Celebrating Seconds Out: The Watch Plays At Boerderij, Zoetermeer

2022-10-25

TheWatch-Boerderij-Zoetermeer_NL-20221022-SylviaWijnands-014 — The Watch Playing at Boederij, Zoetermeer 22/10/2022 © Sylvia Wijnands

Zoetermeer, The Netherlands – The Watch, a band from the city of Milan, Italie has brought their Seconds Out tour to De Boerderij in Zoetermeer. Their music is mainly inspired by 70’s style prog-rock, and although they have released nine albums of their own music, including a live album in the course of twenty years, they have been touring and playing Genesis songs since 2009.

The five-piece band consists of Simone Rossetti (lead vocals, flute, keyboards, synthesizers, tambourine), Valerio De Vittorio (keyboards, synthesizers, guitars, vocals) Mattia Rossetti (bass, guitars, vocals), Giorgio Gabriel (lead guitar) and their newest band member, drummer Francesco Vaccarezza. Each musician is very skilled at the instrument they play. That talent has not gone unnoticed. None other than former Genesis band member Steve Hackett has embraced the band. Before the show started, a voice message from Steve Hackett was also played in which he told how much he liked The Watch and wished the audience a lot of fun with the show.

As the name of the tour suggested, tonight´s focus was mainly on the songs from Genesis Seconds Out. Nevertheless, the band started with “Watcher Of The Skies”. The tone was immediately set. In the first part of the set, fan favorites such as “Firth Of Fifth” and “The Cinema Show” were played. “Carpet Crawlers” was played in a beautifully intimate way. After a short break, the second part of the set began with “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”, followed by “Supper’s Ready”. As a surprise, the band played “Ripples”, from the album A Trick Of The Tail. In addition, they also played one of their own songs called “Howl The Stars Down” from their album The Art Of Bleeding which was released in 2021. A beautiful song that fit well into the setlist. And even if the crowd may not know the band’s own music, for now, this song has probably made some people curious to go and give their album a listen when they got home. I know I have!

The whole band are exceptional musicians and the complexity of the songs were no problem for the band. The voice of singer Simone is such a close resemblance of Peter Gabriel, that if you would close your eyes you are back in the 1970s when this legendary music was still fresh and new. The band clearly showed how much they enjoyed playing the songs and managed to transfer their enthusiasm to the audience. In return, every song was sung along loudly and the band received thunderous applause.