18-11-2009 Juliette Lewis

Supports: The Hickey Underworld, The Scanners; Venue: Paradiso, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Juliette Lewis is known as being a woman that does diverse things. Juliette toured all over Europe with her band The Licks but now she decided to go for a slightly different approach and is on the road with a new band called The New Romantics. Her shows and her album are announced under just her own name though.

This evening there were two supports on the bill and the first one was called The Hickey Underground. These Mickey Mouse rockers had a hard time with entertaining the audience, that decided to come in late. The first couple of songs of this band hardly made any sense at all and telling they came “All the way from Belgium” was not exactly the best move either as there were some people in the venue that travelled just as far or even further to see Juliette. The band played calmly and so was their performance. The last two songs they seemed to get the passion going and then they became some more intense. Part of the audience already showed their backs to the stage and did not bother to turn around again for them. Too bad, a missed opportunity for this band.

The Scanners are indie rockers from London and are actually on tour with Juliette Lewis. Just as the Mickey Mouse rockers before them, The Scanners decided to start of their set quite calm. The big difference was that as soon as vocalist Sara opens her throat, there comes such a sound that you don’t want to ignore. The band sounds very modest and clean, not very raw, but they tension is going up during their set. Keyboards get included and the music gets easier to pick up. At the end of the set the band got a whole lot of people dancing. When they play their last song you can truly say there is a party going on, it must be said that this band made some fans this evening and quite surely they will play the magical Paradiso stage again someday, by then, as headliners.

Juliette Lewis is a person that is known for being an animal onstage, that reputation she earned with The Licks and her various television performances at either live shows registrations or her rock and roll attitude at award shows.

Tonight here in Amsterdam Juliette shows she is quite a host. The host of her own show, talking a lot to the audience and telling a lot about her feelings about the music and that she is happy to see that the fans shows up here for her. With releasing her first album without her Licks called “Terra Incognita” Juliette already showed the world that she chose to bring some more blues in the music, some more variation and with embracing musical history Juliette sets her own ode to rock.

Besides playing songs from this album, she also played her hits that she wrote with The Licks, but performed in a way that it suits in style of “Terra Incognita”. A lot of people were jumping, dancing and being very active during the show and Juliette seemed very happy to see that the audience adopted her new work as well. This show was not a one way conversation in which Juliette spreads her emotions with her powerful voice, it was an evening in which the audience encouraged Juliette and her band to keep on bringing their sounds to the world and a lot of positivity was in the air.
A very memorable show.