Pop group Son Mieux works against itself in Ziggo Dome

What was it? Not to the musicians who played their games with verve. Not to the urge to persuade singer Camil Meiresonne and not to the balanced arrangement and lighting, creating a beautiful shadow pattern. Nevertheless, the debut of Son Mieux in The Hague in Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, on Friday evening, was not the triumph that might seemed.

The popular Son Mieux plays at many festivals and in concert halls, and also throughout Europe. Their songs, which often tend to discopop, are pushing, have a lush sound and received a high-quality construction, with trips to saxophone or percussion solos. Van Son Mieux is known to carefully design their large concerts, such as in AFAS Live, Amsterdam, in 2023. In AFAS, ‘Color’ was the inspiration, a reference to their breakthrough hit ‘Multicolor’ (2022), and the discosphere was underlined with glitter and glamor.

Now, at the first evening of two sold -out concerts in Ziggo Dome, the musicians were largely dressed in black and the stage was often dark. The performance opened with the A Capella ‘Will Pt.1’ while the band members became slowly visible, widely set up on stage. The twilight was pretty mysterious. After that the presentation was static for a while. The musicians played concentrated, Meiresonne remained in place, and even the dazzling ‘1992’ received little impetus. Only when Meiresonne ventured into the hall from the stage during ‘Nothing’ dared to halfway through the large Y-shaped catwalk, dynamics arose.

‘Division’

Moments later, there, on his own, he is trapped in a light beam, as well as on his own island. He talks to the audience about ‘division’ and how music can bring people together. It is a subtle moment, and surprising when four strings loom up next to him, and violinist Maud Akkermans comes to sing a beautiful opposing party at ‘Heavy Water’.

The concert is built around the now known repertoire From the first two albums of the group, and a series of singles. The newest two singles, ‘Have a Little Faith’ and ‘Free for Another Day’, sound calm and break with the earlier style.

Although the audience is becoming increasingly exuberant, the band has opted for austerity and seriousness, which is shook off with difficulty. The new ‘Have a Little Faith’ offers a nice instrumentation of intertwined guitar gas but the melody is flat. For example, on this evening, Son Mieux swirles between the new, modest style and the dance bangers that they also have in the repertoire. The band seems to stop itself.

Meiresonne is hard at work to poke the room until well in the performance. Only when a 12-person choir appears on stage in support of the irresistibly uplifting ‘This is the moment’, and the sitting audience has risen, singer and musicians spontaneously move over the stage, in which guitarist Niels de Maa like a Derwish round Turns. Then the choir members spread loosely on the stage, and Meiresonne does what he promised in a lyrics just before: ‘I will Dance Like Nobody’s Watching’.

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