On a rainy Saturday evening in Amsterdam, Liverpool-based punk band STONE played a sold-out show in Melkweg’s Oude Zaal. In 2024, they played the venue’s bigger room, but this April 11th, they opted for a more intimate setting. The show was part of their tour in support of their recently released album, AUTONOMY.
Doors to the venue opened at 18:30, and while the show was completely sold out, fans trickled into the venue very slowly. At about 10 minutes past 7, the night’s first support act took to the stage with the hall filled about half. It was up to Dutch band Individuals to get the crowd going tonight. The four-piece rock band consists of lead singer and guitarist Bart van Hulst, guitarist Kay Spijker, bassist Sem Voesenek, and drummer Kai de Wildt. They opened up their set with ‘Wide Eyed’. As the band is Dutch, they addressed the audience exclusively in their native language. Van Hulst said that the third song tonight could be described as “een beetje smerig”, which roughly translates to “a little nasty”, as they dove into ‘Stop Talking’. Halfway through this song, one of Spijker’s guitar strings broke, and he had to get it fixed as the rest of the band continued. A few songs later, Voesenek’s bass strap also broke. Right in the middle of their set, Van Hulst explained that last time STONE played at Melkweg, the four of them had been in attendance as fans. Seeing that they’d come back, they said “fuck it” and took their chance to be their support this time by sending the band a message. “Don’t be afraid [to] post that video [or] send that text,” Van Hulst spoke before the band played ‘Live Wire’. Despite the technical difficulties, the band managed to play their entire eight-song setlist and made sure to warm up the crowd, ending with ‘Big Man Tears’
At 20:00, the second support act, Garage Flower, took to the stage. The band from Leeds, consisting of lead singer Nathan Whitehead, guitarist Dylan McQuade, bassist Josh, and drummer Charlie, has only been around since 2024. None of their songs can be found on Spotify; instead, the band has uploaded their music to SoundCloud. They opened their set with one of their ‘Soundcloud Demos’ tracks, namely ‘Jammy’. This was followed by the eponymous track ‘Garage Flower’, during which Whitehead broke one of his guitar strings. As the song continued on and eventually evolved into a jam session, the crew was working to get this issue fixed, ending up giving Whitehead an entirely different guitar for the rest of the set. “Sorry for the technical difficulties, Amsterdam!” he stated before the band moved on to ‘Bees and Honey’. Whitehead and McQuade took off their jackets as the room was getting fuller and warmer, the crowd admiring the guitar riffs. Garage Flower ended their set with ‘Alan’, a song they wrote about “getting off your tits” at a festival, and ‘Patience Is a Virtue’. The latter was truly the highlight of their set, and hopefully, it will actually be available for streaming someday soon.
Thirty minutes after Garage Flower left the stage, it was time for STONE. As Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’ played over the speakers, the band members walked on one by one: lead singer and guitarist Fin Power, guitarist Elliot Gill, bassist Sarah Lucy Surrage, and drummer Alex Smith. They began the show with ‘MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO’, quickly followed by ‘STACK UP THE REASONS’ and ‘Rockmount’. The mosh pit opened up right away, and the first crowdsurfer made their way up onto the stage during the third song. “How are we doing, Amsterdam?” Power shouted out. “We’re going to have a party tonight. This room is fucking full, this is great!” The singer then asked the people if they were ready to dance to ‘Let’s Dance to the Real Thing’. Power himself was definitely ready and showed off some smooth dance moves.
After Power successfully motioned for a circle pit to ensue during ‘NEVER AGAIN’, he asked to “keep this party rolling and rolling”. STONE’s fans happily obliged as the pit stayed open and the crowdsurfers made their way across the room, even during an instrumental interlude between ‘If You Wanna’ and ‘MOULIN ROUGE’. “In a few songs, I’m gonna attempt the impossible. I’m gonna go swimming,” Power said, warning the crowd that later that night, he would be the one crowdsurfing. Before that would happen, however, he shouted out “all the ladies” in attendance tonight as the band played ‘Sweet Heroine’, which was followed by ‘Save Me’. During ‘My Thoughts Go’, the lead singer of Individuals made it up onto the stage, giving Power a big hug, showing how grateful he was to the band for being able to play tonight.
The next song on the setlist, ‘Freezing’, had not been played on the UK part of this tour, as stated by Power himself. However, it means a lot to him, and he really wanted to play it in mainland Europe. The song is slightly slower and thus gave the crowd a little breather before the band picked the energy right back up. Power took off his shirt and asked the crowd to open up a path for him during ‘Waste’, so that he could get to the stairs leading to the balcony. He then jumped into the crowd and crowdsurfed back onto the stage during the rest of the song. Afterwards, he said he felt scared doing so, but that he was glad the drop wasn’t that big, as everyone in the Netherlands is so tall, which led to laughter from the fans. The band then played ‘AUTONOMY’ before leaving the stage for the encore.
The crowd shouted how they wanted more, and of course, STONE came back to play two more songs. As the fans were aware they only had a little time left to party, the pit became even bigger and rowdier for this final part of the show. Power made everyone get down low during ‘Leave It Out’ and mixed the song up with a small part of Eminem’s ‘The Real Slim Shady’ before the beat dropped, and everyone jumped up. The singer also jumped into the crowd for the second time tonight, only just making it back on stage in time for the last song. Before finishing the show with one more track, Power stated that the show “sold out six months in advance” and that the band is really grateful to be able to come to another country and play shows such as this. STONE ended the night with ‘Money (Hope Ain’t Gone)’ before leaving the stage for the final time tonight.
