Maria Mena – Effenaar

March 1th 2006 – Effenaar Eindhoven

She was in one word awesome! I am so glad that I bought a ticket to see the show even though I had to go alone. It was so cool and she did so many songs, it is unbelievable she did 20 songs among them all of my favorites.

But there is something surreal that I have to tell you before I go on with my review on the concert. Okay here I go, I planned on visiting a good friend of mine who happens to live on the other side of the country. So I could choose to go by car or by train, but I choose to travel by train because I wanted to work on some writing and read a book. Well if I traveled by train I would have more then enough time to do that because I had a trip ahead of me which would take me three hours.

So I am sitting here minding my own business and had my mp3-player on random-play-every-maria-mena-song-i-own shuffle and was getting ready to write this review when some people sat down behind me. Literally behind me! No not Maria Mena, the next best thing … her band. How weird is that!!! So here I am sitting, thinking, wondering if they can hear that I am playing their music … so surreal!

I was thinking about the concert and I have to say that I love Maria Mena even more now then I did before the concert. From the first time that I heard her songs I was intrigued by her lyrics, even more when I looked her lyrics up on a website. I love her writing style, the metaphors that she uses for her lyrics. I love it! Without knowing a story behind a song you can really identify with her songs because of the metaphors. For instance ‘Internal Dialogue’ is about her eating disorder, but because she does speak in metaphors someone else can identify with that song because he/she knows those feelings from abuse/neglect/bullying or whatever. She tells a story without telling the details, in the concert she told what the songs meant and why she wrote them, what feelings triggered her to write a certain song. That is why her writing style is so fascinating to me.

I no particular order these are the songs that Maria Mena performed live at the concert;

Which makes the incredible amount of 20 songs! Which is a lot for a concert. I love most of those songs, some where new to me others are songs that I have loved since the first time I heard them. Maria Mena is an incredibly talented writer that I admire for her writing style. She is one of those artists who bares their soul when they write a song. I believe that a good songwriter bares their soul when they write a song or a lyric. It is often the same with story writers and poets.

I am really looking forward to see her again on Pinkpop this summer!!!

Concerts I want to go to next;

I am going to get a ticket for Pinkpop! OMG! I am so excited, the line up is just so awesome, I have to go. Plus some of my colleagues are going as well, and they asked me to go with them. I am so looking forward to that because I know that we will have three great days. No matter what, I know I will!