On the night of August 27th Emilie Autumn had a show in Eindhoven. It was a warm night after a sunny day, and the sun had not even set yet because the concert was due to start very early. Our photographer had to solo it and also review due to unforeseen circumstances, and was on her way to what proved to me a dark twisted fairytale telling of a crazy story with a lot of neo-Victorian sauce on it.
Getting into the Dynamo venue was no problem at all, the small room wasn’t even half filled and only the most hardcore Emilie fans seemed the be there. This might have something to do with poor promotion, or with the fact she played a second show the next day in Utrecht, I’m not sure. It was quite calm yet people were pressed against the stage. There was a dead silence for the venue had not been permitted to play any music before the show started. It started with a lengthy (15 minutes) taped music intro before Emilie and her two cohorts came on stage, launching into her latest single: ‘Fight Like A Girl’.
In all honesty the taped music was to be a theme, no instruments were used live, only the singing was done live, in droplet mics. This highly improved the dramatic imagery and dynamics of the quite excellent theatrics in the show, but did take away from the feeling of “concert”. And really it wasn’t a concert as such, it was musical theatre. The songs were all set in a certain way to tell a story and we even had a brief intermission, though a long-term fan told me this wasn’t usually and probably had to do with an injury Emilie had. This might also have been the reason her vocals were a little off the mark. Another pity was the fact that Emilie’s mic was balanced a lot louder than any other and even the music. It made the show feel a little like a karaoke sometimes. Apart from all this the costumes, their changing nature, the drama and theatrics were brilliant. Emilie knows her stuff and though I find her style of vocals a little grating after a while, the show was very engaging and for someone dealing with an apparently painful rib injury, her vocals were very good. And that’s not all; the fans got pulled into the show by these masterful actors, because lets face it that’s what they were; singing actors, now being teased, sprinkled with water and bread, or dragged on stage for defilement. The filler parts where both actresses got to shine, one with a 
burlesque routine, one reading a piece of “filth” from fanfiction.net (look it up) were quite excellent. Even though the exact storyline (the numbers are still loose songs and apparently interchangeable in a way) was a little faint for me, the Victorian burlesque asylum thing got across quite well. Besides the fans there knew every song by heart so they would have had an easier time figuring out the story.
All in all a very entertaining night out and we were out of there again before 10, still able to enjoy some of the heat of the wonderful day and reflect on the dramatic expression of “insanity” we had just witnessed. Don’t expect a concert as such, expect a musical type theatre. Once you make the switch the show is pretty damned good!
Emilie Autumn
Dynamo Eindhoven, The Netherlands
August 27th, 2013
Susanne Maathuis (also pictures)