Thirty months after Kristoffer Gildenlöw's release party (see review) for the CD version of Rust (2013, see review) Background Magazine was asked to return to the Parktheater to witness the next step in his musical career. With a new album in the process of writing, Gildenlöw wanted to round off his debut album before moving on. What could be a better way to do so than recording a DVD in the venue where it all began?
Over the years, Kristoffer Gildenlöw's live band went through several changes. For these live recordings this

Kristoffer Gildenlöw

Swedish-Dutch musician gathered a solid backing band around him. The steady element in his band is guitarist Paul Coenradie, who's rather known from Valentine and other projects. On drums we have Rick Snel and former Cirrha Niva member Daniël Huijben on bass. New to the line-up is David Gutierrez Rojas, who normally plays the keyboards for Kingfisher Sky. Anne Bakker finally returned to contribute with her violin playing as well as adding some fine backing vocals.

The show itself was a nice combination of songs from Rust and a few nice introductions to the forthcoming record. The moment the show began the atmosphere was settled. Gildenlöw totally convinced the audience with his strong emotional vocals and I guess you must have a heart of stone when his voice doesn't appeal to you. The songs from Rust were tastefully, nicely and discreetly performed focussing mainly on the strong vocals. During the show Paul Coenradie appeared to be the ultimate side kick by adding brilliant guitar solos. He also should be credited for his nice background singing. Halfway the show we were treated to a short keyboard solo by Gutierrez Rojas. He deserves the credits for getting the audience to cooperate during the songs.

L to R: Kristoffer Gildenlöw, Anne Bakker, Paul Coenradie and David Gutierrez Rojas

However, in the end it's all about Gildenlöw, who's an extraordinary musician. He changed from bass to acoustic guitar and to keyboards; sometimes he even played two instruments at the same time! As I already said the audience got a nice view of the album that should be released early next year. According to the response of the visitors it will be strongly appreciated, that is, the songs he played definitely sounded great. Towards the end of the show the audience got a chance to appear in the footage of the forthcoming DVD by a nice singing-along passage. First they had to learn the lyrics and how they should be sung, but finally everybody added their 'la-la-las' to the show.

During the after party we got the chance to talk to the band members who were all willing to answer questions and posing for pictures. It seemed to me that Kristoffer Gildenlöw had a great time according to his big smile, which meant to me that the evening was a success. Now we only have to wait for the DVD to see whether he has chosen to include yours truly's doubtful'la-la-las' or not. But even more, I'm anxious for the new album and the new compositions.

Pedro Bekkers (edited by Peter Willemsen)