.
Before leaving the island, we stopped at a farmhouse to buy asparagus.

We took slightly different route when drove home. Instead of taking the highway, we drove through regional road via Alkmaar, passing green fields and saw few tulip fields from afar. After Alkmaar we switched to the highway via Schiphol and drove further south, back to Eindhoven.

It was a nice relaxing weekend, lots of sleep. It would be perfect if the weather were a bit nicer.

Easter in Zeeland

Vlissingen, Domburg, Yerseke, 7 April 2007

During the Easter long weekend, we spent the Saturday by visiting south-west seaside of Holland in the Zeeland province. We went with some colleagues of Sri and we drove to get there. We started around 8 in the morning in Eindhoven, heading west on the good highways network of The Netherlands until we entered Zeeland after about 1.5 hours driving.

Since it was still quite early for Saturday morning, we went to Vlissingen, a harbour city at the corner of the province. Originally we planned to stop by at one of the villages around Vlissingen, but once we arrived there, the village was so small and we could not find anything open at that time.
At Vlissingen, we strolled in the city center for a short while and then visited the seaside. It was the second time I've been there. The seaside was quite nice, with a long walking path on the dam that was built as a protection wall for the city center. There was a small windmill on the seaside and there were some old cannons pointed to the sea.
After enjoying the seaside we crossed the gate to the inside harbour and entered a nice cafe to have some nice coffee and warm chocolate milk.


Vlissingen Seaside and Harbour

From Vlissingen, we drove through the flat scenery of Vlissingen and some small villages to Domburg. Domburg is a small beach resort that was quite popular, reflected by the crowds when we arrived there. We parked the cars within walking distance to the city center and walked to the beach, passing the main roads in the city center. The city was full of tourists, mainly local and from Germany.

Domburg has a very long seashore, which was divided into blocks by wooden fences that have connecting gates between the blocks so people still can walk along the seaside.
We settled ourselves in the nearest block we reached from the city. Yang Yang, daughter of CK, directly played with sand and the adults directly played with Frisbee and fake rugby ball.
We stayed on the beach until around lunch time, invented new games and activities including running to the fence and throw-catch-jump movements with the rugby ball.

Some activities on the beach at Domburg

We went back to the city center for lunch. The choices for lunch were not so many, consisted of several touristic restaurants and one very crowded fish corner. Decided not to wait too long in the queue, we entered one of the restaurants. The menu listed several pasta and pizza selections as well as salads and lunch breads. In the end majority of us chose the Italian style. I ordered tuna pizza. Generally the food was OK, in standard of touristic food.

After lunch, we drove out from Domburg. Once again we drove through the small villages, this time to Neeltje Jans, part of the famous Delta Work dams. Reaching the Neeltje Jans (this is actually a tiny artificial island connecting two channels of Oosterscheldekering dam) from the south, we could see nice view of the two dam channels and the sea at both sides of the dam. We entered the Neeltje Jans Deltapark parking area, but it was not the perfect spot to see the dam. Sri asked for information at the ticket counter, and we were suggested to go to the other side of the dam for having a better view.

At the other side, which was the side facing the North Sea, we had a direct view to one part of the Oosterscheldekering dam. It was very nice view with several wind turbines in the surrounding area. We walked until quite close to the dam but we did not enter it.

Oosterscheldekering Dam from Neeltje Jans

From the Neeltje Jans, we drove back heading to the south-east. We visited Yerseke, a small village between Goes and Reimerswaal. The village is famous for mussel and oyster trading. Every year, usually in August, there is a Mussel Day festival in Yerseke. Unfortunately when we were there on late Saturday afternoon, the harbour was already deserted, while the restaurants had not opened yet. So we could not buy any mussel to bring back home, instead we went shopping at the open Albert Heijn supermarket in the city center.

From Yerseke we drove back home and we arrived back in Eindhoven around dinner time. It was short but very nice trip.

The Musical Box Plays Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

De Vereeniging, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
27 January 2007

Last year when I watched The Final Lamb Tour from The Musical Box, I read a promotion flyer with this information:
"The Musical Box - Selling England by the Pound Farewell Tour 2007". Very pleased with their performance in the Lamb Lies show, I really had expected the Selling England show especially because it is my favourite Genesis album.
Last autumn I found out that the ticket was already on sale and I bought two tickets for the show in De Vereeniging, Nijmegen. This time I planned to watch the show with Chris, my colleague who is also fans of Genesis.

Based on previous setlist of Selling England shows either by The Musical Box or Genesis, I prepared myself with the songs so I could be one hundred percent into the show. I played the setlist almost everyday until the big day. I appreciated more and more the Selling England album, the brilliance of the composition and melody of the songs.

The show in De Vereeniging took place in the cold winter Saturday in the end of January. I decided to travel by train from Eindhoven and walked the short distance from Nijmegen train station to De Vereeniging. The hall lobby was full of people because the show was sold out. I met Chris near the entrance. Before entering the hall, we put our jackets in the wardrobe and I also managed to buy a tour t-shirt and a CD of David Myers, the keyboard player of The Musical Box, who played Genesis songs on grand piano.

Entering the half-full hall, we climbed the stair to the right side balcony where our seats were. We got seats at the first row of the balcony and it turned out to be very close to the stage. The view was very great, no obstacle whatsoever to the complete stage. Even it was a second-class seat, I found it was better than my first class seat during the Lamb Lies tour last year. Moreover, we had good view of the hall from the balcony, from where we could see how the hall became full until its maximum capacity, about 1450 people.

Note: Since I believe that The Musical Box is almost as real as Genesis, from now on I will use Genesis members name in the story.

From the balcony I also had a great view of the stage layout. The stage had white-coloured nuance with nine hourglass shaped structure for the background.
The keyboard and mellotron set was located more or less under our seats. Next to that, a bit further back on the stage I could see the drums set with some percussions hanged next to it. More to the center, there was a microphone stand for Peter Gabriel, with a side table for his flute and tambourine, and a base drum on the floor. Next to the microphone I could see the bass pedal that would be used by Mike Rutherford. The famous Rickenbaker double-neck guitar (one neck is a bass and another is guitar) was also ready for action. At the furthest corner, a small chair was prepared for Steve Hackett surrounded by his complex effect pedals.

The show supposed to start at 8 o'clock, and it was late for about half an hour. But it was worth to wait when the lights were dimmed and Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford walked to the stage from behind the background. They all dressed in white, PC in a white overall like a carpenter.

After a short sound check, Tony Banks played the famous intro of Watcher of the Skies from Foxtrot album. In the darkness we could see Peter Gabriel entered the stage in his standard 'watcher of the skies' costume: colourful robe with a bat wing-shaped top and fluorescent goggle. When he started the first verse, the background showed images of eyes, perfect for the image of the watcher. This song was perfect as an opening although it was never my Genesis favourite song. I found that the live version was better, especially with majestic stage act from Peter Gabriel and the mellotron sound from Tony Banks.

At the ending of Watcher of the Skies, PG disappeared to the backstage until the song was finished and the crowd gave a very warm applause. He wore a breastplate with Union Jack image and a knight helmet. After a short greeting to the audience and short explanation about the next song (he mentioned himself as the "pride of the British empire"), he started the famous opening of Dancing with the Moonlit Knight: "Can you tell me where my country lies?..."
This song was performed perfectly by the band, from the sweet melodic beginning part, through the complex sections in the middle with nice sound combination from Steve Hackett's guitar (with the tapping technique) and Tony Banks' mellotron, until the calm ending. The powerful voice of Peter Gabriel also made this song sounded very great.

The show continued with another short narration from Peter Gabriel about Romeo, who put his 'mushroom' under his armpit and later on put it in his mouth that gave him high sexual sensation, and Juliet, who was described as singing on a balcony with playing her breast that in the end had attracted Romeo, who then asked her to go to the cinema. This narration opened another great song from Selling England album: The Cinema Show.
With very peaceful beginning and nice vocal harmony from Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, this song was always one of my favorite. It really stuck in my mind when they started the part with the nice guitar harmony and Peter sang "Take a little trip back with father Tiresias...". On top of the great tune, the lighting show was great with the usage of a turning disco ball above the stage being lighted by two spotlights, which gave very nice green circling lights all around the hall.
The end of the song was fully instrumental part, where only the later-on-famous-trio played on the stage while Peter and Steve disappeared to the backstage. Three of them played the part flawlessly, especially the unique drums sound from Phil Collins.

After The Cinema Show, Peter Gabriel wore a British police hat with a straw in his mouth, acted as the lawn mower with the way he walked, and the band started the mowing intro of I Know What I Like. This popular song attracted the audience to join the singing meanwhile enjoying the act of Peter did the lawn mowing. Phil Collins also had good moments in this song with his percussions and backing vocals.

Same as the song order in the album, I Know What I like was followed with Firth of Fifth, opened with a short narration about the five rivers. The intro piano sound from Tony Banks as well as his solos in the middle parts were really wonderful, completed by great long guitar solo from Steve Hackett. For me the continuation from The Cinema Show until Firth of Fifth was one of the greatest parts of the show.

After those great four songs from Selling England, Peter Gabriel told a story about Henry and Cynthia. This led to another great song from Genesis that used as the name of the currently performing band: The Musical Box. I really enjoyed the performance of Peter Gabriel in this song, his theatrical expressions, his flute playing, and especially his act as the old man in the ending of the song with old man voice and final orgasm after singing "touch me now..now..now..now".
The musical part was also brilliant, with powerful guitar and bass sound from Mike Rutherford. I could see clearly how he moved his foot on the bass pedals.
The audience really enjoyed the performance and we gave great applause after the song.

The atmosphere was brought back to a quiet-calm stage when Steve Hackett performed Horizons. I expected this great guitar piece to be followed with the next song as in Foxtrot album. But it turned out that Peter back onstage wearing gangster stocking mask, an indication that they would perform a complex song from Selling England album: The Battle of Epping Forest. This lyrically difficult song was played brilliantly and stage act from Peter, punching and fighting with a stick, helped us to enjoy the performance even better.

After the Battle, Peter for the last time told a story. This time the story was about old Michael, which followed by majestic opening of Supper's Ready, a great combination of three 12-string guitars sound and Peter's vocal. This epic song from Genesis was performed with full emotion by the band. Musically it was perfect, with a chance to watch Mike Rutherford on his bass pedals again.
Peter Gabriel also gave us great acts. He changed costumes several times, wore crown of thorns during The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man section, flower mask in Willow Farm section (remember "A flower?" part), black robe with strange geometrical head mask in Apocalypse in 9/8, until open his black robe to reveal his shining white costume in the last section (As Sure As Eggs is Eggs).

Supper's Ready got the loudest and longest applause from the crowd, until finally the band back onstage for the encore. Peter Gabriel mentioned shortly, "The knife", and then the band played the heavy riff of The Knife from Trespass album. Having not many choices for the encore, The Knife suited perfectly with its heavy rock yet symphonic nuance.

Finally the show was ended. We were greatly entertained for about 150 minutes with wonderful songs and performance. I walked back to the station with the tune of The Knife playing endlessly in my head. It was a fantastic show!

Complete setlist:
- Watcher of the Skies
- Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
- The Cinema Show
- I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
- Firth of Fifth
- The Musical Box
- Horizons
- The Battle of Epping Forest
- Supper's Ready
-----------------
- The Knife


The Musical Box are:
Denis Gagné as Peter Gabriel: Vocals, Flute, Oboe, Percussions
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
Martin Levac as Phil Collins: Drums, Percussions, Vocals
David Myers as Tony Banks: Keyboards, 12 strings acoustic guitar, Back vocals

Ten things that kept me happy in 2006

Triggered by Pangeran Panda, here I continue the reflection of 2006.

Thus, these are 10 things that kept me happy in 2006:

1. My wife..of course, for keeping me happy and healthy with her cooking, keeping the house warm, and throwing ideas to make our life even happier :)
2. Indonesia..went home again for about 1 month, enjoying time wth families and friends, and of course...the food!
3. Kids/babies near or far: Jonathan, Stella, Daniel, Cory, Alvin. I could make thick photo albums only because of them :).
4. Iron Maiden, for the concert in Den Bosch last November, made my childhood dream come true to watch them live. Oh, the other shows in 2006 also were my happy moments: The Musical Box, Sting, Jamie Cullum, BLØF.
5. Travellings during the year: Oslo, Hongkong-Macau, Blokart in Wijk aan Zee, Kaasmaken. It always nice to see and experience new places, people, and things.
6. Friends, close or far. All the ngumpul-ngumpul and makan-makan. Discussions in the mailing lists, especially insane people in i-Rock!.
7. Sony Ericsson W800i. My travelling mate with nice music player, nice camera, and some times phone calls from my wife :).
8. The joyful choir, the practices, the songbook preparation, the fun, and off course the singing.
9. New car. This includes the searching period, browsing on the Internet, visiting showroom, until finally found the one.
10. Saturday Kitchen from BBC. I always feel happy to wake up on Saturday mornings, make breakfast, relax, and watch the brilliant cooking masters: Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Rachel, and the host James Martin.
    In general, all cooking programs on TV are great!

Those are the Ten. May be more...but let's keep it popular :).

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.