As a sound engineer, I can pretty much promise you there are three front of house sound guys working this gig. One on choir and one on orchestra each making a stereo sub-mix for Epica's engineer to incorporate into the main mix via two stereo channels. Apart from that there are probably a couple of monitor engineers working hard to have all the musicians performing at their best. So congrats to the audience who got to experience this gig. I'm willing to bet Epica didn't make a cent on it, in fact they probably lost quite a bit of money. The cost of rehearsing, and performing with this setup is huge. I love it when bands have the balls to do these extravagant productions. It is artistic generosity at it's absolute peak. Thanks for a great vid.
Former tech here. The other thing you realize after watching a lot of Floor singing is that when he starts playing with her hair is her cue that her in ear needs to get turned up.
Indeed. A lot of the presentation of a performance involving so many elements really comes down to the engineers. And live performances are so DYNAMIC. Who knows where they're going to go? And sound engineers deal with it on the fly making it seem effortless. So, yes, well deserved kudos!
I'm still curious, how the german metal band Rage managed it back in the 90s to make a whole tour with an orchestra. Ok, at least they only had the orchestra and no choir, but still. The live sound on the concert was amazing. The live video they released from it was crap. And the studio cd... was not that bad, but let's say, it showed, that they still had to learn a few things.
@@strogaa In the 90's bands made a hell of a lot more money than now. People bought actual records which gave decent profit to the bands. I just look at how I consume music now compared to the nineties. Each month I used to buy records for about the same amount as I now spend on my Spotify subscription yearly. Count in inflation, which would mean I spend about 20 times less on buying music now than I used to do. And I think it's about the same for most people. The ones that were mildly interested in music didn't spend much back then, but today they probably have free accounts with commercials between songs and so forth. That's why we generally see less impressive productions today, with regards to the amount of people involved.
THANKS for speaking about the engineer, we normally don't get recognition because our job is not to get noticed 😉. I'm an audio engineer, and I have worked with orchestras live, although I mainly focus on studio work (if you ever need a mixing engineer hit me up). The main challenge here would be the drums and the strings, because they're so close to each other and the body of a cello or Bass is a resonance chamber (100% acoustic amplifier) just as the body of the drum is, so the drums actually resonate in the string section's instruments. This is why we normally use physical barriers (those acrylic panels) in this setting, to reduce the drum kit's "bleed" at least a little bit, and also to protect the other musicians from the occasional flying drumstick.
I'd noticed that whenever drums and orchestra are mixed the acrylic panels come out, but I never knew the exact reason before. I guessed it reduced the drum volume a little so the other could hear themselves, or they just bled into the other channels too much due to being loud, so I was sort-of there, but hadn't appreciated that you get actual undesirable resonance. So thanks for that explanation.
hi Julia few thing about this epica is the band Mark jansen (no relation to floor) founded after he left After forever the band that he was in with Floor! Simone in part studied vocals under Floor in some capacity so that's why you hear the same methods of singing here and of chemistry, they are best friends and both dutch so there's that! Simone was around 3 months pregnant here and also as for choir and grand performance this was their anniversary performance so they went all out! keep up the good work!
You are the vocal coach that really get into deep in a good way. And it’s a pleasure to see you mixing enthousiasme and knowledge...looking forward to another reaction Headbanging can strain you and take your breath away...so vocally its important to use good technique and knowledge of your (long)capabilities in combination with knowing the song...so you stop and are ale to breath your way into the comfortable singingposition again
The sound guy was probably an entire team for this. They had a full choir and an orchestra, seventy-plus people on stage, I think. It's huge so I doubt a single person could do all of it alone.
These two ladies are great friends and trained together. i love both Simone and floor together is such a good combo and will never get old! again amazing reaction the nightwish army is sneaky with adding floor into things :p. hope you and everyone reading this has a amazing day see you in the next reaction!!
Sound guy here. Thanks for shout out. They probably used multiple mixing guys and desks, one for orchestra, maybe one for chores and one main guy who mixes band and the master signals from the other desks together. Also monitor guy. Pretty sure that big team was behind it
thank you for your analysis Julie, I hope we can hear your reaction to Ann Wilson and David Draiman, front man for Disturbed one day, I think you will be impressed...especially if you know that Ann Wilson is 72 this year!
About the chemistry between singers - please check Within Temptation "Somewhere" live with Anneke van Giersbergen. It's from DVD "Black Symphony" with The Metropole Orchestra.
You have to checkout a band from Norway called Dimuborgir live at Wacken 2013 they play with a 100 piece orchestra and choir Gateways is a good song and Mourning Palace
of all the reactions i seen.. you are the only 1 that mentioned that vocal squeak.. ive yet to see other vocal coaches or any reactor mention that.. was always wondering why that obvious detail has never been mentioned
Floor is a valkyrie (tall, powerful, imponent) Simone is an angel (fragile looking, delicate, shorter), both together are stunning, amazing, sweet and adorable, all on the same time 💕
Cuando verdaderamente sientas el metal, no te preguntarás el porqué del movimiento de la cabeza mientras escuchas o tocas está MARAVILLOSA 💗 música. METAL FOREVER. Un saludo enorme desde Mallorca
I think I read that Floor and Simone studied in the Netherlands together for some time, both took classical training there. That may be the reason they harmonize/blend so well.
For a production like this on sound you need about 4 to 5 guys. 1 FOH (head engineer), 1 monitor guy, 1 on wireless and 2 on audio patch (or 1 depending on budget mostly). Plus you can add 2 other from the band itself that bring their own FOH and Monitor guy. But yeah usually big shows like this is about the right ratio for such setup. One day you might witness Devin Townsend - Deadhead. Also I wanna add live amplication isnt all about eq'in although you touch different aspect but the most important aspect is those parallel compression busses IMO. To get everything well balanced parallel compression is the key.
Some time ago Simone had to stop touring due to a staph infection. Amanda Somerville took her place until Simone recovered. Amanda is an incredible vocalist , look up her band Trillium or any of her solo projects. She is also a co-writer of the rock opera " Aina " . Plus she is a member of the group " Exit Eden " which is a collection of 4 excellent symphonic rock vocalist comprised of Amanda Somerville, Clementine Delauney , Anna Brunner , and Marina La Torraca. They many symphonic covers of popular songs.
9:30 You are right it must have been a team of sound techs. I bet they had serval mixers to manage all the sounds you mentioned. Just monitoring the sound to get the mix right had to be a challenge.
About the windmilling, at least Floor has said in some interviews that it's so easy for her & her neck doesn't hurt or anything. Probably because she has a good technique in doing that. Simone's microphone got an extra boost for this duet because she was not only pregnant, but had already been singing over 2 hours. In doing so, they compensated for her fatigue & diminished lung capacity. Her pregnancy also explains why she was a bit more cautious with her windmilling than Floor.
The duet of Floor and Simone was wanted for a long time, and they delivered. Fun fact, Mark Jansen (no relation to Floor), lead guitarist the creator of Epica, also created one the bands Floor used to sing in, After Forever.
They have had time to practice together, oldest Sancta Terra with Floor in yt i could find is from 2010 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sEKl2SKHk_8.html Also there have been other guest is this song like Epicas sister band MaYaN 2 sopranos (Laura Macri, Marcela Bovio) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GNCWSjoZbzU.html
The way I heard it, Simon and Floor were roommates in College (Rock Academy?), so there friendship goes way back. Also, Simon was pregnant during this performance. I know. Sheesh. haha.
Headbanging is like any other exercise, if you just start your neck musclels are in agonizing pain, but the more you do it the fitter your neck muscle get and later you dont feel it any more.
I assume since floor guested at the Epica performance that the Epica sound crew would be in charge they do so many performances with orchestral and choir that I think he's used to it
Epica hasn’t performed often with a full orchestra and choir on stage. They did it twice: the first time was in Miskolc at the Miskolc Opera Festival in 2008, which was also recorded & released (The Classical Conspiracy). Retrospect (2013) was the second time.
Headbanging can cause whiplash and the brain (which is sitting in liquid) sloshes into the skull and yes can cause damage. But it's all for the metal \m/\m/
To keep it simple, it hurts like fucking hell! The number of times - in my youth - that I pulled my neck and back muscles, because I was headbanging so hard, I cannot count. At best, your neck is stiff and sore. In more extreme cases, like with Slayer's Tom Araya - after decades of doing such - had to have back surgery. Windmills I found less aggravating, because you're not whipping your head forward and backwards; it's more side-to-side.
headbanging does effect the voice, if i headbang to 1 song, i sound like kirmit, this is 1 of my biggest questions, how the hell does floor, headbang like she does, all night, every night for 100s of days and still keep her amazing angelic voice/ im done after 1 song and my voice is nothing angelic at all, it goes from my normal to a constipated kirmit ;p haha
Very late to the party here. If you see some of Floor's various videos, interviews, stuff at home on her own YT channel, you can see her neck is pretty big and strong. She's been doing this since she was 16, maybe (probably) younger in terms of headbanging/windmilling. It all ends up being neck exercises, after all, and she has developed those muscles. Also, as someone else mentions, she's very good about her stature when doing it, bracing herself with her hands, etc. Still, for example in the Nightwish song "Storytime," her transition from all out windmilling into full throated singing is crazy fast.
It's a darker song than you think Julia, the lyrics are here: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/epica/sanctaterra.html IIRC Simone has explained it is about a suicide bomber who thinks he's gone to Heaven but is actually in Hell. Like your analysis and reactions, good stuff.
It's kind of funny how most people find this song uplifting when the lyrics actually are extremely dark (the song is about a suicide bomber who thinks he's going to heaven but ends up in hell, and then refuses to face the truth that what he believed in when he was alive was a lie).
At the same performance Floor and Simone sang stabat mater dolorosa. It is a 13th century prayer that was set to music in the 1700s. It is just the orchestra and the singers. You might enjoy it!
If you notice when Floor windmills she puts her hands on her hips. Simone did too but she was not quite as energetic at this point. 2 hours into the show and about 3 months pregnant
Simone, in my experience from seeing Epica live a bunch of times, also is more of a "side to side" headbanger instead of doing full on windmills. Which is also less straining.
Windmills is the thing - when I was young I banged my head all over the in all random directions (made you feel giddy/happy to connect to the music in pace). Do it less now in my 50s. They are swaying hair mostly - like an extreme hairspray advert :) Remember btw that Mr. Floor is Sabaton's drummer - she likes the heavy beat - just has classical/operatic training - see the Phantom of the Opera youtube vid
Notice that everytime Floor is headbanging she is supporting her upper body with her hands on her hips/upper thigh to relieve strain on her neck. She does this on every live video with nightwish too :)
The man who shouts "Floor Jansen" at the end with a growling voice is Mark Jansen (no family relation). Both he and Floor were together in a band called After Forever in the 90s/early 2000s until Mark quit the band due to creative differences. He went on to found Epica with his girlfriend at the time - Simone. Simone and Floor are close friends and have been for years - this is why they have such good chemistry on stage. Mark and Simone are no longer a couple, but they still work very well together. Simone is married with Oliver Polotai, the keyboards player of another metal band : Kamelot (in fact she was pregnant during this show which is why she didn't headbang as violently as Floor xD ) . Very early Epica (then named Sahara Dust) was in fact Kamelot's support band during their Epica tour (from their namesake album), and it is from Kamelot's Epica album title that the name of band comes from. Kamelot was the support band during Nightwish's 2012 Imaginaerum US tour, during which then-Nightwish-vocalist Anette Olzon fell ill minutes before their Denver show. Kamelot's session vocalists Elize Ryd and Alissa White-Gluz covered for Anette and the show went on while she was hospitalized. Nightwish's decision to go forward with the show upset Anette and she publicly criticized the band on her blog. This was the last straw in Anette's and Nightwish's already troubled relationship and days later, the band fired her, with Floor acting as her replacement for the remainder of the tour. We know the rest of the story. Elize Ryd was also considered by Nightwish as a vocalist - way back in 2005 when they fired their first vocalist, Tarja Turunen. They thought Elize was too young and inexperienced at the time and went with Anette instead. Elize went on to found her own band, Amaranthe. Unrelated to this, on their first album with Anette, Nightwish released a song titled Amaranth. Is your head spinning yet? XD
@@cyberjarl Lets not sugar coat it Mark Jansen did not quit After Forever he got fired. He said in an interview over a decade ago that the moment he learned Floor and (other guitarist) Sander Gommans were dating he had this feeling that he might get fired. Not exactly sure why he felt that way, were Floor and Mark dating before so the situation became awkward ? Mark didn't say anything related to that but he is on good terms with both Floor and Sander these days. Apparently Sander apologized for the way they fired him - they were childhood friends.
@@RolandsSh i know and they are all good singers as well. anneke van giersbergen is seen as the mother of all vocal coaches. she gave all 3 singers singing lessons if i am not mistaken. and Floor and Simone Simons as well ofc.
Headbanging good or bad for your voice? A classical opera singer would probably say No and argue so much against it that you wonder why they don't wear a neck brace every time they are on stage. I have also heard others (Elizabeth Zharkof for one - The Charismatic Voice) saying that maybe it strengthens the neck muscles and make the larynx more flexible and thereby make it possible to change the voice in the way that Floor does it. I think the Jury is still out on wherthere it's good or bad. I fully understand if singers doesn't want to give it a try, there's too much to loose if it goes wrong. Have you noticed the way Floor does the headbanging? She is always bending her legs to 90 degrees in the knee joint, and she is also leaning forward supporting her torso with her arms and hands close to her knees. That may be part of the reason why Floor's headbanging are so formidable. If you start the headbanging when you lean forward and you get the hair going during that forward movement of the torso, once you have the hair swinging around then maybe you don't need to rotate the head quite so vigorously. I think it's like when you have one of those Hula-Hoop rings, to get it going you have to move a bit more than normal, but when that is done you can be more conservative in your movements. The facts remain though, Floor has an extremly flexible voice and she does a lot of headbanging... I wonder if she has headbanging classes for aspiring singers... 🤔 Cheers / B.
she can have it, with the support of her hips and ...the strenght of her arms which indirectly supports her neckmuscles, the most surprising to me is the way she stays in the right tonality directly afterwards her headbanging !! for example, try to put a threath through a needle after punching 20times with that hand on a sandbag , no kidding !! but she mades it happen :)
Floor explained that headbanging is very intense to her neck muscles and is she doesnt warm up she gets pain in her back/shoulder muscles. She learned a lot about the balance of muscles, some are stronger, others may be harmed during sudden movements. So she's careful, but also said "You headbang because you WANT to...." ;)
She went into a bit of detail on her technique in a livestream she did. As another person stated, she always puts her hands on her hips/thighs to give herself the support she needs, and warms up/loosens her muscles prior to a performance to avoid pain.
@@Muskoheim That would most likely be from working around her home. She's put up videos of building horse paddock, putting up fencing, and taking care of her horses.
@@Muskoheim She does work out (heard her say that somewhere in a video on YT) and as I see her physique grow over the years, I guess she's working out pretty hard. She's also getting older and needs that strenght for her singing. She must have a spectecular strong upper body, seen how long she can sing on one breath. She's got great muscle support. She also needs big arms for her tats ;) And overall she's just a very big female. Tall, but in proportion. Above all, she's just a nice person. Everyone should see her appearance in the Dutch TV show 'The Reunion', about her school years at the Rock Academy and her career after ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-B3NIfu0qvtg.html ). I'm not completely sure it was Floor, but years and years ago, I saw an interview with a female rocksinger that talked about headbanging, windmilling, etc. and she did have neckproblems at a point. She went to see a therapist and he/she taught her how to support her neck and shoulders, to do it without stressing her neck and throat and gave her specific exercises to train those supporting muscles. So beware, you can f*ck up your voice and neck by doing it wrong.
This was a 10 anniversary Epica concert that’s why they had live orchestra and choir, react to Stabat Mater Dolorosa from the same show 💕 Simone was pregnant and sang for three hours straight!
You took the word out of my mouth. Stabat Mater Dolorosa would also have been my recommendation. 😉 Classical music in front of metalheads, and all enjoyed this wunderful piece of music.... silently.
All women are very powerful when pregnant, from my experience. It also kicks their butts, but strong is strong. It took campus police arresting my wife to stop her from running track at eight months (1976).
Thank you, Julia! .... Simone's hair!!! ;) :D ,........I did mention that before!.... Kudos for giving the sound techs a shout out!..... This was a special occasion - their retrospective show - hence the orchestra and choir..... Like Nightwish, Epica uses backing tracks for most gigs. As you've probably read, Simone was pregnant here and was taking it easy. She almost died from MRSA not long ago..... Great editing on this video too! Same show "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" next?
No Doubt Roy Khan was Killer as the Lead Vocalist.. Love his singing style .. Tommy Karevik was a good replacement after Khan left .. Khan left some really big shoes to fill ..
Okay, well, just remember what Simone can do. When she was only nineteen years old, a set of videos were recorded in the studio for Epica's album We Will Take You With Us. Simone did some awesome vocals there including some straight opera pieces. Her vocal coach at the time was also there as a backup singer, Amanda Somerville. :)
Nightwish Army always happy to send folks the way of Epica as well. Most people who listen to one listen to the other anyway. If we could get a joint tour the world would explode.
use good technique to headbang or it will hurt your neck (and voice), Floor never headbangs, but windmills. It is the same as using the right technique to growl, otherwise it will destroy your voice. Floor is a perfectionist and will never do anything to risk her voice, but study the right technique to do it.
"A big shout out to the sound guy" Thank you so much for recognizing the sound crew. I did it for four years on the road and it's not an easy job. Mine was at a much smaller scale than this and that was hard enough. I can't imagine what it would be like doing something like this or the Within Temptation Black symphony show, little hint there by the way, I would love to give it a go though. Will be watching your next one shortly as I have seen you have posted The Greatest Show On Earth.
The "Stage Chemistry" between the 2 Diva's goes all the way back to their Childhoods. As for Simone's vocals I read recently that as Floor is a Vocal Coach herself she has been helping Simone to develop her operatic voice & techniques more! Great Reaction Julia to a great song thanks.
That’s a complete lie. She was a voice coach years ago and helped Simone a bit, she’s not to helping her develop anything now. And even years ago, she was more likely to help her a little bit with her contemporary technique [not her classical technique] which I do hear Simone singing with , in this video. She switches back-and-forth between a contemporary mixed voice here and her classical singing. Simone has more years of classical training than Floor does, so there’s no way in hell she would learn that from Floor. I have a feeling she was helping Simone a little more with her stage presence then vocal technique, since that is what voice coaches tend to focus on - performance tips with a side of voice technique tips. It is voice teachers that focus more on teaching technique.
@@Rosannasfriend Simone's vocal teacher was named Amanda Somerville. Floor was working as a vocal coach around 2011/2012, at which point Epica were headlining world tours, so I don't think that Simone would have been looking for vocal lessons at that time. (Floor had to take on students because After Forever had broken up, and she needed the money.) As for stage presence, Floor credits Simone with explaining to her the importance of using clothes and make-up to create a stage persona, you have to be able to put on a performance, not just be a good singer. Simone and Floor were not childhood friends. Simone was a fan of After Forever, she met Mark on a fan site, that was how they got together. I assume she met Floor through Mark. They have been friends since at least 2009, though, because you can find YT clips of them hanging out together. You can get some of this information from a 2015 Canadian documentary "Soaring Highs and Brutal Lows: The Voices of Women in Metal." They interview 8 different female metal vocalists (5 of them are Dutch!) including Simone, Floor, Alyssa White-Gluz, Charlotte Wessels, and more. They talk about how they got started, why they prefer metal to other sorts of musics...it's really interesting. I saw it on Amazon Prime, but it's on other streaming services as well.
Julia, I noticed you mention about breathing. Pretty sure Floor wore leather here. And doesn’t leather constricts breathing? I noticed Floor wore this outfit during Wacken 2013 as well. I love it actually lol.
Depends how tight the top is. I do know that when artists have to sing in corsets it's a good ides to take the deepest breath they can when it's being tightened so that they can still breathe properly but I'm not sure about leather. Anything can be restrictive, I suppose it depends on how it is made.
You're spot on that Simone has had classical training. Here's something from earlier in Epica which was much more classically placed (and their arguably most popular song ever). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Dys1_TuUmI4.html As Epica became more popular in EU (2008+), her vocals went more in a typical rock direction but still had a lot of situational classical placement/color, as you noted here. Her and Floor have been very close for over 10 years by the time this was shot so their affection is very genuine.
I've always noticed that whenever Floor starts wildly flopping that amazing hair around.. her hands are firmly planted just above her knees for support. More of a flowing sway than an actual harsh nod. Definitely done with the intent of fully protecting her own amazing vocal instrument.
