Episode 21 (the last but not the least!)
With this episode we have finished the series about Anneke van Giersbergen.
In 2018, Anneke performed, together with the ‘Residentie Orkest’ (Residential Orchestra), in the pop-venues ‘013’ in Tilburg and ‘Paard’ in the Hague. The shows consisted of songs from her 25 years in the music business. Among them were classical songs, but also songs from The Gathering, The Gentle Storm, as well as from VUUR. It is remarkable how those symphonic and metal songs were arranged to fit a classical orchestra. It sounded great!
The only reason that I noticed that a major part of the audience in ‘013’ was from the more heavy kind, was that at silent moments you could hear the - sometimes partly - filled plastic beer cups, drop to the floor of ‘013’, instead of the proverbial pin. This phenomenon was also the reason why the recordings for the album that came out, were from ‘Paard’, were Anneke in advance asked the audience to be careful to avoid such sound effects. I didn’t mind these sounds; my registration is of the documentary type.
In this episode you will see some clips of the rehearsals with the orchestra (05/17-2018) and some parts of the performance at 013 (05/18-2018) and ‘Paard’ (05/19-2018).
You will hear parts of:
Feel Alive
Amity (The Gathering)
Pavane in F-sharp Minor ( Gabriel Fauré)
Your Glorious Light Will Shine - Helsinki (VUUR)
Two Souls (Lorrainville)
When I Am Laid In Earth (Henry Purcell)
Travel (The Gathering)
You Will Never Change
Freedom – Rio (VUUR)
Forgotten (The Gathering)
Shores Of India (The Gentle Storm)

Thank you for visiting this channel and please be welcome to return at times when you want to rewatch the episodes. The videos will stay on Vimeo to be viewed for quite some time.
We thank Anneke, family, bands, crews and everybody else involved for their hospitality. It was a pleasure to meet them.

We enjoyed making these videos, we hope you enjoyed watching them.

Cameras and sound: Peter Blok and Denise Mulder.
Editing: Peter Blok.
Subtitles: Peter Blok.
Correction of English in texts as well as in the subtitles: Remy Lauryssen.

Episode 20.
11/21-2017 Sala Tejo/MEO, Lisbon, Portugal.
11/22-2017 Hard Club, Porto, Portugal.
12/10-2017 TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
At the end of 2017 Anneke went, after the completion of ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’ on tour with VUUR. During the first part of that tour, VUUR (next to Myrath from Tunisia) acted as supporting act for Epica. And in the part afterwards, VUUR, as main act, extended the tour to Paris, Vosselaar (Belgium), London and Utrecht with Scar Symmetry as their supporting act.
We first filmed VUUR on this tour in Portugal. Because we were not allowed to film Epica, we stayed outside the tour bus. We noticed that besides performing, touring is for a major part filled with sleeping and eating. Or at least talking about eating.
We filmed the show in the last stage of that tour in Utrecht, where the winter gave an extra dimension to it. VUUR performed in the Ronda theatre. Anneke was asked to perform acoustically in the world-famous “Grote Zaal” of TivoliVredenburg for their website. The next day it was Jords birthday, so we stayed till after midnight.
Enjoy! Last episode to come.

Episode 19.
07/15-2017 Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Dynamo Metalfest.
A walk along memory lane, not just for Anneke.
Dynamo Open Air: the ultimate heavy metal festival. A tip on an old landfill. The Dutch band The Gathering performed there in 1999. Anneke van Giersbergen – a little girl on a huge stage. In front of her tens of thousands long-haired and richly tattooed metal fans of the roughest kind from all across Europe.
You could hear a pin drop at times, followed by a huge applause when the instruments took over again. While taking pictures from behind the band... goose bumps!
Following The Gathering on a European tour, I was photographer for one of the largest weekly magazines at that time. It was my first encounter with Anneke. In the years after, I did a lot of photography for the band.
10/20-2017 Rotterdam, The Netherlands. BAR3 of Rotown. The album by VUUR; ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’ is being presented.
10/21-2017 Tilburg, The Netherlands. Sounds music store. The last of the three ‘in-store’ record presentations of ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’ on that day.
Enjoy! More to come.

Episode 18.
06/30-2017 Helsinki, Finland.
It was a very busy weekend for Anneke (as well as for us). Anneke arrived in the middle of the night at the hotel in Helsinki, to go shopping that same morning for clothes. At the Tuska Festival that day, she had three gigs and she needed to extend her wardrobe. Fortunately, she was invited to do so by a shop owner in town. After the shopping she attended some interviews.
The first gig of VUUR at a festival was at Tuska. It was the second public appearance of VUUR ever. After the show there was some time for a meal. But straight after that, Anneke did a solo gig in a theatre underneath the festival terrain. You could hear the heavy bombardment of basses and drums coming through the roof. During that show, for a select group of lucky winners of a ticket, she sung, for the first time during a concert, ‘Like A Stone’ from Chris Cornell, who died only seven weeks prior. Rushing back and forth behind the festival terrain, she finally ended up in the show of Devin Townsend. Anneke left for the Netherlands at four o’clock the next morning to do two more shows on that same day.
Enjoy! More to come.

Episode 17.
03/16-2017 Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, Anneke delivers a workshop on singing. Don’t be startled by the colour of Anneke. The stage was illuminated with an orange/red lighting. I corrected the colours a bit, but wanted to keep it documentary.
04/14-2017 Gilze Rijen, The Netherlands. The last additions to the album of VUUR in the sound studio of Joost van den Broek. Anneke adds the vocals to the song Istanbul. To show the fine tuning of the song, the perfectionism and the professionalism, I show the process in more detail than you are used to from me.
Enjoy! More to come.