Years later and they still rock \m/

[beelikej]

This was a very good weekend. After being crazy busy for the past few weeks with real life and fandom which were both affected by the shoulder incident, I finally finished physical therapy and am pretty much back on track with everything. Right on time to fully enjoy a long weekend off that I had planned long before all the unexpected events.

I had scored tickets for tanisafan and me for the Quadrophenia concert of The Who on Friday. We could sleep over at my brother's afterwards and thus were able to also plan Saturday in Amsterdam. We decided to get online tickets to visit the Anne Frank house. That was very impressive. Below mostly a wordy report, as it's not allowed to take photos inside. The pictures of the concert are blurry, but I'm adding them anyway, because THE WHO!


Friday, July 5 - afternoon
I wouldn't meet Tan until the evening (she had to work), but I traveled to Amsterdam in the afternoon to buy myself some presents.

Left: the Dam square War memorial. Right: After shopping I took the tram to my brother's where I could leave my overnight bag. He made me dinner and we cycled to a park nearby to look at De Schreeuw (The Cry); a memorial for Theo van Gogh (yes, related: Vincent van Gogh's brother was his great-grandfather) - a filmmaker who was stabbed to death in 2004 for speaking out against religious oppression. The sculpture respresents him not keeping silent.

Friday, July 5 - evening
Tan's train arrived 40 minutes before the concert, I was so relieved to see her. We walked to the venue (Ziggo Dome) and even had time to check out the merchandize and get some food before finding our seats.


The concert was supposed to start at eight, but the opening act was already playing at 7:45. We waited until they were done before making all the people stand up to get to our seats in the middle of the row *g*. Vintage Trouble was very good and got the audience going. If you like rock 'n roll with bit of tongue in cheek and swing, check out their YouTube channel!


Around 8:45 it was time for The Who. I just have to share this PSA, if you know me you understand why;)

Next up a couple of blurry photos to remind me of the awesome awesome concert. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey gave it their all. The story of Quadrophenia (written in 1973, about events in 1963) about a boy wanting to belong and rebelling against his parents and society is timeless and clearly also ageless;) I also saw the 1997 tour and this new version rocked just as hard and the visual effects were even better. Seeing as Pete based the four personalities of the maincharacters on the bandmembers of the Who, the songs that originally featured John Entwistle and Keith Moon hit extra hard. Both men are paid tribute to on video; John gets to play a magnificent bass solo and Keith sang Bellboy. In those moments, it really felt as if they were on stage.


The musical genius who created Quadrophenia and
one of the best guitarplayers in the world:
Pete Townshend (at the bottom you can see the actual stage;)


Roger in character for Helpless Dancer.
Lyrics below, next to Pete's acoustic guitar playing

When a man is running from his boss
Who holds a gun that fires cost
And people die from being old
Or left alone because they're cold
And bombs are dropped on fighting cats
And children's dreams are run with rats
If you complain you disappear
Just like the lesbians and queers
No one can love without the grace
Of some unseen and distant face
And you get beaten up by blacks
Who though they worked still got the sack
And when your soul tells you to hide
Your very right to die's denied
And in the battle on the streets
You fight computers and receipts
And when a man is trying to change
It only causes further pain
You realize that all along
Something in us going wrong...

You stop dancing.

After Quadrophenia they played a couple more songs; among them Who Are You, Won't Get Fooled Again and You Better You Bet. All sounding as fresh as *mumble*ty years ago.
They ended the concert with the lovely Tea & Theatre that reminded us how much time has passed. Have some more lyrics for old time's sake:

Will you have some tea
After theatre with me?

We did it all - didn't we?
Jumped every wall - instinctively
Unravelled codes - ingeniously
Wired all the roads - so seamlessly

We made it work
But one of us failed
That makes it so sad
A great dream derailed

One of us gone
One of us mad
One of us, me
All of us sad

All of us sad - lean on my shoulder now
The story is done - 's getting colder now
A thousand songs - still smoulder now
We played them as one - we're older now

All of us sad
All of us free
Before we walk from the stage
Two of us
Will you have some tea?
Will you have some tea
At the theatre with me?

MY HEART. <3


Ecstatic fangirls waiting for the subway home:)

---

Saturday, July 6
Considering we went to bed around 2 a.m. (because we stayed up chatting about the concert to my brother and his girlfriend;) we got up early. Around ten we left the house to walk around Amsterdam before our reserved entrance to the Anne Frank House.


Left: At the Waterlooplein we discovered this beautiful statue of Spinoza; look at that marvelous coat! (Dutch rationalist philosopher 1632 - 1677)
Right: From there we took the tram to the Westerkerk. Anne could hear the churchbells from the Annex. (If she had been able to hang her head out of the window she might have also been able to see it)


The Homomonument next to the church. Designed by Karin Daan in 1987, engraved with a line of poetry by Jacob Israël de Haan (1881-1924): Naar Vriendschap Zulk Een Mateloos Verlangen ("Such an endless desire for friendship") from his poem To a Young Fisherman.


The line for the Anne Frank Huis, which is situated at the end of this street, around the corner to the right (Prinsengracht 263). If you want to go there, expect to wait around two hours. Or you can do what we did and buy a ticket online. There's only a limited amount available, but if you manage to get one, you can walk past the line, press the doorbell next door and go right in at your assigned time. Recommended.


We had lunch at Café Kalkhoven while waiting for our timeslot. Also recommended: one of the oldest cafes in Amsterdam, it dates back to 1670!

I couldn't make any photos inside the Anne Frank house, where she and her family were in hiding from July 6, 1942 until August 4, 1944. It's also hard to express in words how it felt to walk through that bookcase into the hidden annex and see the rooms they lived in.
If you want to know more, go to the official website, it is very extensive and has tons of background information on Anne and her family as well as the diary. There is a little bit more on that below.


This is a photo from across the Prinsengracht; the arrow points at Anne Frank house at number 263. Visitors enter throught the building next door. You can see how close the Westerkerk is on the right. (And if you look closely you can also see the line)


On our walk to the station we came across this statue of famous Dutch author Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887)

We arrived at the trainstation on time for Tan to catch a train South and for me to get on a train to the North. Such good planning!

Last but not least: all the things I bought in chronological order:)


Pressies for myself: a sparkly pink frog ring; a turquoise skull bracelet; a tin of Honey Dust body powder (wrapped in naughty paper by Mail & Female;)


Tour memorabilia: shirt (how cute that the UK still considers itself not part of Europe, ahw); photobook and ticket *g*


A timeline folder about Anne Frank's life, her diary and the hidingplace. There is an interactive version also available online: 1914-2010 told in photos and videos.

Besides a book about Anne's life, I also bought the latest hardcover edition of the diary from 2011 (revised in 2003), which has all the available parts of the original diary with Anne's revisions clearly marked in between. It was really interesting to see the actual revised pages with Anne's own edits in the museum. From what I could tell she was mostly rewriting crooked sentences and clarifying phrases. (She did this after she heard a Dutch minister on the radio call out to people to save personal documents for after the war)

It will take a while before I get to reading this version. When I do, I'll definitely report on the experience and how it compares to the original 1947 edition (which Otto Frank put together out of the original pages and a couple of Anne's rewrites and from which he omitted some personal passages about her mom and physical observations about her own body) .

I wish I could have bought the story book by Anne, but strangely that was only available in English translation!


So many different impressions and feelings. I came home exhausted from that emotional rollercoaster of a weekend. But it was absolutely amazing.

J.

Comments

[meesasometimes.livejournal.com]

great post, I really enjoy my European tour that I'm experiencing thru you, so thank you. Or shall I say European/UK? LOL.

Anne Franks house, I seriously couldn't breathe, wow, that must have been just WOW. We took a family trip to Boston a few years ago and spent FOREVER walking thru the Holocoust Memorial, I think I cried for hours after, OK I'm crying now. It was one of the most emotional things I've experienced.

"From architect Stanley Saitowitz’s description of the Memorial:
The memorial to darkness is built with light. The construction began on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. | The horror of the Holocaust is reenacted in the brutal cutting of all the trees on half the site. These stumps remain.
Six pits are dug and lined with black concrete. | At the bottom of each pit is a glowing fire.
Six glass towers are raised above. | Etched on the glass towers are SIX MILLION numbers that flicker with light. | On the walls of each tower, a memory of a survivor from the camp is etched. | Between the towers, a line of text locates the Holocaust in historical context.
At the two entries are didactic panels, one outlining the chronology of events that led to the Wannsee Conference and the horrific propositioning of establishing the factories of death this memorial marks, the other quoting Pastor Martin Niemoller, who placed responsibility for such even in the hands of every individual.
As visitors walk along this path, entering the towers, they are tattooed with the shadows of numbers, and trapped momentarily in a theater of horror.
On the black granite ramps is incised REMEMBER. | Each of the six burning chambers is named after one of the six death camps constructed in Poland, factories whose product was death: CHELMNO. TREBLINKA. MAJDANEK. SOBIBOR. AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU. BELZEC.
At the scale of the city, the memorial has another role: path, colonnade and frame create urban space, defining edges and relationships with the buildings and city beyond. These six towers are emblems of faith, a covenant of trust that memorializes a collective evil.
They are towers of hope and aspiration."

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to be your tourguide! I hope our next trip will be more uplifting.

I'd been to the Anne Frank House before when I was younger, but only remembered Anne's wall with the pictures of filmstars. The hidingplace has a lot of rooms, but they are all very tiny, especially if you try to imagine eight people in there.

That sounds like an impressive memorial, with references and symbolism on top of trying to represent the massive amount of people that were killed.

I visited Auschwitz and no words can describe the feeling of seeing that place; even standing there it's near impossible to understand what happened.

Yet it's important that these places are preserved, because no matter how painful it is to be reminded of those horrid times, we must never forget.

[fred-bear.livejournal.com]

Glad your shoulder is pretty much back to where it should be now. Thanks for sharing your photos! The gig looks like it was amazing and the Anne Frank house, well... What can you say?

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved I can move my arm like I used to; I'm still keeping up with the exercizes at home, but it's clear the shoulder is practically back to normal:)

I like sharing photos, I just wish the whole flist could go with me in real life. That concert was absolutely awesome.

It was very special to be in the Anne Frank house. Words can not convey the feeling.

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

Such a worthwhile weekend, I was glad to not be the only person sniffling at the Anne Frank House. Thank you for joining me! <333

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Worthwhile, that's the word I was looking for. I contemplated making two separate posts, but in the end decided to combine the two very different experiences, just as we did for real.

Thank you, bb, for sharing both with me. *smishes*