{"id":113778,"date":"2026-06-22T12:50:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/113778\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T12:50:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:50:45","slug":"billy-talent-amsterdam-melkweg-13-june-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/113778\/","title":{"rendered":"BILLY TALENT – AMSTERDAM, MELKWEG – 13 JUNE 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jase Walker<\/p>\n

\"BillyWith the seemingly higher frequency of bands doing album tours, it still absolutely shocked me that Billy Talent decided to choose Amsterdam as one of their stops to smash out one of the era defining albums of my late teens but here we are\u2026 Billy Talent is going to absolutely ruin my vocal chords playing every song from start to finish of their \u2018II\u2019 album and I couldn\u2019t be more excited to do this on a Saturday night!<\/p>\n

Along for the ride through these dates is Hollerado, who I\u2019ve never heard of before but as we always do, there\u2019s no sense missing the supports because you don\u2019t know how good they\u2019ll be if you miss them!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m into the venue maybe a bit later than I normally would but found my spot for Hollerado<\/a> so let\u2019s get stuck into tonight\u2019s show!<\/p>\n

The screen behind them lights up with an extremely bright message written in Dutch introducing themselves but we can\u2019t quite see what the bottom part says as the stage is taken up with Billy Talent\u2019s gear. Anyway they get things kicked off and it feels very Americana styled rock to start with, punky clean guitar along with singing that feels rooted firmly in a country style.<\/p>\n

Admittedly I\u2019m not mega familiar with this sort of genre, I think the closest I could think of would be Darwin Deez but even then I would say they vibe a bit closer to Franz Ferdinand with their somewhat bouncy style. I\u2019m enjoying it but I do think they\u2019re a bit of an odd choice to support Billy Talent but the crossover appeal is pretty solidly there. I think they\u2019d be a solid choice to tour with Midwest emo oriented style bands like Arms Length or Hot Mulligan. I think tonight\u2019s crowd has been a bit of a tough one to win over for Hollerado, probably also partly due to the significance of the album show as well.<\/p>\n

The band has played super well though, they\u2019ve sounded fantastic also but the audience tonight didn\u2019t seem to really feel it and we\u2019re more than likely being polite until Billy Talent starts. They\u2019ve taken it in good stride and have given away some free CDs to try and win over some potential new fans too so I think they\u2019re probably a bit resigned to the fact that\u2019s how it rolls tonight but credit to them, they still went all in!<\/p>\n

A 2026 image appears in the format of a date flipper that steadily ticks back towards 2006, and it\u2019s time for Billy Talent<\/a> to open with \u2018Devil In A Midnight Mass\u2019 as an incredible ripper to begin! Going straight in at incredible levels of energy and then following that with \u2018Red Flag\u2019, what better way to kick off a Billy Talent show eh?<\/p>\n

I do think albums don\u2019t always make for great setlists but for II, I don\u2019t think it would be any better! It\u2019s clear already by the fourth song that everyone here knows the words to every song, and they\u2019re here to scream every single one of them! The moment \u2018Fallen Leaves\u2019 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen the entire floor area of Melkweg jump in unison quite so enthusiastically as I have tonight. It\u2019s quite something to behold with a good few hundred people going absolutely apeshit all the way back to the sound desk.<\/p>\n

I feel like Billy Talent didn\u2019t quite expect the whole sold out audience to be able to sing-along to every single song on the album, this becoming so much more apparent on \u2018Perfect World. We\u2019re literally running through the favourite Billy Talent album of every single person in this room.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re barely off stage to prep for the encore for a few seconds before the crowd is banging for more and they walk back on and open their salvo with \u2018Rusted From The Rain\u2019, we are literally at the best setlist ever for Billy Talent right here. This is an encore of the literal best of hits that they couldn\u2019t cover with the II run, immediately following with \u2018River Below\u2019, \u2018Surprise Surprise\u2019 and then into the more recent \u2018Afraid Of Heights\u2019 but I feel we\u2019ve got more in the tank to come to really put this show into people\u2019s memories for years to come.<\/p>\n

If you want a solid example of dedicated fans then Billy Talent fans are absolutely it, since the start of the show there\u2019s been literally nothing else other than insane energy that hasn\u2019t given up for the slightest moment. Every single song has had everyone in the room screaming out every word, nobody has taken this moment for granted in the smallest way.<\/p>\n

The perfect Saturday night for a millennial metalhead, Amsterdam, Melkweg, Billy Talent, loads of beer, and the best setlist they\u2019ve ever played, ever. And finishing the encore with \u2018Devil On My Shoulder\u2019 and \u2018Try Honestly\u2019 wraps up legitimately the best show I\u2019ve ever seen them play and it\u2019s been a few times to say the least.<\/p>\n

This is in the running for my favourite show this year so it\u2019ll be a tough choice at the end of the year given what\u2019s coming up. Amazing evening, my throat hurts like hell from singing. Good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jase Walker With the seemingly higher frequency of bands doing album tours, it still absolutely shocked me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,56944,27854,56945,27855,27856,200,6105],"class_list":["post-113778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-billy-talent","tag-gig-review","tag-hollerado","tag-live-review","tag-melkweg","tag-netherlands","tag-review"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116793850411271200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}