Serenity + Delain
@ Doornroosje Nijmegen (Netherlands)
Saturday 31 October 2014

The venue for tonight is the recently opened Poppodium Doornroosje. As it is in the city center almost next to the station, public transport was to way to go. The show was sold out, when arriving already a great crowd was waiting for the doors. As Serenity and Delain played more often together the “interest” of the audience is mixed. Clearly there were quite some fans that would have preferred Delain to be support. As regular visitor of gigs it’s not that hard to wait as you see a great number of known faces of die-hard Female Fronted Metal fans.

The logistics to get the people in didn’t work out that smoothly and it took some time to pick up my photo pass. That resulted in a spot at stage quite far on the side. With the banners combined with the curtains, less convenient for photos. However this was a different angle to the stage and a great view over the venue. As said all is still very new, a stage positioned at the wide side of the room. The audience had a good view and the distance stays limited. The lightning is fully LED based.

The evening opened with the Austrian band Serenity. As support they only do a short set (35 minutes), which is a pity. I wouldn’t mind a larger set. In the show the two singers Georg Neuhauser and Clémentine Delauney are a well aligned team. They entertained the public in a great way, both together and individually. The band performed the regular set very tight without any mistake. That didn’t mean without enthusiasm. They clearly enjoyed being on stage. This time the band has a guest keyboard player with the name Franck Joseph Hauser. He did a good job. Tonight Serenity was Georg and Clémentine (vocals), Franck (keys), Fabio D'Amore (bass), Andreas Schipflinger (drums) and Thomas Buchberger (guitar). For the Serenity fans the set ended too soon.

Set List:
Intro (Game of Thrones main theme)
The Matricide
Coldness Kills
Velatum
Legacy of Tudors
Reduced to Nothingness
Royal Pain
Wings of Madness
Serenade of Flames

Delain was the main act for tonight. I’m one of the many visitors that had a preference for Serenity. However tonight they surprised me and likely others with a guest on stage during the whole set, Merel Bechtold on guitar. This lady is small, certainly compared to Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije (bass), but great on guitar. Although not yet completely in sync, this added so much to the show that this was the best Delain show for me. It sounded like the sound check was done primarily on Delain’s setup. The sound was much better than with Serenity. To complete the line-up of Delain; Charlotte Wessels (vocals), Timo Somers (guitar), Martijn Westerholt (keys) and Ruben Israel (drums). Recently Ruben took over the sticks from Sander Zoer. It sounded like he’s already very integrated. With the addition of Merel it also looked that the stage dynamics were a little stronger. Sometimes you could see that it was not yet fully familiar to have one player more on stage. But it didn’t bother anyone. It was a nice well set up show with a lot of songs from the latest album The Human Contradiction. As expected Georg Neuhauser hit the stage for “The Gathering”. The fun and enthusiasm on stage interacted with the audience which resulted in a moving and singing crowd. Charlotte helped to cheer up all. At the end all joined the party.

In the encore all were waiting for the closing “We are the Others”.

Set List:
Go Away
Get the Devil Out of Me
Army of Dolls
Stardust
Electricity
Milk and Honey
Sleepwalkers Dream
The Gathering (with Georg Neuhauser)
Here Come the Vultures
Tell Me, Mechanist
Sing to Me
Pristine
April Rain
Not Enough
Encore:
Virtue and Vice
Mother Machine
We Are the Others

Although it was sold out, the crowd was not packed and had space to move around. The venue set the limits at the right level which makes the evening nice. This continued after the show when you could meet the bands at the merchandise stands. The venue’s schedule takes into account public transport. Socializing with the bands afterwards doesn’t mean missing the last train or bus. All in all a great evening with friends, nice musicians, fun and good shows.

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