Zoetermeer, The Netherlands – They seem unstoppable, the men of The Watch. It has been about a year since the last time they played at Boerderij in Zoetermeer and they are back, this time with their Foxtrot & Selling England By The Pound tour. Or well, back, they actually never stopped touring and it looks like that won’t happen anytime soon. With dates running until May 2023, The Watch will be playing a lot of shows and can be seen in many cities!
The Watch is a well-known progressive rock band from Italy and is especially popular among fans of old Genesis music. In addition to their own music, they have become known to many people with their successful The Watch Plays Genesis project. It is so successful that it did not go unnoticed by the old Genesis members. That is why former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett announced the band via a voice message. This show at Boerderij, Zoetermeer they will play not one but no less than two Genesis albums from start to finish. They started with the album Foxtrot and thus “Watcher Of The Skies”.
“Watcher Of The Skies” starts with an intro played on the organ by Valerio De Vittorio, the keyboardist of The Watch, and immediately captures the audience’s attention. The band managed to maintain that attention throughout the entire concert. It shows again how timeless this music is, even though the album Foxtrot is over fifty years old. After playing “Can-Utility And The Coastliners” the band leaves the stage except for guitarist Giorgio Gabriel to play his solo “Horizons”. Then, the band returns to play one of the crowd favorites “Supper’s Ready”. This song contains so many different dynamics that every musician has a piece to showcase their musical talents to the audience.
After a short break, the band returned to play the second album of the night, Selling England By The Pound. “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight” was played beautifully and the crowd got very excited when “I Know What I Like ( In Your Wardrobe)” started. This night the enthusiasm was not only with the audience, the band also had a good time playing and often laughed at each other. When “Firth Of Fifth” was played next, the crowd went wild, as if they had come just to hear this song. This song has all the elements that a great song has. It was fantastically performed from Valerio De Vittorio’s piano intro, Giorgia Gabriel’s guitar solo to Francesco Vaccarezza’s phenomenal drumming.
To perform “More Fool Me”, guitarist and bass player Mattia Rossetti came forward to sing, where he showed that in addition to playing the guitar, he also has a beautiful voice. He was joined in the chorus by lead singer Simone Rossetti. Certainly a pleasant surprise in the show! Before playing “The Cinema Show”, singer Simone had prepared something in Dutch, and I must say that he did quite well. As an encore, they played one of their own songs “Howl The Stars Down” and ended the night with “The Knife”.
The Watch took Zoetermeer back in time tonight. I would highly recommend any Genesis enthusiast to check them out. The European tour is still in full swing. For dates and tickets click here.
The Watch
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Show Date: October 14, 2023
