Greek-British alt-rock artist D3lta makes music inspired by artists such as David Bowie and Sam Fender. Over the past years, he’s supported several other artists on tour while steadily releasing singles. In June, the artist released his debut album Mad About It, and so it was time for the singer to embark on his own headline tour in support of that album. On October 26th, the tour made a stop at Amsterdam’s Cinetol.
Opening tonight’s show at 20:30, half an hour after the doors had opened, was singer, songwriter, and producer NEFLELI. The singer’s real name is Nefeli, but she uses NEFLELI for her musical endeavours. On stage, she was joined by her best friend Aspasia and her partner Nikos Avgoustidis, both playing synths. All of NEFLELI’s songs were sung in Greek, and so throughout the set the singer added little translations and explanations. The music was quite experimental, blending pop, EDM, rap, and traditional Greek music into something truly unique. Though the crowd was small, they participated enthusiastically during NEFLELI’s set. The song ‘Nai’ features that exact word quite a lot, and the crowd shouted it back to the artist when prompted. While ‘Nai’ sounds like the Dutch word “nee”, which means “no”, ‘Nai’ means the exact opposite. The crowd was excitedly shouting “yes” in Greek to all the words NEFLELI sang, even though they had no idea what they were agreeing with. Most in attendance didn’t speak Greek after all. While most of tonight’s set consisted of unreleased songs from NEFLELI’s upcoming album, she ended her set with two songs that the audience would be able to find online: ‘SIGA SIGA’ and ‘DEN KOIMAMAI’. A few people familiar with these tracks came forward to dance and sing right in front of the stage and bring the energy up as the half-hour set came to a close.
Less than half an hour later, it was time for D3lta, stage name of Roberto Koustas, himself. The singer brought a full band with him. He opened his set with ‘Animals’, followed by ‘Kids’. In between the songs, he jokingly stated that normally he’d ask who had never seen a show of his live before, but tonight he’d turn it around and ask the audience who had seen him before: exactly two people. The small crowd reacted excitedly to the music, with quite some fans singing along to every word of every song. After performing ‘Blabbermouth’, Koustas was especially surprised, as while it is one of his own favourite songs from his debut album, it’s not the most-loved. However, those who do love it apparently love it very much. To truly test those claiming to know every word, Koustas had added some of his older singles to the setlist, including his first-ever release ‘Hypocrites’. Even this track had the same fans singing along, proving that they were real fans of D3lta’s entire discography.
Koustas stated halfway through the set that getting to go on this tour and perform in Amsterdam for the first time was very special to him. On this tour, he’d been getting to play the songs from Mad About It live. To the singer, it felt as if he and the audience were making memories together, enjoying this night of alt-rock music. Koustas’ discography is a true mix of upbeat songs with hard-hitting riffs and slower tracks. Examples of the latter are ‘Clouds’, which the singer performed while sitting on a stool, and the adorable love song ‘Daydream’. For ‘Hey You’, the singer finally asked the audience to take a step closer to the stage and put on their flashlights, lighting the small room up. After this interlude of softer music, Koustas moved on to, in his own words, the happiest song he’s ever written, despite the song being about a break-up. The track’s called ‘Happy Out of Love’ and describes a feeling of relief after having let go of the other person.
For the final few songs of the night, the energy truly picked back up, as Koustas and his band performed the banger ‘Hello’, followed by ‘Lonely Together’, and finally, the major hit of D3lta’s career so far and the title track of his debut album, ‘Mad About It’. Both ‘Hello’ and ‘Mad About It’ went especially hard live, with fans singing along and jumping around. Neither the crowd nor the artist had let themselves be stopped by the fact that the number of attendees was limited. Everyone visibly had a great time, and hopefully, next tour there’ll be more fans in attendance to rock out to D3lta’s music.
