The Music – Paradiso, Amsterdam, 15th September 2004

Who came up with such a name?

Who came up with such a name?

‘The Music’. Who came up with such a name? Well, four guys from Leeds, who felt their band was destined to be called ‘The Music’ we suppose. This was back in 1999 when they were only permitted to play in their own garage. Now, in 2004, after two albums and a bundle of hype The Music have managed to move their equipment out of the garage, out of Leeds and very occasionally, even out of the UK. Of course we decided to check them out, so off we went to the Melkweg. Following our Magical Mystery Tour in Haarlem, (you can read about that odyssey in the Stad als Podium review kids, Ed.), we decided to keep the tradition alive by getting lost again. We hope this isn’t becoming a habit.


 


Anyway, we got in, bought drinks and found ourselves a good spot on the balcony. It was time to hear the much heralded Music rock! The concert started with a lot of  what we can only describe as ‘space-cadet noises’; maybe even “Star Wars” sound effects. Very “beam me up biscotti” (is that the Italian version of Star Trek? Ed). We were kind of surprised at this, but then the band started to play and they hit us with a smashing mix of drums and guitars. The lead singer’s voice was incredible; it was hard to imagine that it was really live.


 


The concert, not surprisingly, started off with numbers from their upcoming CD ‘Welcome to the North’. They were good, but the crowd really got in the mood when The Music started playing older songs from their debut album, such as “The Dance”, or “Getaway” getting themselves more and more excited as the night wore on. We followed their example.


 


In our opinion the concert could be described as rock meets soul, although the soul vibe might have simply been passed on to us by the big afro’d guy, whose hair blocked most of our view. Despite the bigness of the hair, we did catch a glimpse of the lead singer’s incredible dance moves. Dancing and singing at the same time, and not one false note, what a guy.  On reflection the best parts of the performance were the sudden volume and tempo changes which helped to build the excitement perfectly.



 


So there you have it. The Music entertained for about an hour and a half and were off to bed by 11 o’clock. The almost sold-out room quickly emptied and the crowd went home, which surprised us a bit, but perhaps everyone was as repelled by the big hair guy as we were.


 


Words: Anamieke & Madeleine