At Finnish Ankkarock festival it was time to say good-bye: Anneke van Giersbergen, the voice of The Gathering for 13 years, played her last concert with the band to have more time for her family and her new project Agua de Annique. It was a melancholic moment. Before the gig keyboarder Frank Boeijen answered questions about past, present and future of The Gathering. How are you feeling?
We had a nice dinner last night in the city of Helsinki. Where did you go? Must have been Manala, near the Government building, the ed. Had some beers, it was very nice. Was it a time to celebrate or a rather sad moment?
No, we were actually very neutral with it. I think 3 or 4 in total and…you know, this is the way it goes. We have to do that. We try to do our best for it, make a good show. Did you talk about music and your future? Yeah, of course. Actually with the 2 other boys, Hans and Rene, the two brothers who started the band and me. I was there from almost the beginning and Marjolein, our bass player, we are really tied together now.
We also did some rehearsals to write some new songs already, so we are very eager to go on. And we talked a lot and we did a lot of things already music-wise. Are you already looking for a new singer? Yeah, yeah, we opened a gmail account where people can upload their own demo. We try to find maybe some interesting stuff from there. And also a lot of people who want to try to help us so we will see. First we have to write some new songs and then we can see what kind of direction the vocals will be.
Are you rather looking for another female singer or a male singer? Maybe it will be an album with more singers than just one. I think it can be very interesting. Especially for The Gathering, it could be very interesting. Are you planning to go into a different direction music-wise then?
