Golden Earring - Holy Holy Life (two 1971 TV appearances & live in Amsterdam, 12/12/2015)

[highplainsdem]

This was a non-album single for them in early 1971. Their record label wanted a hit to follow up on 1970's hit "Back Home," which was #1 in the Netherlands for more than a month, spending nearly 5 months in the Top 40 there. "Holy Holy Life" peaked at #3 and spent a couple of months in the Dutch Top 40. Like "Back Home," it was written by guitarist George Kooymans.

The first video is from the German TV show Hits A Go Go, and they're apparently lip-syncing. The second TV appearance, for another German show, Beat Club -- this song was on the German charts for several weeks -- was apparently live. And the third video is of a concert at Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome in late 2015. They were using this song, a fan favorite, to close their shows then, 45 years after it was recorded. While Barry's miming introducing the band and their backing musicians, you can see a couple of their old friends on stage with them, Bertus Borgers on saxophone and guitarist Frank Carillo (who did a new Kooymans/Carillo album with George this year, releasing songs in June that they'd started to work on before George was diagnosed with ALS a couple of years ago).

[NullTuples]

1. Help, I'm slipping into the Twilight Zone! This is a madhouse, feels like being cloned!

(sorry, first Golden Earring lyrics that popped into my head after all these years, and it has been many, many years...)

[highplainsdem]

2. My very favorite Golden Earring song! :) And a lot of people are aware of only

their two international hits, "Radar Love" in 1973/74 and "Twilight Zone" in 1982. Some people remember only "Radar Love" and consider GE one-hit wonders. But they didn't break up till last year, after George Kooymans was diagnosed with ALS. And the first version of the band, with George on guitar and Rinus Gerritsen on bass (after George had taught him to play guitar), had been formed in 1961. They went through a number of personnel changes the first 9 years, but Barry Hay, the lead singer, joined in 1967, and drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk in 1970, and that lineup lasted over 50 years.

I was going to suggest you use the "Search this group" feature to search for thread titles with "earring" in the last year, for a lot more info on the band and a lot more videos, but I don't know if only Star members can use that feature here, as only Star members can use the "Advanced search" feature with a link under the Google search in the upper right corner of every page.

So I'll link to those threads here in Music Appreciation and in the Lounge. I'd wanted to post more about Golden Earring both because so little had been posted, and because George is so ill now, unable to perform, which led to them disbanding. (I knew someone who died of ALS years ago. It's such a terrible disease.)

Thread in the Lounge asking for vibes/prayers for him, with a number of videos in the OP and replies: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181674319

Music Appreciation threads, in chronological order by when they were posted - and you'll usually find more videos and info in the replies to these as well:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103466370 - Golden Earring - Radar Love (The Midnight Special, 1974) - edit/update

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103467479 - Golden Earring - Twilight Zone (live on German TV show Rockpalast, 1982 & studio version)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103467781 - Golden Earring - Weekend Love

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103467845 - Golden Earring - Vanilla Queen (live at Winterland, 1975, and studio version)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103468029 - Golden Earring - Back Home (Dutch TV show TopPop, 1970)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103468664 - Golden Earring - Radar Love (acoustic, live, Amsterdam 1992) + story behind song (Dutch, English sub

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103469895 - Golden Earring - Quiet Eyes (live, 1986, at a concert on the beach for 185,000 fans)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103470837 - Golden Earring - Eight Miles High (live, acoustic, in Amsterdam, 1992)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103470894 - Golden Earring - Candy's Going Bad

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103471740 - It's March 11 in the Netherlands, where, 74 yrs ago, Golden Earring founder George Kooymans was born

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103472385 - Golden Earring - Going To The Run (studio version & live in Leiden, 1999)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103474923 - Golden Earring - When The Lady Smiles (live on the beach, 1986, & live at a music festival, 2015)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103475017 - Golden Earring - Turn The World Around (live on the beach, 1993 + studio version)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103475096 - If you have time for an hour-long concert -- Golden Earring, live on the beach, 1993

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103476133 - Golden Earring - Long Blond Animal (Dutch TV show TopPop, 1980)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103477250 - Golden Earring - 1-hour concert, Music Hall, Frankfurt, Germany, 6/6/1991

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103477455 - Golden Earring, live at Massey Hall, Toronto, April 6, 1983 (46-minute show)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103477976 - Beach Boys - Sail On Sailor (plus covers by Golden Earring and by Matthew Sweet w/Darius Rucker)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478398 - Golden Earring - Just Like Vince Taylor (live on the German TV show RockPalast, 1982)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478520 - Golden Earring, bluesier than usual and with (and without) an extra guitarist - Leather

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478673 - Golden Earring - Song Of A Devil's Servant (psychedelic/prog/heavy rock, live 1971, studio 1969)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478690 - George Kooymans (Golden Earring) - Just A Little Bit of Peace In My Heart

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478777 - Golden Earring - Mission Impossible (live on the beach, 1986 + studio version)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478927 - Golden Earring - Buddy Joe (on German TV, lip-syncing 1972, live 1982; live in The Hague, 2011)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478931 - Golden Earring - Lonesome DJ (rock-opera sound, from their 1975 album Switch)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103479092 - Golden Earring - Bombay (studio version 1976 & live, 2006)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103479216 - Golden Earring - Why Do I (live on the beach near The Hague, 1986 + Dutch TV show Countdown)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103479589 - Golden Earring - Movin' Down Life (Dutch TV show TopPop 1978, Voorburg concert 1979)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103480047 - Golden Earring - Born A Second Time (recorded in 1967 for their 1968 album Miracle Mirror)


One of the threads above was about George Kooyman's birthday this past March, and a lot of that OP was about what happened all over the Netherlands on his birthday last year, just several weeks after the ALS diagnosis was announced.

Two more threads about band members' birthdays, with more videos and info about what they've done. Lead singer Barry Hay's birthday is coming up in a few days, and I'll be posting about that.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103478660 - Cesar Zuiderwijk, Golden Earring's drummer for 51 years, was born on this date, July 18

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103479848 - Rinus Gerritsen (bass & keyboards, Golden Earring) is 76 today. Fantastic bass solo from 2020, more


And I discovered just last week that George Kooymans had written a Beatles-sounding song for a Dutch band who sounded so much like the Beatles that the record ended up on some Beatles bootlegs. It was a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands. More info on Golden Earring's early work in the replies there, too.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181692992 - Does this sound like the Beatles to you?

[NullTuples]

3. Thanks, that was an amazing infodump!

(it's an autistic community term and a very good thing)

I was aware they had a long history prior to the 80's hit thanks to Spotify (when I still listed to it) and YouTube playlists, but this is a treasure trove to explore - thank you!

[highplainsdem]

4. You're welcome! I have to admit, though, that if I'd been sure the

"Search this group" feature would work for you and others who aren't Star members, I would have just referred you to that, instead of copying and pasting so much. (OTOH, now I have that list handy, and I'd probably better bookmark this thread before I forget where I posted it, lol.)

Golden Earring created a lot of amazing music over the years. And it's great that YouTube has so many videos of Dutch and German TV shows, as well as concert videos.

EDITING to add that I just used the Google search feature for the keywords

search features work only for star members

and confirmed that the "Search this group/forum" search is apparently part of Advanced Search and available only to Star members. But of course everyone can use Google's search for the site, as I did. And both the Advanced Search and the Search This Group/Forum searches can often time out if your search is going through too many threads and posts -- if, say, you're looking for a specific word or name in replies. Especially in forums like GD, when you might have to break a search down into date ranges of only days to avoid timing out. Searching thread titles in a group like this tends to be easy, though, and it's also why I always hope people will post both the artist's name and the song title in the thread title.

Post from Skinner 10 years ago: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10131478