Today I have been to the yearly fanclubday of the Silent Force, the Within Temptation fanclub. As it was this year in Heerhugowaard, which is not that far away from where I live nowadays, I decided to go there.
I must say that I enjoyed myself greatly. But I found it sad that even here SLR-camera’s were not allowed. So the pictures I made where of rather poor quality. About this later a bit more.
The fanclub organized some nice things for this day. Among these things a quiz. There were 5 teams for this quiz and to each team a member of the band was added. All kind of questions around Within Temptation were asked. One things showed very clearly, each of the band members loves to make fun. And it all gave me quite a laugh. Nice thing was though that I learned some things about Within Temptation that I didn’t know yet.
It was Sharon’s team that won the quiz (of course I would say :P).
There was also a lottery. Some rewards were really nice. As a limited edition of one their CD’s. Sadly I did not win anything, but again the way the show they pulled around the lottery really made me laugh a lot again.
Of course I love the music of Within Temptation, but what I also like is that all the band members I chatted with just stayed “normal” people. Sadly I have seen that different with other artists.
To the end of the event a performance of Within Temptation was planned and everyone was looking forward to that. And as they finally started to play something went really wrong. A technical problem made it impossible to continue. But during the time they needed to solve the problem, we were entertained in a very funny way by Martijn Spierenburg, the keyboard-man of the band.
After a little the performance could continue… and what a performance. I really really loved it. They know how to play live and they know how to set down a show.
I bought some nice things. Two very nice scarfs. One for me and of course one for Marion. They are of a design and quality that even Marion can use it when she is dressed up for her work. And they are very nicely warm.
I also bought a t-shirt for Marion…. so she doesn’t have to take my shirts when she stays at my place and puts them by accident in her suitcase… :P.
I said earlier that I wanted to say something about taking pictures at concerts as this one. It may be well known that I really dislike it that often it is not allowed for visitors to take along good camera’s (SLR’s and such). For normal concerts we pay a nice amount of money for the tickets, but we are not allowed to make nice pictures of the artists we like (and pay for).
But what really annoyed me was the conversation of two “professional” photographers behind me that I overheard. I assume (I really hope) that not all professional photographers are like that, but I heard one of them claiming that he wanted no one else as him to make nice pictures and in his story he told how he stopped someone from doing this. This is so arrogant in my opinion.
I assume that his real problem is that nowadays someone with a good SLR and glasswork… and who had a little bit feeling for photography can make high quality pictures.
Apart from that, I had a great day 🙂
Rob, you are telling me Marion wears t-shirts when she stays overnight with you? Why do I not believe that :P.
I think she grabs them for when she has to stay in hotels for her work 🙂
Great tor read that you enjoyed yourself so much.
about photgraphers and not allowing DSLR’s. i can relate to that. These people earn money with this. It’s not a game. not for a pretty picture. It’s this people’s bread. And it is a very competative world. With a lot of money, evryone can nowadays make beatyfull pictures in the most difficult environments……
I tend to agree with you, Patrick. It is about making money. But I am a strong believer in being the best person for the job, not by killing away any competition. They want to make money with this job, then they have to make sure they are better then the rest. How or in what way is their problem. Just making sure that other are not capable to compete is just poor.
Having said that, I know that things are often different in reality. But as this effects such a big group of people who pay a lot of money to see the artists they like I think also this highly unfair and easily to change. Maybe something for the artists themselves to think about.
And Sanne… you little brat. Do think that this t-shirt Rob bought for me, will keep me from taking along other shirts? 😛