Our yearly dose of Life of Agony

For the 3rd year in a row, we saw Life of Agony at a venue in Eindhoven. Last year, at ‘Het Klokgebouw’ headlining the ‘Sound of Revolution’ and the previous year at the same venue as last night, the ‘Effenaar’ (as I’ve outlined also in my previous blog about ‘My best memories of Life of Agony’ of the past 25 years). And just like 2 years ago, they kicked off with ‘River Runs Red,’ paving the way for a lot more songs to be played from that iconic ‘90s album. Pleasing the crowd all over again! 

What I find most surprising is that every time I hear those songs live, I get really pumped, and start jumping and headbanging, concert after concert. Isn’t it just magical that you can listen to music over and over again and don’t seem to get tired of it, even if you’ve seen them for the 9th time... In my best LOA memories blog, I counted 8 times, but my friend with whom I’ve seen most of the LOA concerts added another one to the list yesterday, which I completely had forgotten about. 

​That gig was right after their Dynamo Open Air show in ’94 on the 16 June 2017 at Noorderligt in Tilburg as special guest to Prong's show. And as soon as we had figured that out, Prong ‘signs’ started to emerge everywhere. We saw guys with Prong t-shirts at the Effenaar and all of a sudden the DJ played ‘Snap your fingers, Snap your neck’. And we sure did snap our necks afterwards. 

My friend had said upfront ‘I’m not going to be ‘headbanging’ tonight as my neck is already sore’. But as soon as Joey Z played the first guitar riff, she couldn’t help herself. Unlike the year before at ‘Het Klokgebouw’ where the crowd was too wild and too drunk, the crowd at the Effenaar seemed a lot more respectful to women. So, we did end up just behind the front row. I just couldn’t resist, I had to see the whole band up-close for once and feel their energy. How awesome! Mina and the guys are so intense and you can feel the love for their fans. By the end of the show Mina stood with her arms wide open taking it all in. She was so happy and almost started to cry.

At some stage, Alan Robert (bass), asked the crowd who had seen them at Dynamo ’94 and ’95. Me and my friend and a lot of other guys in the front raised their hands. Alan requested everyone who raised their hands to get in front of the stage and a couple of guys grabbed us along…And then he said: ‘Let’s do what you’ll did back then at both shows! Jump everybody!’ And we did as ‘Bad Seed’ followed.

Aside from playing almost every song of River Runs Red album, they only played a couple of songs from their other albums. ‘Lost at 22 - Ugly’ (which has been selected as one of the best metal songs of the 90s by Metal Hammer) and ‘Weeds – Soul Searching Sun’ as you can see in the video below including a short introduction by Mina interacting with the crowd:

​To my surprise they only played 3 songs from their brand-new album of which Joey Z said: ‘We’ve been working on this album for 18 months and we are so proud of it!’ Just before they started to play their first new song, Mina said: ‘Now we’re gonna play the title track of our new album if you like it or not, and even if you don’t, we’re gonna play it anyway!’ And I was like, why wouldn’t we wanna hear it, those songs are awesome! 

I really wanted to hear those songs live as I was hoping they’d be even more intense then listening to those at home. And they were! Screaming along with ‘World gone madddd’,  ‘Dead Speak Kindly’ (a song that feels and sounds to me like a tribute to Lane Staley of Alice in Chains), and ‘A Place where there’s no more pain’:

As a final explosion, they played ‘Through and through’ smoothly followed by Mina singing: ‘If you don’t walk with me, I will walk alone, yeah yeah…’ and we all felt part of the ‘Underground’ by the end of the show. 

​​Yet another memorable night of more to come! But hopefully they’ll play a few new songs next time…eh next year? As I (we!) do need to get our yearly dose of Life of Agony at the least!