The Heineken Music Hall is located right next to Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA, the metro stop I get off at to go to my school. On the ride over I noticed there were a lot of men on the metro wearing red scarves that said “Ajax” or “Amsterdam,” things of that sort. Turns out there was a big football (soccer) game at the Ajax stadium the same time as our concert. The Ajax stadium is also located right next to this Bijlmer ArenA metro stop. These details are important for understanding the events that followed after the concert…
Vampire Weekend was absolutely amazing live. They will always be one of my favorite bands and I am exceptionally grateful that I got to see them, and in Amsterdam of all places! They always sell out in the States, and this show at the Heineken Music Hall was actually their last show in Europe for a while. Looks like we will be seeing a new Vampire Weekend album in our future!
Jenny and Johnny opened for Vampire Weekend. This band was really great too. The hall itself was absolutely massive. It is nights like these that I wish I were Dutch. Dutch men are just so darn tall that I couldn’t see a thing while Jenny and Johnny were on. We decided it would be best to go up in back to where the seats are. Even though we were far away and Vampire Weekend looked like ants, it was much more pleasant to sit back there and see the whole show than to be craning my neck and struggling to see.
It was a great show. I forgot how much I love Vampire Weekend and live music in general. This is one thing I will miss greatly when I retreat back to the woods and stop experiencing the fast-paced, Amsterdam city life.
What are the chances that our concert got out at the same time as the football game at Ajax? Flocks of people all rushed for the metro station at Bijlmer. I’ve never seen so many people at that metro stop, most of which were men. Nobody seemed to have a happy face on, it was obvious that Madrid won the game.
Packed in like sardines, we finally get on the metro. It was freezing outside and I couldn’t wait to get back and get some warm food! A couple stops after getting on, the metro stops dead. I felt like I was in the “Subway” episode of Seinfeld. We wait for ages before someone tells us that the door got kicked in at the next stop over and the metro wasn’t able to move. I thought we were never going to get back and there were tons of unhappy footballers thinking the same. After a long wait, the metro finally started back up again and we managed to get home, but what an awful time for it to stop running. There were hundreds of people crammed into those trains. Quite the eventful night!
