By Jase Walker
The colder months have certainly drawn in but the gig scene right now in Amsterdam is absolutely on fire and I’m finishing up this week with Boysetsfire in good old Melkweg. Celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band and judging from their history, giving Europe another round as they seem to have a fairly long tradition of doing so. Anyway tonight’s stop is the second date of the tour and for me will be a great way to wrap up a busy week.
I’m a bit bummed that the upstairs set of balconies aren’t open today as they’re great for getting a good view without getting squashed in the middle of the crowd so I’ve found a raised bit downstairs to perch myself on instead.
The room is a bit sparse for the start of the show which is a bit of a shame, but Michael Rudolph Cummings seems unfazed by this at least. He walks on, picks up his acoustic and gets the show going with minimal fuss. That guitar he’s playing has a gorgeous tone to it and as you’d hope to expect from a longtime player, his style is fantastically clean. The warm tone of the guitar perfectly suits his chesty voice too, I was expecting something a bit more thrashy given his background, but this is a great slice of folk and country music.
It’s a bit annoying the level of background noise from conversation considering Michael is playing, it always comes off as hugely disrespectful. He makes a point of apologizing for maybe playing too many sad songs but reinforces that he’s not a sad person by any means, I guess that’s just how art rolls sometimes though really! Good start to the evening though!
After a reasonably fast changeover (ya know, those acoustic guitars take some packing up), it’s time for Strike Anywhere and looking around the venues starting to fill up nicely. We’ve clearly got some big fans in the audience that are buzzing to see Strike Anywhere but to start the energy from the crowd seems a bit low but hopefully the band will win people over as their set goes on. Definitely erring on the more punk side of things, their rapid fire shouty style injects a bunch of energy into what is often a more tired day of the week. These guys embody the punk ethos though with strong speeches about morality, personal wellbeing and caring about each other. It’s a shame the audience doesn’t seem to be super enthralled by the show considering how good it sounds and how good the band look while doing it.
Constantly high energy, no dips in the slightest barring the in-between song commentary and it looks like they’re having a lot of fun doing it too. I can see a pit has opened up down the front and people have been spinning around and going pretty wild in it for the whole set and that’s been fantastic to see given the outrageous fun of the band’s show so far. As they near the end the singer decides to dive to the front of the audience and sing with them. I love seeing this sort of engagement, it’s the best. And with that Strike Anywhere finished their set and I’m a bit bummed the crowd was a bit boring but it seems those down the front made up for that at least!
Finally, the main big reason we’re all here tonight, Boysetsfire!
A monologue plays as a sort of introduction before the band walks on stage, and opens with one of their biggest songs, ‘After The Eulogy’ which is a bit of a surprise for me! The front of the crowd is immediately losing their minds and everyone else seems actually engaged now nodding their heads along to the music. Can’t say I’m keen on the incense they’re burning on stage, smells like my Grandma’s perfume.
The show however is pretty damn good, the sound is properly balanced, the bass is strong but not overpowering, the guitars are crisp and the singer is dead center and fully audible. It must be quite hard to put together a setlist for an anniversary tour when your material spans 30 years as well but so far it doesn’t seem like it’s disappointing anyone!
I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve definitely been working through my (rather long) list of bands that I was mad for through my late teens and early 20s and Boysetsfire have finally had a checkmark added to them. It’s great watching bands like Boysetsfire who, whether they like it or not, landed themselves in the emo scene and you can see how much meaning a lot of their songs had for people given the amount of them screaming the words out throughout the set. Their singer even dives into the middle of the pit at one point which clearly spooked one of the stage hands as they ran out onto the stage to keep an eye on them.
Honestly, despite most of the audience towards the back being a bit too stoic for my liking, the core of people down the front going absolutely apeshit for every single song is more than making up for that and you can see their singer is playing directly to them more than anything.
As we arrive at the end of the set, the encore song gets an overwhelmingly loud chorus of the audience screaming the words out. Boysetsfire are down to end this show as well as they possibly can, and given how this set has played out there’s still so much more to give.
This show has been a lot of fun to watch and I’m happy I’ve gotten to tick off another bucket list band. Boysetsfire might be celebrating their 30th anniversary of the band but they are by no means looking tired of it in the slightest.
A real class act, I do wish the crowd had been a bit more active though but that’s not the band’s fault! Now if I could maybe politely request an album show…
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