By Jase Walker
The cold may be drawing in as October passes through but tonight Melkweg is *hot*. This venue can barely contain the amount of horny tonight as not only is HEALTH here but on the other side of the venue is Caravan Palace so if there’s not going to be a lot of heavy petting tonight then we’re possibly doomed as a species.
I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of cosplayers here tonight given Health’s following, a troupe of Haikyuu cast have been spotted in the queue already. Anyway, enough waffle, it’s time for Zetra!
This gothy two piece are a real favourite of mine recently and absolutely smashed their set at ArcTanGent, but this time it’s up close and personal. Rolling hard on the new album content this time round and even though they’re openers, they’re still going all in with their production and stage setup. Both atop podiums that raise them quite high above the stage with mic stands covered in chains with a huge backdrop image behind them that’s flooded with colours.
Their outfits seem steadily more elaborate every time, covered in enough rings to keep the local metallurgy firm in business with repairs and replacements for the foreseeable future. Sometimes I do wonder if they’d ever end up expanding their live set up with drums and bass but I almost think it’d kind of spoil their vibe a bit as a two-piece package. They’ve clearly been the right band to open up a tour package like this, and seeing Zetra push further and further over the years is immensely joyful to watch. Seriously, catch them now while you can, they’ll be headlining massive shows before you know it.
The introduction for Gost starts with the room being flooded with atonal bass while “TV static” channel changeovers play as a monologue. I notice that Gost now has a live bass player with him now instead of running as a one man act. This is already a pretty far cry from what I remember his live show being like last time, I do miss the whole Sith-like cowl he used to wear though! He’s gone and made his older material even harder too, everything sounds that much more raw and heavier. Gost himself is incredibly animated, taking any spare moment to stomp around and in the odd case, punch the stage.
This is someone who has massively upped their live show game in the last few years and is fine tuning it into an oppressive wall of fat, synthy noise. It’s actually floored me how much Gost has improved his show though, not to say that it was ever what I would consider bad in any way. Legitimately though, the small expansion of adding a bass player to the live experience has allowed him just that little bit of slack to mess around a bit more and really play to the audience. The crowd are massively getting into it too and there’s barely anyone in here that isn’t dancing around to this fat as fuck darksynth. Slightly disappointed by no ‘Genesee Avenue’ but you need to outgrow your older material at some point right? Gost slayed the set though!
As is tradition, HEALTH start their show with a run through of the infamous ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ theme because the band and subsequent audience are all terrible weeaboos (me included). It’s now time for a show to fully lean into the ‘Rat Wars’ material, I could not be more excited!
There’s something so fascinating about HEALTH’s live sound as the ‘noise’ element of their music is so much more pronounced compared to their overall synth heavy sound on record. Their bass player frequently grabbing a microphone linked to a smorgasbord of pedals close to the front of the stage and screaming down it to add a layer of alien-esque static to the sound. I really didn’t expect ‘Stonefist’ so early in the set either, I figured it would have been something toward the end but I guess they’re also releasing the shackles of older material.
As with the others it’s striking how much further HEALTH pushes their live show with every new tour. Every single time is that bit bigger but the delivery at Melkweg tonight has been absolutely outrageous. It’s easy to see why a band like this gets picked to play lineups for festivals that would ordinarily be considered more ‘straight metal’ with the energy they push out in their live shows. The cover of Deftones’ ‘Be Quiet And Drive’ goes down an absolute storm with the lighting going hard on pastel colours to really drive home the spacey vibe. Throughout this whole set, HEALTH have sounded absolutely fantastic. The bass and drums have shook my legs for the whole set, the often shoegazey moments have saturated my ears like a familiar warm blanket and the atmosphere has been absolutely electric.
There’s a good reason that HEALTH has built up the truly fanatical fanbase they have. From the bizarre social media presence they’ve cultivated, all the way to the outstanding quality of their live shows, Health are truly a bizarre unknown quantity. An overpowering mix of metal, industrial, shoegaze and noise, HEALTH are a real diamond in the rough as far as bands go. Even more so that they opt to shun an encore as they find it a bizarre stylistic choice, so when they’re done, that’s all folks.
The Amsterdam show has been sublime for the entire lot of bands tonight and this sort of show solidifies why I adore these acts.
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