Greetings from Germany, neighbor! Your profile made me realise that my library was missing a lot of Tori Amos. Thanks for that.

greetings neighbor! I always appreciate someone with Anneke on her playlist!

Hey Iris, alweer een tijdje geleden, hoe is het? Nog vakantie plannen voor de zomer? Heb je ook nog nieuwe onbekende artiesten ontdekt de laatse tijd? Ik luister redelijk veel Marit Larsen op het moment, erg leuke pop/folk liedjes. Groetjes Rindert

Hi, Iris! How are you? Have you listened to the brand new album by The Gentle Storm, a project of Anneke and Arjen? I'm really curious what you think about it! :-) Have a nice week!

Great library you have, greetings from Nottingham UK

Hi, Iris! Excuse me for such a terribly long silence as well - I had an extremely busy time around the New Years Eve, and then - vice versa - I had a kind of a vacation and was to lazy to write you :D Now I have to work hard again to afford the trip to NL in September. Will you attend the Theatre Equation, by the way? And how do you feel? I hope you've got totally well now! :) How is the vaccine against Ebola? As for Amy Macdonald - yes, I ADORE her debut album, it's amazing in every way, though it's not my kind of music at all :D Haven't listened to her later albums yet, though. Are they also that good? Have a nice week, Iris! :)

Hoi Iris, het is wel toevallig zeg dat jij nu ook weer naar Jewel aan het luisteren bent :). Spirit is zeker een mooi album, echt een mooie winter plaat vind ik altijd. Mijn kerst was goed hoor, niet veel bijzonder gedaan, bij m'n ouders op bezoek geweest. Was echt een heel goed concert van Tina, ze heeft bijna al m'n favoriete nummers wel gespeeld. Het was de 3e of 4e keer dat ik haar live zag, en toch ze wist zichzelf weer te overtreffen. En ook aan prachtige zaal zeg! Echt heel mooi, als je nog eens iets goeds in het muziekgebouw speelt zou ik zeker gaan! Fijne jaarwisseling!

Hi, Iris! How are you? Hope you already feel totally fine! Have a nice day and cheers from Russia! :-)

Hey Iris, hoe is het? Ga je ook nog naar het concert van Tina Dico?

Hi, Iris! How are you? Are our plans to meet in Nijmegen before the TG show still in force? As I supposed before, we're coming to Amsterdam on 11.08, we walk there half a day, then in the evening we travel to Nijmegen and spend the night there. On 11.09 my GF goes to the morning show, and I will only join her for the evening one :) After the shows we spend one more night in Nijmegen, and by the next morning we travel by train directly to the Schiphol :)

As for American Doll Posse - it's hard to judge since it has totally failed to grab my attention: I kept on minding my business returning to the album only during Girl Disappearing and Code Red - the only 2 songs I distinguished. And Bouncing off Clouds is not bad as well. I think I still need to listen to the album more carefully, but as for now I think it won't become one of my Tori favourites... As for Distant Satellites - I adore the experimental second half, but the first one is a bit unoriginal and considerably weaker than WS for me... WS is my favourite Anathema effort as well, BTW :) Oh, the last day of summer has just begun... Have a nice autumn, Iris! :-)

Hi, Iris! The physics teaching was for fun. The camp itself is dedicated to study of cosmos, and my lessons were mostly related to ISS and physics outside planet earth :-) I also hope that my lessons made them realize that it's not boring at all. I tried my best and I've succeded, I guess! :D WOW, I didn't know that Kate Bush is performing live again! I'm so glad that you go to the concert!!! I'll need a detailed report, since I'm curious as hell! :D I hope she will record one of the concerts for DVD... I'd really like to meet you afternoon on the concert day in Nijmegen. I don't know what to do there as well... But I hope that it has a nice cafe at least, ha-ha :D We think of being in the Netherlands for 3 days and 2 nights: Saturday morning we're there, and Monday evening we fly back. But we still haven't planned the trip, everything may change...

Hi, Iris! Sorry for the long reply, as usual: I had an extremely busy beginning of summer and then I was in a summer camp for 3 weeks to teach children physics :) How are you? How is your summer? As for the Gathering show - we're lucky indeed! Though my girlfriend managed to get the ticket for the additional show as well! (TG is her favourite band along with Pink Floyd, she's almost mad about it!) But I said that one concert a day is enough for me :) So I have a free afternoon in Nijmegen on 11.9! I would EXTREMELY like to meet you personally! BTW, my GF has been to the Netherlands twice already, so I don't think we'll need some special help about certain things in NL. But if we do, I know whom to ask, thank you! :) As for the Unrepentant Gelandines - I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm really happy you liked it! :) How did you like Distant Satellites, btw? I must confess, I'm disappointed a bit... And have you found youself on Universal DVD? Have a nice week, Iris! :)

Yay! We've bought the tickets to TG anniversary show in the Netherlands!! Now it's time to save money for flights and visas :D

PS. And thanx for your responce to my new profile pic :) It was a proffesional photoshoot indeed! I could send you some more pix in PM, if you're interested :)

Hi, Iris! Sorry for a long reply again - had an exam session and was really busy :( Do you know that TG have announced the special 25-years anniversary show?! 9th of November! Anneke will be there among all the members during the band's history! I'm not sure myself if I can go (it's all about the money), but I will send my GF there since TG is her favourite band in the world :) As for the Theater Equation, here you can find all the info: http://shadowfreaks.com/athete_en/ Did you like the new Tori album? I haven't listened to it yet... but the album cover is a disaster! I hope that musically it's much better... Have a nice day! :)

Happy Birthday! Ben niet aan het stalken of zo. Was een dag of wat terug toevallig op je profile om te kijken of je nog wel eens naar iets anders luistert dan Tori Amos. :D Nu, na een reload van de pagina dacht ik dat ik je leeftijd zag veranderen.. Dus als ik het goed heb: Gefeliciteerd!

Hi, Iris!! How are you? Really busy, I guess? :) Have you heard amazing news! The Human Equation is getting turned into a stage parformance! Only three shows somewhere near you, in the Netherlands!!! Most of the original album cast is confirmed! Will you go?? I'm even jealous a bit, Dutch people are lucky :D But... I've started to plan the trip to Netherlands in September, 2015 ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PucjFzCHplA

Such an interesting musical taste, I simply couldn't ignore it ;) Plus... Tori ♥

En, valt 2014 een beetje mee tot nu toe?

Hi, Iris! How are you? How are the Christmas holidays going? :-) Have you seen Showtime, Storytime, a Nightwish show with Floor? :-) Wish you a merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :-))

Gisteren Hengelo in geweest en veel (oude) bekenden tegengekomen. Vandaag eten met ouders en morgen weinig bijzonders. Ik heb er niet echt hekel aan. Maar buiten kerst en oud/nieuw werk ik de rest van de dagen.

Beetje druk zo aan het eind van het jaar maar verder goed :) Nog leuke plannen voor kerst?

Hoe gaat het tegenwoordig met jouw?

Glad to see you like it too! =D Maybe that's exactly the reason why people dismiss it, but most should really give it a second listen. It took some time for it to grow on me, but, when it finally did... just wow. Don't like seasonal stuff either. Most of the time, don't even bother to hear those, much less buy the albums. =/

mooi concertlijstje ook; misschien kom ik je ergens nog tegen!

hallo bezoekster :)

Oh, Kate Bush! ♥ I'd especially like to read your thougths on The Red Shoes. Lots of fans seem to hate that album, but I absolutely love it and find it one the best ones among her discography. Don't like this new country stuff Jewel is doing as well. Unfortunately, she isn't the only one going that way; Sheryl Crow just recently released a country album too. :| And now she got another Christmas album on the way. Don't like seasonal stuff either. :/

Still checking even though it's been some time since you last wrote something. Thought you were busy to write new reviews, indeed. =/ Crazy was the first track on Scarlet's Walk to catch me. Awesome song. Glad you love it too. And the career path Jewel chose to follow really disappointed me, but her first albums will always be there, fortunately. Hopefully you will find time in the future. I'd really love to know what you think about, say, Kate Bush's discography, as she is #10 in both of our artists charts. =D

Came to see if there were any new album reviews on your blog. Really miss those. You're such a good reviewer. =]

... St. Judas it's called! :-) Actually, I didn't suffer personally, though I spent a lot of time outside that day, but road signs were lying around the city :-) And the Neva River would cause the city a 1.6 billion roubles (about 35 million euros) damage if we hadn't the Levee! So it's what the weather is like here in autumn! :-) Pretty cold, and raining most of the time... Have a nice week, Iris! I hope you'll have some time to rest... and a bit more hours in a day, indeed! :-)

As for the recent concerts: I was at the Moonspell gig last Saturday! Actually I wasn't planning to go there, but after I knew that they play they first two albums (that are almost classics) in their entirely and Mariangela Demurtas from Tristania (I ADORE her!!!) joined them as a backing vocalist for this tour, I changed my mind and spent my last money for the ticket, ha-ha :-) Actually, the show was a bit too long considering that I heard only one Moonspell song (Scorpion Flower with Anneke, for sure... Btw, Mari sand her parts fantastically!!). So I ended up at the coach in the back of the club :-) We waited for the band after the show, but the security didn't let us take photographs (though the band itself was obviously willing to... that's a shame!). I really regret not getting Mari's autograph: I brought the Darkest White booklet for it :-) I see that nowadays we're both exhausted, money-troubled and suffering autumn, ha-ha! Here the weather is the same! We even had a hurricane!

Hi, Iris! Sorry for this long long long silence, I'm busy indeed nowadays, but definitely not with studying, ha-ha! The last month was really rich of events: I got fired from the doll theatre for kids (a messy story between me and the ex-boss: both were wrong and both suffered... it was meant to happen one day, but I hoped it'd be a bit better and less dirty). So it pushed me to work harder for my own doll theatre for kids that I've opened together with my best friend :-) Thand god I got more pupils in September to teach maths and physics, so now I'm not totally out of cash, ha-ha :-) Plus I joined a little local rock band as a vocalist... I really like to sing there, but feel I'm not trained enough, so I go on taking vocal lessons :-) And the new spectacle is being prepared in the drama Theatre where I work! There are no really big roles there at all, but I managed to get not the littlest one, ha-ha! :-) So now all the evenings are spent there until February... (next message)

Have you already listened the new Anneke's album, Iris? Can't say I'm really impressed with it, but the song Mental Jungle is so fantastic, I'm just blown away!! Possibly, the greatest Annie's solo song to date! :-) Let me know what you think about the album when you listen to it and have a nice weekend! :-)

BTW, I've seen Floor Jansen live!!! And even took autographs! And had photos with the whole ReVamp line-up! It was Female Metal Dream Fest here on 21-22 of September! Headliners were Stream of Passion, ReVamp, Elysion and Sister Sin! They all were totally FANTASTIC!! My voice is still recovering after that weekend! And can't help to mention the amazing Amorphis show on 20th of September! During 4 days I've seen more bands than during the whole 2013, ha-ha! :-) I've taken many photos and autographs, bought lots of CD's for my collection, spent a killing amount of money, and it all was unforgettable!! :-) Have you attended any concerts during last months? Peter Gabriel? :-) Have a nice week, Iris! :-)

Hi, Iris! Sorry for one more really long reply: having terribly busy and exhausting (yet excitingly interesting) weeks! I'm glad you liked your holiday and the weather was good, but I can understand that 3 weeks is a bit too much :-) For me 10 days period of holidays makes perfect balance between getting enough of the vacation and not getting tired of it :-) It would be funny to meed Tori there indeed! :D As for moving into the new appartment: it's the same everywhere, ha-ha! When we moved this winter, we had exactly the same feelings: were there really so many things in our tiny little flat?? :-) But I'm glad that all the paperwork, moving itself and most of the repairment are over for you! :-) How's the weather in the Netherlands? Here it was warm and sunny until ~20th of September, but then it predictably turned into really really cold and rainy weather: I even wear a hat, though I usually don't do it until November. It's almost a winter here!

Hi, Iris! How are you? See you're not scrobbling for a long time! Hope everything's okay! :-) Have a nice weekend!

Hey, Iris! Happy Tori's 50th birthday! :-)

Hi, Iris! How are you? Sorry for this reeeeaaaalllyy long reply: I was too relaxed and couldn't make myself right more than 5 words in a row in English :D But not the vacation is almost over (some rehearsals in the theatre have already begun), and I feel ready for any brain efforts :-) You're right, my birthday is on September, 24th. How is your movement to the new apartment? Are you already there? And what about the redecoration? :-) You're in England now, I guess, hope you are having a good time, and the weather is fine! :-) Thanx for the videos with Floor and Anneke, I've seen them! Love the performances! Floor rocks anyway, I can't choose between her classical vocals and rock voice: she's the most versatile singer on Earth, ha-ha :-) But I like the funny face she makes singing opera, ha-ha! :-) Antimatter/Anathema show seemed to be really great! I'm glad you loved it! Ed's acoustic show next? ;-) Have a nice week! :-)

BTW, I also once had my shout disappear after sending it, but I noticed it the next day. So now I always check whether everything is okay :-) Have a nice weekend and happy birthday again!! :-)

As for Floor: she's totally great indeed! I'm glad you liked it! BTW, Remagine and After Forever (albums) didn't have that much extreme vocals and are pretty easy to get into in my opinion, you could try them if you'd like to hear more Floor's outstanding performance :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjm4BrNAf6s I think you've seen it, but anyway. One of the catchiest metal songs ever, ha-ha :-) BTW, Passion in The Human Equation wasn't portrayed by Floor: it's her younger sister Irene. That's a shame she doesn't have a full band, because her voice is as powerful as her sister's one! Check out this gorgeous video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5DnoKjd3B8 Right my two favourite Equation's vocalists. And here sisters perform After Forever's song Who I Am together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-HxIqtcTUo The album version was recorded with Doro's guest vocals, btw :-) And both sisters sand in Star One's live album.

Hi, Iris! If I'm not mistaken, you had a birthday on 9th of July? ;-) Congratulations!! Right now I'd like to wish you an easy and exciting movement to the new apartment! I'm so glad you've finished all the paperwork and will move there in less than three weeks! So exciting!!! :-) As for me: I'm also excited with all this free time between getting bachelor's and master's degrees! :D I've spent 2 previous weeks in my friend's country house where I enjoyed great sunny weather and doing totally NOTHING, except eating, riding bicycle and daily swimming, ha-ha :D I feel that my battery is almost restored. On weekend I'll travel to Vyborg (it's a beautiful historical town 3 hours away from S-Pb), and than I'll spend two more weekends at another friend's country house :-) I don't know yet what will I do in August, but I'll figure something up :-) And what about your summer plans? Do you have a vacation or have to spend it working? Has the weather got any better?

Hey, hoe is het ermee? Hier vandaag een heerlijke dag helemaal niets gedaan. Lekker in de tuin gezeten, van het lekkere weer genoten, veel gelezen en natuurlijk veel muziek geluisterd. Afgelopen week ook naar KT Tunstalls nieuwe album geluisterd, en dat beviel goed, ga ik nog eens vaker doen. Als ik al m'n muziek zou willen luisten ben ik een maand bezig, 24uur per dag, zoveel vakantie dagen heb ik niet :P Ik denk dat je Mariecke Borger ook wel leuk zult vinden. Fijn weekend!

Hey Iris, wat moet jij een heerlijke zondagotchtend hebben gehad ;)

Hi, Iris! How are you? :-) Want to share some joy: I have just defensed my bachelor's thesis with the "excellent" mark! :-) I feel so happy and totally free, yeah!!! :-) Have a nice week! :-)

How are you? How is the documentary stuff going? And how's the weather? It's EXTREMELY hot here :-) (and I have to waste my youth with the thesis stuff, meh :-( ) Have a nice week! :-)

BTW, she often performs not only in the capitals (Moscow and S-Pb), but also makes a little Russian tour, consisting of 4-5 concerts in smaller cities. Of course I know that NW are out of singer now. They're touring with Floor Jansen (who is metal lady #1 for me together with AnnLouise from DSO), so it's kind of a dream come true :D I honestly hope that Floor will remain a permanent vocalist in NW. I only with that separation of Nightwish and Anette was a bit less dirty. One more unpleasant story inside the band =\ Have you seen this fantastic performance? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3brcfttchzA The final part gives me goosebumps and shivers :D As someone said in comments, Floorgasm, haha. I listened to the Agnes Obel's song, it's really beautiful, but you're right: it's not really my kind of music. At least now that I'm in a pretty metallic mood :-)

Hi, Iris! Sorry again for a really late reply: got a plenty of work with the degree. The topic is Multimode semiconductor lasers with selective external feedback. I can give a more detailed explanation if you wish :-) It's actually not about application of lasers, but of improving a certain laser's characteristics. Today was thesis's pre-defence, and I think my theme is the most interesting of them all... Maybe because I got into it, and don't really understand the others, ha-ha :-) Anyway, it all went even better than I expected, so I think I deserve a relaxed rest of the day :-) BTW, the defense itself is exactly in a week. Can't wait for it, because I'll be FREE!!!! As for the choice between Tarja and TBM - you're completely right :-) Actually Tarja visits Russia very frequently: at least once a year, and I've never been to her show, and not going to :-)

*the characters limit, brrrr* ... But I definitely prefer it to constant raining :D Have a nice Sunday with warm Weather! :-))

Wow! Congratulations, Iris! :-))) Moving to a better place is always great! Sometimes I still can't believe that I live in my own room, though we moved in exactly 4 months ago! Hope everything goes well about it! :-) As for me - I am really busy with writing my bachelor's degree work about lasers and passing through my exam session at the same time (+the job), but in the middle of June it's gonna be over, so I'm patient, though tired :D And yes, TBM definitely were on my wishlist! At some high point of it! :D Now that bad times for Russia (90s+early00s) are over, many bands come to us indeed! Chibi said that she was afraid that no-one knows TBM here, and the venue would be empty, and she was really surprised to see she thought wrong! :-) And it would be even more crowded if Tarja's concert wouldn't happen the same evening, haha! :D As for the weather, it's really strange here: it switches between clear sunny sky and cold shower rain 4 times a day!