Over the past few years, Canadian indie rock band Mother Mother has steadily visited the country of the Netherlands at least once a year. However, they had never visited Tilburg before. On the 8th of July, this changed, as they played a show in the main hall of 013 as part of the tour in support of their recently released album, Nostalgia. The queue for the show had been steadily growing throughout the day, and when the doors opened at 19:00 the hall immediately filled to the brim.
Dutch indie band Mood Bored had the honor to open the show. For this tour, Mother Mother has decided to invite local artists as their support acts. Mood Bored consists of lead singer and guitarist Myrte Driesenaar, guitarist Daan Stuyven, and drummer Timo de Wit. The group of friends met at the Rockacademie right here in Tilburg and decided to start a band as a way to deal with their existential crisis. They opened their set with ‘All the Time’, after which they stated how cool it was to be able to play this show that was like a “home game” to them. The band continued with ‘Out Loud’ and ‘Lucky’, the latter being written from the perspective of a gaslighter. In this song, Driesenaar sings how “you know you’re nothing special, luckily I love you”. Afterwards, De Wit told the audience how cute everyone in the audience looked, especially with the glowsticks they were all wearing in their hair and around their wrists.
Fourth on the set tonight was ‘Pour Into Me’, the audience eagerly clapping along from the bridge into the last chorus. “Wow, how gezellig” the drummer said, “and we’re only the support act!”. The audience seemed to really be enjoying themselves and were supportive of their fellow Dutchmen. Mood Bored followed with ‘Easy Going’, an upbeat, self-reflective track, and ‘Wet Faced & Ugly’, which Driesenaar said to be about “a crying baby”. In between, she spoke about the band’s second EP which had been released a few months ago. If you like Mood Bored’s music, an extra song can be found on the vinyl of Too Much?. Finally, the band finished their half-hour set with the unreleased songs ‘You Did It Again’, a song that featured quite a bit of vocals from De Wit, and ‘July’.
After a wait of about thirty minutes, it was time for the main act Mother Mother. Drummer Ali Siadat and bassist Mike Young came on stage first to take their respective places on the raised platform at the back of the stage. Vocalists and keyboardists Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin quickly followed, together with Guldemond’s brother, vocalist and guitarist Ryan Guldemond. The band opened their set with ‘The Sticks’ and the iconic ‘Verbatim’. While both Molly as well as Parkin had their own keyboards at opposite sides of the stage, they also occasionally switched sides to be able to get close to all their fans. There were two small raised platforms on either side of Ryan on which both he as well as the female singers could stand. The band continued with ‘Make Believe’, the lead single of Nostalgia, and an amazing mash-up of the hit single ‘Hayloft’ and a cover of Nirvana’s ‘In Bloom’.
After playing the fifth song on the setlist, ‘Love to Death’, Ryan told the audience that they “are magic tonight”. At the same time, Parkin took a set of self-made unicorn plushies from a fan at the front of the audience; the cover art of the band’s latest album has a drawing of a unicorn on it. Throughout the rest of the set, Parkin and the other band members kept receiving other gifts such as drawings and letters. Continuing the show, the band asked the audience if they cried easily and told them that “this one’s for all the criers” as they played ‘The Cry Forum’. The end of this song includes a stanza from a poem translated into Dutch, as the Guldemond siblings’ dad was born in Woerden, and so they are both half-Dutch. Several fans knew the entire poem by heart and loudly screamed along as it was spoken over the speakers by the voice of the Guldemonds’ dad. After this iconic moment, the audience was treated to an immediate second iconic moment: Parkin sang a (shortened) version of Chappell Roan’s ‘HOT TO GO!’, including the choreography that the entire audience danced along to.
Mother Mother then played a mix of a few older and newer singles, including ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Stand’. After playing ‘Until It Doesn’t Hurt’ from Inside, Ryan Guldemond told the audience that they “are our friends” and “some of the most important people in our lives, because we connect in this way”. The next song they would be playing was one about friendship called ‘ON AND ON (Song for Jasmin)’. The platonic love song was written by Ryan as an ode to his best friend and bandmate Jasmin Parkin, and at the end of the song he played the guitar riffs just for her. The band finally ended this part of the set by telling the audience they could put all their troubles on a pile for one song, ‘Burning Pile’, before leaving the stage.
The band came back on stage together, with Young and Siadat also taking a spot at the front of the stage so that all five of them were standing in a singular line. Ryan Guldemond held a short speech about the importance of being yourself, even when that might be scary considering the current situation in the world. “Here at a Mother Mother show, you are supported, celebrated, seen, accepted,” he said to loud cheering. The band played a mash-up of older songs, including ‘Tic Toc’, ‘Body’, after which a trans flag was brought onto the stage, and ‘Little Pistol’. While the set up of the stage was changed back to the original, Ryan spotted a sign in the audience asking the band to sign the fan’s tennis racket. This led to a short break during which the band signed this and various other items while the microphone was given to several fans to share “life advice”. Continuing with the music, the next song, ‘It’s Alright’, went “out to anybody who had a real bad day”, with the audience lighting up the room with their phone lights for the first time tonight. This was followed by ‘Arms Tonite’ and the iconic ‘Hayloft II’ before the band left the stage again.
The first to make it back onto the stage was Molly, whose vocals are the main part of ‘To Regret’. While this show was part of the band’s Nostalgia Tour, this was only the fourth and last song they played from this album. It made for a beautiful moment, however, as the lights filled up the room yet again as Molly and the rest of the band sang this beautiful track. Earlier on, Ryan had noticed a sign asking the band to play ‘Life’, which they promised they would before the end of the set. “We all got a little life that we try to make special, so this song is for everyone,” was said before the song, including the poem that is a part of it, was played. After singing a few more bits and bobs, the band left the audience with a song they wrote over 20 years ago, ‘Oh Ana’.
Written by: Mandy Huibregtsen
Edited by: Sabine de Graaf
