Second concert within a week, on Monday evening I was picked up at home by Matthijs' parents to go to the Apocalyptica concert in Tilburg. Long time since I had been driven around instead of driving myself and I enjoyed the ride and did some reading.

Matthijs was already at the concert hall (013) and we quickly went to the toilet and brought our coats to the cloakroom ('garderobe') before going inside the already packed hall. There was a rather disappointing supporting act. I didn't catch the name of the band, but the text was way too loud incomprehensible muttering blasting through the speakers. Two of the band members looked like former school or study mates gone bad, and the drummer looked like he was a regular mcDonalds visitor and was just picked up from one of those 'restaurants'.
Except for some fake semi-homo-erotic moment between the lead singer and the guitarist, which I mostly missed because of tall guys in front of me, it was just bad and boring. I almost pitied them, because they did hardly get any reaction from the audience.

Then Apocalyptica itself came. I am not a fan of them; there are some songs that I do like, but mostly it is too chaotic and loud to play during work for example. I was glad Matthijs' mother had an earplug for me, which I divided in 2 and used for both ears. It muffled the sound a bit so I did not have ringing ears when we were outside again. The show was good, nice light effects and the band members moved around on stage, so even with half of the stage blocked from view, I got a look at all of them. Unbelievable how much noise can come out of 'classical' instruments like the cello.

It was 01:30 when we went to bed and my nose-cold happily took advantage of a broken night. I'm sniffling all day now, and I'm afraid it won't be over before the winterconcert. I'll have to throw in all vitamins and homeopathic medicines I can find, get good nights sleep and dress warm to get it all over with as soon as possible.

This week is filled with appointments: practising with Kor this evening, practising with Marjoke and Renske tomorrow, SinterKerst on Friday, shopping for Christmas presents on Saturday and a day to catch breath again on Sunday. After the winterconcert everything will be much quieter.