Monday in Amsterdam

Right in the beginning of my exchange, I joined a group on Facebook for student in Groningen. One day on that group I saw a post by someone I did not know. He asked if anyone liked a band called Daughter and would like to join him for a concert in Amsterdam or Tillburg. I have been a fan of that band for a quite a while now, but never had the change to see them live. I am not sure if they have been to Finland but at least I never spotted them playing there. So I decided to reply to that enquiry positively. A little while after that we made plans to see them and right after that bought tickets. It was a good choice to buy the tickets right away, even though the concert seemed to be so far away, as apparently a few others also like their music and the gigs turned out to be sold out.

Last monday(18th of November) was finally time to head over to Amsterdam. Luckily, we got to enjoy a very nice day there, just strolling around and seeing the city. I think we walked around for like four hours. I had been to Amsterdam once before, but then the weather was so bad that I did not get the best vibes from the city. This time, I liked it a lot more and I think there is still so much to see in there.

After walking around without any actual direction with Giovanni and his friend, we found a really nice restaurant to warm up in a bit before heading over to the venue. The down side of traveling with Italians must be their eating schedule, haha. So it was a cappuccino and brownie for "dinner" then.

When we got inside the venue, I was very impressed. The place was just gorgeous. High sealing, three levels; ground-/dancefloor and two levels of balconies, church-like paintings on the windows... Very nice but still not too fancy. The place, Paradiso, organizes a lot of different concert and other cultural happenings and for sure it is perfect for such.

As an opening act was this duo, whose name I do not remember, but it consisted of a woman singing and a man playing violin. I loved the violin part, that always gives a song some little extra and I just love the sound of it. But overall, it wasn't anything special in my opinion.

But oh Daughter instead.. The whole hour and a half(maybe?) they played was magical. The acoustics of the hall was superb, the lights were just right and the crowd was very civil - nothing annoys me more than too drunk/space-taking people at gigs. And of course not to forget, Elena Tonra was gorgeous as always with a beautiful live performance and singing.. I didn't mind the other band-members either ;-)

This is how I would like to spend all my Mondays; great company, good music and a wonderful city!