The last time I caught Within Temptation in London (their debut UK show) back in September 2004 they played a tiny venue just a few minutes down the road. Tonight Within Temptation have managed to pull a significant crowd into the Astoria, one of London’s premier rock venues dispelling rumours that this show was to be downgraded to another venue due to poor ticket sales.

Cathedral opened the show with a set consisting of their trademark doom laced metal that I wouldn’t imagine would appeal to many of Within Temptations largely new fan base. Indeed the crowd were rather unenthusiastic to Cathedral’s performance and were eager to see tonight’s headliners.

Finally after about 40 minutes of waiting the lights dimmed and the familiar intro song from The Silent Force began. At this point the band were hidden behind a large drape that fell to reveal the band complete with inflatable statues and a giant projector screen as they burst into opener ‘See Who I Am.’ One of my favourite songs from their new album, this sounded stunning in a live environment and it seemed that for once a band had finally managed to avoid the notoriously bad acoustics of this venue. The guitars were crunchy, Sharon’s voice was more than audible, the drums were thundering, the keyboards and orchestral backing tape the band use were mixed very well indeed. Despite the good sound mix tonight something was evidently up with the Astoria’s sound system as Sharon’s voice was cut, albeit almost un noticeably a couple of times and Jeroen’s bass stopped working twice during tonight’s proceedings.

The band then waltzed through several numbers from ‘The Silent Force’ including ‘Stand My Ground’, ‘Forsaken’, ‘Jillian’, ‘Memories’, ‘Angels’ and ‘Aquarius.’ During ‘Jillian,’ Sharon unfortunately muddled up her lines during the first verse which is not the first time I’ve seen Sharon having issues with remembering her lyrics. However this was certainly not to deter from the overall quality of both her vocals and dominant stage presence. She clearly is one front woman who certainly knows how to work the crowd.

I was fairly content with this opening onslaught although a few of the weaker sounding tracks like ‘Memories’ really didn’t sit too well for me and I often found myself yearning to hear some older material. My prayers were answered by an absolute belter of a second half of a set starting with Kate Bush cover ‘Running Up That Hill’ to which the band got the most enthusiastic response from the crowd so far.

Next up to my delight was ‘Enter’ from the debut album of the same name which was undoubtedly one of the highlights of tonight and it was extremely refreshing to hear some of guitarist Robert Westerholt’s grunty vocals. We were then treated to a fine rendition of ‘Caged’ and a storming performance of ‘Mother Earth’ before the band departed.

The crowd were clearly desperate for more and the band came back to a rapturous response for an encore featuring ‘Deceiver Of Fools,’ ‘The Other Half (Of Me)’ and ‘Ice Queen’. About a minute into ‘Ice Queen’ bassist Jeroen’s bass packed in for the second time tonight and the band were forced to halt proceedings while this was sorted. Several jokes were cracked by Sharon and Robert before they resumed the song from the start. After what seemed like the gig had just begun (In fact a good hour and twenty minutes later) the band bowed and left the stage telling us they hope to be back soon.

Despite the significant increase in crowd number tonight and a sterling stage set up I couldn’t help but feel maybe the overall performance could have been that tiny bit better. Nevertheless it was a thoroughly enjoyable show and I wholeheartedly do hope they make the trip back to the UK sooner rather than later

To see our Official Photos of WITHIN TEMPTATION at the Bloodstock Festival please click HERE - or visit our full Photography section HERE.

Setlist:
Intro
See Who I am
Stand My Ground
Jillian
Forsaken
Angels
Memories
Aquarius
Running up That Hill
Enter
Caged
Mother Earth
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Deceiver of Fools
The Other Half (Of Me)
Ice Queen

Overall Score:   7.5 /10