Hooverphonic, Melkweg Amsterdam, May 21 2007
May 25, 10:24 by Stefan KoopmanschapQuite by accident I found out about this concert taking place, celebrating the tenth birthday of Hooverphonic. This special concert would have Hooverphonic go back to their roots by playing their first album, A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, in it’s original glory. Of course, other, later, hits would also come by.
Hooverphonic started as an electronic act doing accessible, laidback electronica. Later on, the electronic sound was morphing into a more electro poppy sound that is currently so typical for Hooverphonic’s electronica. Some big hits were their key to their now well-known name, such as Sometimes and Mad About You. This concert promised to be something special, let’s see what they make of it.
The concert started out with a very electronic sound, as was to be expected, but I did not expect it to be this way. Of course, I have never heard their first album, so I did not really know what to expect, but I couldn’t really get into it. It wasn’t until the pretty heavy rock guitar sound was pulled out that I really was able to get into the music. From that point on, the concert was very good, even had some ninja tune-esque sounds.
During the encore, my type of Hooverphonic music was played with some of the newer tracks, which I definitely like more. Unfortunately, only a few of the new tracks were played before the concert was over.
The audience seemed a tough audience. Even though the music was often quite dance-able, the audience most of the times stood still, or just headnodding. But, after each track, the applause was quite enthousiastic, so it was hard to really figure out if the audience liked it or not.
For me, the conclusion was simple: I prefer Hooverphonic’s more recent material over their first album. I am sure there are other people feeling the same way, but on the other hand, there seem to have been enough people that thoroughly enjoyed this material.
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