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Rating: After an extraordinarily beautiful new album, the Dutch band Within Temptation makes a stop in Italy for a two-day event in Milan and Rome, ready to finally conquer our country as well. Was it possible to miss them? Absolutely not, and here is the review of the concert in Milan at the Alcatraz.
I arrive in the morning around nine, incredibly (memories of the previous Evanescence concert were still vivid) there's still very little crowd and the atmosphere is much calmer, luckily. In front of the venue, the huge all-black truck with the inscription Within Temptation - The Heart of Everything is already parked. Wow! I've never seen a more beautiful truck. Our stars arrive around lunchtime on a sober red-black bus with a built-in bar, quick parking, and everyone is waiting: there are still very few of us, will they come out?
After much waiting, instead of the band, the newborn Eva Luna (daughter of Sharon den Adel), already at her metal baptism, appears, getting some fresh air in the arms of the staff. Wow!
It's now afternoon, and finally, here come Within Temptation: very kind, they offer themselves to fans. First Jeroen Van Veen (bass): a very approachable and shy guy, almost blinded by the sun for a photo with me (um...), then guitarist Ruud Jolie to the joy of all the goth girls present, and finally Sharon den Adel with her trolley: "See you later," she tells us as she goes inside. Unfortunately, due to interviews, she can only be met after a few hours, haha! Sweet as ever, she autographs my Within Temptation discography and almost even a useless piece of paper I had inside a CD case, luckily I stopped her in time... but how kind she is! A photo with her too and then off to see the others.
Eventually, the remaining band members appear as well.
It's evening, finally inside, front row, it begins:
Lauren Harris, the daughter of the more famous bassist of the Iron Maiden, comes in with her band. She's certainly a pretty girl, a metalhead (not much) mixed with a lot of bling, band of metal-bad boys, but quite hard rock, moderately enjoyable even if very repetitive. Still suitable for the cause, they play for a full hour getting (almost) everyone warmed up. Three notes though: one, Lauren needs to raise her microphone volume, or all her pieces will be instrumental, two, the drummer is really something, pounding hard and tossing drumsticks with all his might, three, could they not have invited a band of a more fitting genre just this once... I like hard rock, but seeing the stunned faces of some goth girls present who surely preferred something else...
About forty minutes between a change of scenery, various setups, and multiple preparations and finally it's them, the Within Temptation: to the notes of "Our Solemn Hour" the Within Temptation make a triumphant entrance, cheered by the audience. Sharon enters last and is stunning: black and green corset and white long skirt, the beautiful Dutch girl immediately conquers everyone with her movements on stage and her strange yet captivating epic-metal dance with hands and arms simulating waves: how does she move like that? She, her moves, and her music are one, but even the others aren't standing still, Robert and Ruud are among the most active, hopping from one side of the stage to the other, playing, posing for photos! Robert's faces, then, so concentrated you think his head might explode, are absolutely unmissable! And what about Ruud, who directly hands over his picks from his hand to ours, letting all the goth girls in the front rows worship him...
But back to the concert: "Our Solemn Hour" opens up to "The Howling", the first track from the new album, a very catchy song that does its job live. The setlist is very happily chosen, as it follows with the ballad "Frozen", then again gets wild with "Stand My Ground", the single from The Silent Force, which probably brings tears to many eyes, Sharon makes everything incredible, her voice impeccable, her epic moves, the audience sings it all. The fifth song is "Forsaken", another track from The Silent Force, with its chorus reaching sky-high tones, but here too, the beautiful Dutch girl is perfect, without lowering a thing. The new "The Cross" gives way to the new single "What Have You Done": Keith Caputo's voice, obviously played back, leaves one a bit perplexed, but at the chorus it's another immediate success, considering Sharon must have repeated the refrain countless times and the song must have lasted ten minutes! Huff puff...
Here we are at "The Heart of Everything", which is perhaps the best on the album and live it does its duty, followed by a digression to two albums ago: the unmistakable jingle of "Mother Earth" resonates through the Alcatraz, accompanied by the "uh uh uh" in time from those present, which Sharon much appreciates, then positions herself with her back to the stage and completes the images projected in the background: indeed a scenography not easy to achieve but of great effect, testimony to how carefully this aspect has been treated as well. For the record, on the sides of the stage were also two mystical stone lions as a classic cherry on top. Well done, Within, well done...
"Mother Earth" is a stadium chorus, a very famous first track from the album of the same name, everyone sings it from beginning to end. It's madness.
Another single, this time from The Silent Force, the song is the beautiful "Angels", which calms the audience a bit, then it moves onto "Hand of Sorrow", "All I Need" and, after Sharon asked the audience (!!!), "Jillian"! We move on to the song inspired by The Da Vinci Code, "The Truth Beneath the Rose", which completes the first part of the concert.
Once recovered, without much waiting, our stars return, to the notes of "Deceiver of Fools", another song that performs really well live. It's time for "Memories", too bad the crowd is so tired they don't even have the strength to sing it (I didn't even realize it was Memories, I was so out of it), but right after the grand finale, with "Running Up That Hill" with its lethal high notes (which Sharon delivers after a slew of songs!) and... "Ice Queen"!
The concert ends: Robert says goodbye in Italian (what a champion), everyone thanks them, Sharon leans toward the front row to my joy and I promptly seize the opportunity and hang on tightly, making the beautiful Dutch woman laugh. A bow, and then off, the Romans await them the next day.
Key moments of the concert, the hilarious interactions between Sharon and the security staff below the stage: at our request (!!!), Sharon goes to "persuade" them too, as they are not very interested in symphonic gothic metal...
The audience deserves one final consideration: metalheads, goths, and goth girls (in vast majority), very few "normal" people (perhaps none), demonstrating that the new album has nothing to do with commercial music. Furthermore, the warmth shown is immense, so much so that probably not even Within expected it...
In the end: it's evident, the shift towards more gothic metal shores for the Dutch band, which seems to have definitively embraced what initially was just an influence, unexpectedly putting itself in play along with various bands of the genre.
With the cards played in Milan... gothic bands, tremble, tremble...
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