Genesis Turn It On Again Tour

Amsterdam ArenA, 1 July 2007

Genesis is really an old friend of mine. I have known them since 1987 when I was only 12 years old. At that time I bought a cassette of Genesis called 'The very best of Genesis vol. 2', produced locally by Aquarius Indonesia. I still remember how I enjoyed their songs from Duke, Abacab, until Invisible Touch albums. I also had a copy of the Invisible Touch video containing clips of almost all songs from the album.

Several years after that I still followed their activities. I enjoyed We Can't Dance album, with nice songs like Driving the Last Spike and Fading Lights. It was even better when they released The Way We Walk live albums. From then on I was captivated by their 'ancient' songs from the 70's, thanks to the old medley.

Since that moment, it seemed like I traveled back in time. Slowly, in between my passion for music from that period like Metallica, Megadeth, Helloween, and other heavy stuffs, I threw myself back to the progressive-rock era by listening to Seconds Out, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Archive 1967-75 box set.
After that there was no turning back, I collected their official albums completely plus the Archive box sets and the official DVD releases.
In the past two years I also got the chance to watch their 'reincarnation', The Musical Box. I watched them performed The Lamb Lies and Selling England shows.

With this prelude, I think you agree that I was one who got excited and happy when last year Genesis announced to back on stage in 2007. Well, not the most perfect formation, but we couldn't always get what we wanted, could we?

On a Saturday morning in November last year, I was one of the people who queued at the post office to get the ticket for Genesis' concert in Amsterdam ArenA, the only show in Holland. I got two tickets at the tribune, great!
Not much happening until few months back, when I bought the first Genesis SACD box set and re-shaped my memory of their songs with the wonderful 'new' sound of their albums between 1976-1982 period. I must admit that I really love this new SACD mix (kudos to Nick Davis).
I also got regular updates from Germany Genesis Fanclub website about the tour preparation and rehearsals, until finally they kicked out in Helsinki last month. After touring some cities in Europe, there came the first of July, when Genesis played the Amsterdam ArenA, and I was there!

It was a mild Sunday in the summer. It was not too hot and luckily it was not rain. I took the train from Eindhoven with my wife to Arena. We arrived there around half past seven in the evening. There were lots of people outside the ArenA, also at the queue to enter the stadium. The entrance process was smooth, no one bothered about digital pocket camera in the bag.

It was the first time I entered Amsterdam ArenA, the biggest stadium in Holland. It took already quite some energy to climb the stairs to reach the corridor of the tribune seats. Before entering the tribune, I bought a Genesis t-shirt. They also sold some interesting stuffs at the merchandise corner, including Anatomy Of A Tour book and Phil's The Long Goodnight documentary DVD.

After bought soft drinks and french fries, we entered the stadium. We got seats at the right-hand side tribune. Not until I checked the row number when I realized that our seats were at the highest row! We had a full view of the stadium and the stage, except the wide screen on the left-hand side.

The main stage was still hidden behind black curtain, but we could observe the whole stage layout. It was quite wide, with a wave-shaped background and two oval screens on both sides. There were seven metal towers soared above the background for lighting support. The festival area was almost full with people and it was not much different situation at the tribune.

About half past seven, the black curtain was removed. The main stage was not so big and the layout was a Genesis standard: Tony's keyboards at the right, two drums sets on the raised floor at the back, two pedal sets for Mike and Daryl, and center microphone stand. While the whole stadium was almost full, we still had to wait for another 45 minutes before the band hit the stage. It was pretty boring except for the light and the big screens testing.

But finally it started! No spectacular entrance, just the complete background turned on as white dotted lights, they kicked in with instrumental medley of Behind The Lines and Duke's End. Phil played drums, Mike took the center stage, and Tony was calm and serious as always. This instrumental opening was pretty good, I would say it was like a warming up for the band, kind of jamming session.

Behind The Lines

The second song was Turn It On Again, where Phil took the center stage. His vocal was still OK in spite of his age. I found these two opening songs from Duke were a perfect choice. After Turn It On Again, Phil shortly interacted with the audience, introduced Mr. Tony Banks and Mr. Mike Rutherford, warmly applauded by the crowd.

The following two songs were from newer era, No Son Of Mine and Land Of Confusion. The background was turned to a huge display screen, showed the ticking clock at the beginning of No Son Of Mine and the puppets during Land Of Confusion. The oval screens on both sides helped us on the tribune to watch 'closer' to the stage. It was nice to watch old Mike and white-haired Tony in action.

After those 'pop' songs, the band got down to real business with Phil started the familiar "I got sunshine in my stomach" line of In The Cage. Mike used his double neck for switching between guitar and bass. I enjoyed this part, Phil's vocal was good and the music was flawless. In The Cage was the first part of medley, where the instrumental part was smoothly moved to the instrumental part of The Cinema Show. Phil back behind his drums and they ended the medley with another smooth transition to Duke's Travels.

In The Cage

Almost as a continuation of the previous medley, the band played the calm Afterglow. It was another enjoyable moment for me since I always like this song from Wind and Wuthering album.

To maintain the stamina, at least in my opinion, they played another slow song, Hold On My Heart. Phil sat on a chair and the lights turned into pink-purple nuance, kind of romantic.

After two slow songs, Phil told his story about a scary house to begin the wonderful Home By The Sea suite. This song was performed perfectly. The visualization was brilliant, with images of the house, the face on the wall, and the ghosts animation. The sound was powerful, especially during Second Home By The Sea with double drums. The lighting was great, with raising spotlights on the light towers at the end of the song.

Home By The Sea

After a short stop, they performed Follow You Follow Me. Phil was playing drums while singing. This song was performed softly, even better with a nice simple animation showing characters from Genesis' album covers such as the Duke, walking son from We Can't Dance cover, sleeping lawn mower from Selling England, and Cynthia with her croquet stick from Nursery Crime.

Then came the second medley: Firth of Fifth - I Know What I Like. The performance was perfect, sounds great especially the solos from Daryl. What I like most from this song was the background slide, showing pictures of young Genesis faces, very nostalgic and touching. There were many pictures, combination of photo shoots and live pictures (including Gabriel's flower face from Supper's Ready). During Phil's tambourine dance, the background slide also showed the same dance but from around 25 years earlier!
At the end of the song, with reddened stage, there was a net being raised between the light towers, which made the stage looked like a huge crown. This medley was definitely my most favorite part of the show.


I Know What I Like

Mama, the next song, was good. Phil's sound and act were still worth watching. Especially because of his older look, the light show during the laughter part was terrific.

Not enough of old songs, the band performed the beautiful Ripples. Mike again used his double neck. We experienced another good performance of classic Genesis song, with nice green-yellowish light nuance and trees image background that reminded me to Roger Dean's art from albums of Yes. The crowd gave very warm applause at the end of this song.

Ripples

Back to the new era, Phil Collins chanted the popular intro of Throwing It All Away and surely followed by the crowd. Regardless of its pop style, this song is one of my Genesis favorites. The big screen showed candid shoots of the crowds during this song, gave us a very nice entertainment similar to what we usually get on sport live coverage. It was great to see people sang, then smiled or waved once they had known that they were on the screen.

Throwing It All Away

Another interaction with the audience, Phil explained his domino principle. Finally I was actively involved in this domino effect after watched it so many times in the DVD. The light was great, and the crowd responded eagerly.
The song itself was great. I enjoyed the calm first part and the powerful second part. Phil's vocal quality was still good. The visual effects were wonderful, showing falling domino pieces and Phil's face surrounded with light waves.

After the powerful Domino, the crew set up bar stool that placed between two drums sets. Then Phil and Chester performed the drum duet, this time started with the bar stool. I think the stool had a leather surface, which made the sound quite different. They gradually moved to the drums and performed the powerful and tight duet. The drum duet directly continued by Los Endos, a wonderful instrumental song from Genesis' progressive era. Once again I enjoyed Mike's double neck action. The background displayed fire flame animation, brilliant support to give progressive nuance.

Los Endos

After that the band performed their standard live songs, Tonight Tonight Tonight followed by Invisible Touch. They were nice as usual and Invisible Touch was one of crowd's favorite. I saw many people danced with this song.

Ending the Invisible Touch, the band went off the stage. Surely no one in the crowd agreed with this, so we shouted, clapped our hands, until finally we heard the electric drum intro of I Can't Dance. The sound effects were great, the walking was enjoyable, but for me the most wonderful aspect of this song was the background, where it displayed big size white walking Genesis at the beginning and then turned to many colorful of them at the end. Though I never really liked this song (honestly I booed at the end of this song) but still the performance could not be ignored.

I Can't Dance

After his dance at the end of I Can't Dance, Phil thanked Chester and Daryl, who got very warm applause from the audience. Then he announced the last song, mentioned that the song was very special for them. It was the beautiful Carpet Crawlers. Nothing could beat this nice calm song as the ending of the show, with very nice vocal harmony from the trio at the refrain.

Then it was over. We waited quite a while until we could walk down the tribune and walked in a hurry to catch our last train to home.

To conclude, off course it was a great show. It was not perfect, though. First of all, the acoustic of Amsterdam ArenA was terrible. From our place the echoes were enormous, sounded like there were two bands performed at both sides of the stadium at slightly different timing. Another thing that I could not totally appreciate was the neighboring crowd. It seems like there was a generation gap between some of them. Some people enjoyed the new songs and chatted, unfortunately quite loud, between themselves during the old songs. Some others loved the old songs and luckily they were wise enough to just keep quite during the new songs. So in the end I tend to appreciate old progressive fans than the young pop fans. Long live progressive rock!

Nevertheless, it was indeed a great show. The production was great, the lighting and the visual were beyond my expectation. The band was still great performers on the stage. Chester Thompson still very discipline with his tempo and Daryl Stuermer still sharp on the strings. Tony, Mike, and Phil were still solid as a team after 15 years break.

In the end, as an old friend, I would always remember this as a great show (have I mentioned it?). I cannot wait until they release the DVD from performance in Rome and also the next SACD box sets.

Genesis are:
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Vocals
Mike Rutherford - Guitars, Bass, Vocals

Supported by:
Chester Thompson - Drums
Daryl Stuermer - Guitars, Bass

Set list:
Behind The Lines / Duke's End
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Land Of Confusion
In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke's Travels
Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
Follow You Follow Me
Firth Of Fifth / I Know What I Like
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Invisible Touch
--------------------
I Can't Dance
Carpet Crawlers

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Roger Waters Performing the Dark Side of the Moon

Gelredome, Arnhem, 5 May 2007



This was the second time for me to watch a concert in Gelredome stadium in Arnhem. The situation before the concert was typical. I arrived about one hour before scheduled time on the ticket and the Arnhem train station was full with people who wanted to go to Gelredome. As usual the special shuttle buses were ready and we timidly (well...almost) queued to get in to the bus. Slightly different with concert of Coldplay two years ago, this time the majority was older people because this was the concert of the legendary Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. I think I was younger than the average age, due to the fact that I even had not yet born when Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon, which was planned to be performed completely by Roger that evening.

After a short ride with the bus, we were approaching the stadium. There was even more crowds at the location, some were already queuing to enter the arena, some were still enjoying the sunny weather. I bought my second Roger Waters t-shirt (the first one was a gift from Brain Damage, thanks!) and then I need to walk around half of the stadium to reach the correct entrance gate based on my ticket. This time I chose a seat at the furthest tribune from the stage but with frontal view so I could fully enjoy the visual entertainment of the concert.

When I entered, the field was already half full of people and most of the tribune seats were already occupied. The show that evening was sold out anyway.
My seat was quite low and a bit to the right from the central line to the stage. The stage was far, I think it was about 100 metres from my seat. I had a wide view of almost every thing, the only obstacle was two thick speaker wires at the center of the field, hanging vertically to several huge speakers on the ceiling. I was surrounded by old and young audiences, mostly in groups. I think some of them were family and father-and-son pairs. It's nice to see that the progressive rock music was regenerated smoothly :).

The stage layout was really promising for visual entertainment. There were two projection screens at both sides of the stage and one huge video screen at the background of the stage.
The video screen showed still image of a radio transistor with an airplane miniature on top of it, a half full whiskey bottle, a half full glass, and an ashtray.

After waiting for almost an hour, the show was started in a real progressive style. We saw smokes on the screen, and then there was a hand turned on the radio and turned the knob to choose channel. We listened to some old songs, I recognized Hound Dog from Elvis and a song from ABBA that was switched almost immediately by the hand, meanwhile the hand drank the whiskey from the glass and the lights of the stadium were turned off.

Around 8 o' clock, while we were still enjoying the old tunes from the radio, Roger Waters entered the stage, walked and waved to the audience. Then he shouted "Lights! Turn on the sound effects! Action!", which started In The Flesh.
This powerful song was really perfect as an opening, with its theme, its loudness, and with extra fireworks at the end of the song. The video screen also helped a lot with the original animation from The Wall.

The second song was also from The Wall album, Mother. Roger played the acoustic guitar and the mother part was sung by one of the backing vocalists.

The next song was a Pink Floyd classic. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun was performed with a slightly different arrangement than the original, but tend to inherit the version from In The Flesh tour/DVD with the sax solo. I enjoyed a lot the animation during the song, started with image of sun flare, then old black and white shoots of young Pink Floyd members, and the psychedelic bubbles along the climax end of the song before finally showed again the sun flare.

While the sun flare on the screen was zoomed out and the video showed the wide universe with many stars, the familiar intro of Shine On You Crazy Diamond was played, responded by big applause from the crowd. This song was one of the highlights of the show, with positive response from the crowd and several pictures of Syd on the screen.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond

The show was continued with another song from Wish You Were Here album, Have a Cigar. I found the sound was a bit too loud on this song and Roger's vocal quality was a bit too perfect. Nevertheless, the ending of the song was brilliant. The guitar solo was ended abruptly, and then the screen showed back the radio and the hand switched channels, exactly the same effect as in the album, until the acoustic guitar intro of Wish You Were Here was played. It was great!!!
The WYWH itself was perfectly performed, with nice acoustic guitar solos from Dave Kilminster.

The show moved on with newer songs from Final Cut album that already became standard Roger Waters live songs, Southampton Dock followed by The Fletcher Memorial Home. Roger's emotion was intense, expressed on his face when he sang the songs. The guitar solo on The Fletcher was very good.

After songs from Pink Floyd era, the video screen showed the astronaut accompanying the intro of Perfect Sense. This was followed by the appearance of an astronaut balloon from left corner of the stadium, floating nicely along with the relax piano and breathing sound of the song. This song combined perfectly the perfect surround sound effect, thanks to the quadraphonic sound system, and nice visual especially the part where Roger acted as the submarine shooter destroyed an oil rig (also with a real explosion on the stage!). PP Arnold also performed her vocal part perfectly, supported with the crowd sang the line “Can't you see? It all makes perfect sense”.

As a 'new' song, Roger introduced Leaving Beirut as a reflection of his visit to Lebanon when he was 19 and being hosted with great hospitality by a family there. The lyrics expressed his story, combined with some political messages related to US influence in the Middle East. We could follow the complete lyrics as it was transformed as cartoon images on the screen. There were some interesting parts in the lyrics, for example 'That Texas education must have fucked you up', pointed to Bush, and a mention of Atticus Finch, a fictional character from To Kill a Mockingbird novel, which accidentally I just read.

The first set was closed with Sheep. This song gave ultimate ending for the set. The quadraphonic system once again used perfectly for the animals sound (the dog howling sounded so real!). And..off course, everyone expected the pig flies. It floated around quite long, with several writings on it such as 'Stop Bush Now' on the side and 'What an asshole!' on its rear.

Flying pig during Sheep

During the break, I could enjoy the satisfaction on majority of the audiences, especially the older people. Meanwhile the screen displayed image of the moon, which very slowly looked bigger and bigger until the lights were off once again and the heart beat sound filling the stadium. This sound was reflected as a red dot at the moon orbit, which grew closer and turned out to be a satellite, focused on the center of the screen at the screaming sound at the end of Speak To Me.

The second set was a complete performance of the Dark Side of the Moon.

Breathe was sung perfectly by Jon Carin. The sound effects during On the Run were brilliant, extended with several extra effects such as sirens, trains, and braking car sounds. The visual was pretty much the same as the original animation or the one showed in the PULSE DVD.

Time was another perfect performance from the band, started with very real ticking and ringing clocks, then with nice percussions. I always like the part when the song was blended back to Breathe..”home..home again..”.

Further on, Carol Kenyon performed a wonderful voice on The Great Gig in the Sky. She got a very warm applause by the audience.

Money was, as always, everyone's favorite. Roger Waters looked very much enjoy playing the bass and singing this song. Us and Them also was crowd's favorite. I like the smoothness and calmness of this song.

Any Colour You Like was also wonderful. The guitar sounds were nice.
During Brain Damage, there was a pyramid shape placed above the stage, which was turning and sending colourful laser beam throughout the stadium. The sound was also brilliant, the laughs sounded very real.
The DSOTM set was ended by Eclipse, a short song that closed by the heart beat sound as the beginning of the set.

The crowd went crazy, clapped and shouted when the band disappeared behind the stage. They would not stop until finally Roger and the other musicians back on the stage and performed the encore.

The encore comprised songs from The Wall, started with The Happiest Days of Our Lives followed by Another Brick in the Wall (part 2), where it seemed like nobody could not sing it. Snowy White played the solo almost as perfect as David Gilmour.

Vera was sung with lots of emotion by Roger and most of the crowds also sang along with him. As in the album, Vera was followed with Bring the Boys Back Home, with visualization of war scene complete with bomb explosions and smokes.

The show was closed with the classic ending song of Roger Waters' concert, the famous psychotic Comfortably Numb. The guitar solos were played nicely by both Dave Kilminster and Snowy White. The screen displayed again the radio transistor, but this time exposed the hand owner, a man seated almost laid down on the couch, smoking and staring to infinity, very good illustration of a comfortable numb.

Then it was over. For me it was the most spectacular concert that I ever experienced, in terms of the visual, the sound quality, and the whole integrity of the show production. On the other hand, maybe because of the size of the show, I missed the intimacy and communication between the musicians and the audiences that usually quite intense in the smaller shows.


Concert set list:

First set:
- In the Flesh
- Mother
- Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
- Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-5
- Have a Cigar
- Wish You Were Here
- Southampton Dock
- The Fletcher Memorial Home
- Perfect Sense Part 1 and 2
- Leaving Beirut
- Sheep

Second set:
The Dark Side of the Moon

Encore:
- The Happiest Days of Our Lives
- Another Brick in the Wall, Part II
- Vera
- Bring the Boys Back Home
- Comfortably Numb


Musicians:
Roger Waters – Vocals, bass guitar and acoustic guitar
Andy Fairweather-Low – Guitar, bass and backing vocals
Snowy White – Guitar
Dave Kilminster – Guitar, vocals and additional bass
Jon Carin – Synthesizer, guitar, lap steel guitar and vocals
Harry Waters – Hammond organ and synthesizer
Ian Ritchie – Saxophone, EWI and additional bass
Graham Broad – Drums and percussion
Katie Kissoon - Backing vocals
P. P. Arnold - Backing vocals
Carol Kenyon – Backing vocals

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 :).