”Remember to put sun lotion on so you don’t get burned!”
- Simone Simons (vocals)

Well, ok, the weather was scorching by the time Epica hit the stage, but why this made the redhead bombshell of a vocalist Simone Simons believe she needed to act like everyone’s mother I will never know.
Apparently she wasn’t doing a good job of it either, as even her fellow band-mates didn’t really listen; the second after she had uttered these words, guitarist Mark Jansen threw of his shirt and continued the show topless…

This wasn’t the only thing Simons felt like talking about however, my personal favourite was when she mentioned that her own mother always said; ”Less talking, more playing”, words of wisdom which obviously weren’t heeded here today.
She also tried her luck with a bit of crowd-pleasing, by commenting; ”...beautiful weather, good beer and gorgeous women...”
Not that she needed any apparent crowd-pleasing though, it would seem that her mere presence, and singing of course, did the trick for the huge amount of people who had gathered in front of the Main Stage to see the band. At least they were rather hesitant in showing any emotion until the female frontman came on stage even though the band had already begun playing, but as soon as she did, all arms shot up in the air, and a deafening roar of an appreciative audience filled the sky.
I for my part (and this shows how little I actually know about the band) was rather surprised to learn that they had a male vocalist as well, Jansen again, and that they fell under the traditional ‘beauty and the beast’ setup, as I had thought this was a female only vocals kind of band. Well, there you go. Not that I was particularly impressed by the male vocals, but then again, I grew tired of this setup back in the 90ies after a few albums by Theatre Of Tragedy.
That’s a side-point I know, but what I was reaching for was that I think I would have liked Epica better if it was just the female vocals, because even if Simons did fill some of the blank spaces of the show with a lot of irrelevant talking, she sure could sing!

This show was an ok pass-time, without leaving any deep impact on the festival, or even the day. There was nothing apparently wrong, it just didn’t click for me, that’s all.