Bildtstar – what is it like on stage?

Last Sunday, Bildtstar performed in Iduna, Drachten. With a lot of shows under their belt and their debut album dropping the 26th op April, it was time to have a little talk with these guys. We had Jose live at the venue to take some amazing pictures to go with these questions. Let’s get to know these guys a bit better, and maybe they’ll tell us what we can expect of their album release show the 27th in Neushoorn, Leeuwarden!

See all the pictures of the show below the interview.

What is your routine on the day of a concert? Who is always last to arrive and delays the bands’ schedule?

Simon – That depends on the show. Sometimes we have multiple shows in one day. We meet up at the studio where we rehearse to drink some coffee, and load in our gear. Get our stuff to the venue. Sometimes it’s plug ‘n play, and then we play, put everything back in the car, and onto the next. Sometimes we get to drink a beer after the show. 

In terms of people being late, it’s probably me, the vocalist. I think vocalists are always a bit later. 

Do you have any pre-stage rituals?

Simon – I think the only pre-stage ritual that we have; sometimes we give eachother a hug. But most times we just drink a couple of beers. I as a singer like to warm up, but that’s about it.

What’s the secret to getting the audience in a good vibe? 

Simon – I think the secret to getting the audience in a good vibe is experience. We’ve played over 150 shows now. When you just start out, you might be a bit shy on stage, you don’t know what to do. But there comes a certain point where you realize you are in control, you need to be in control of the audience. From the first moment, if you flip that switch in your head, running on stage shouting ‘Are you ready to rock’ then you have ‘em. Then you’re in a certain flow. And I think that’s a key factor in getting the audience going. 

What do you enjoy most about interacting with the audience? (for example, when we sing along with you) How does that influence the atmosphere of the show? 

Simon – I discovered that I really love to play with the crowd. We have multiple times in our show where we play with the crowd, and get them to sing along. I love it when you can warm them up. You start with a more familiar song, and it’s easy to sing along. Then there comes a certain point in the show where you get everyone to put their hands in the sky, screaming ‘Hey, hey’. That’s stage two.

And then at a certain point, we go to one of our own songs, ‘Burning After Midnight’, we released that two months ago, and then you say ‘Okay, now I know you guys can sing, let’s do this one together’ and then you tell ‘em what to sing. I go one, they go two, I go one, they go two. And then they all know what to do and they sing. And I love it. It’s such an amazing feeling if people are singing along to your own songs. 

And sometimes that even happens naturally, people just start singing. Which is really cool. They sing along and they scream and go crazy. That is a huge boost for the band. That’s what keeps us going, to give more and more and more, and put up the best show we can. 

Have you experienced something really funny or unexpected during a concert due to interaction with the crowd? Can you share an example? 

Simon – There once was a festival where we played with a couple of other bands. And in the middle of the show, someone walked up to the stage with a big present in their hand, and we opened it up and it was a big diamond painting of us, a gigantic diamond painting that she made of a photo of us. And she worked on that for almost 3,5 months to give it to us at that show. And I almost started crying at that moment, it was very special to see people do that, they do that for us, you know.

That same show, like 15 minutes later, another person walks up to the stage, next song, and she comes out with a hand-drawn painting of our logo and everything that she had been working on for two months. And that was the same show and I was like, what the f**k is happening over here. So we are getting it more often that people are bringing presents to the stage, and that’s very nice. 

How do you deal with unforeseen events during a concert? 

In almost every show things go, and will go wrong. Small things, big things. I remember there was an outside show and we were headlining. And it was raining like hell. And at a certain point all the electricity cut out. So we didn’t have any electricity anymore to play the show. So, I went with my acoustic guitar in front of the stage, and I did Freddy Mercury’s ‘Ey–ooo, Ey – oo’ interacting with the crowd, make them sing. Luckily the electricity came back on, but then it happened again, almost three times that show. So we would stop, 3, 2, 1 there we go again. It became almost like a game. And afterward people said we handled that very professionally, with the crowd and everything. It’s just, don’t stop. Always keep on going. 

Is there any exciting news you can share with us regarding the upcoming album release?

All I can say about our album release show is that it’s the biggest show that we have done until now. It is a very, very big production. With lots of fire, special effects, a lot of things happening on stage. Very professional, big, new songs. You don’t want to miss this one, it’s going to be very, very nice!

Check out Bildtstar on their Facebookpage, and make sure to catch them at their album release show! More info on the releaseshow can be found here.

Pictures of Bildtstars live set @Iduna, Drachten on April 14th

All pictures were taken by Jose Luis Ferreira.