Montezuma's Revenge "De Montezuma Code"
November 11th 2006 - Chassé theater Breda
Montezuma's Revenge is very busy at the moment. I've never seen so many concerts in a row in their tourlist as these months. Tonight we'll see how they manage to perform "De Montezuma Code" after five performances in four days, and with two shows to go, before having another rare day off. Tomorrow they even have to perform at their best, because they'll record a live album during the show.
The show turns out to be excellent though their voices are tired. Sometimes you can hear a little hoarse voice or a cough, but at other moments I am surprised by the volume, the energy and the simplicity with which they seem to sing the most beautiful harmonies. We are sitting in the back, but it gives us a great overview.
All the songs in this show are translated into Dutch or are originally Dutch songs. Personally I love Dieper ondergronds (Deeper Underground), mostly because the backing vocals are so great. And the Dutch Soms sneeuwt het in april nog (Sometimes it snows in April) is beautiful. The song really touches me personally, because it's sung with so much emotion.
Apart from beautiful ballads and up-tempo songs, I love the humor in the show. When Bert is fleeing from his colleagues, he climbs over chairs and ends up somewhere in the middle of the audience to find a woman to hide himself in her arms and sing Stil in mij (Quiet in me). When he's finally caught by the other Zuma's, he's being bombard by the audience who're in the meantime been given papers to throw to Bert. The stage is strewn with papers after the song and Paul sweeps them of the stage with a huge broom. When people in the first row keep throwing the papers back on stage, Paul sweeps them off again and gets angry: "This is going to be a very, very loooong night!". It's just so great to see this. The Dialectley is another song (or actually medley) which I love very much. And after this medley the five men are receiving their first cheering from the audience. Until this point, the audience was quite cautious and only gave them applause. Silly Dutch people, if you ask me. Montezuma's Revenge deserves much more from an audience.
The storyline of the show is much clearer now since I've last seen the show. They've made some
little changes in it, and they're more confident with the story themselves as well. The audience is
presented a society with violence, trouble and insecurity. One of the members of Montezuma's Revenge
turns out to be a criminal, smuggling a deadly virus into the Netherlands. And unfortunately things
get out of hand during the show and in the end nobody survives. Not even when five superheroes appear.
A very brave action, by the way, during Niets dan dit (Just this).
I'm glad it's just a story. I'm still alive and I am going to see the show again pretty soon, to die again. It's worth it! Ik wil muziek (Give me music) puts the reason into words to hear Zuma again soon: More of it please!