Golden Earring - Vanilla Queen (live & weirdly green, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, 1974)

[highplainsdem]

I hate green videos on YouTube. I've seen various recommendations online on how to correct them, changing computer or browser settings, but I see them so rarely I'm not going to mess with that. Sometimes they seem to be the only option for a performance, though.

And this is a really good live performance, despite the weird color.

I usually post their 1975 performance at Winterland - https://democraticunderground.com/103467845 - which is black and white (I don't know of any early-to-mid-'70s video of live performances of this song in color, good accurate color) and includes the horn section they were touring with then, a horn section featuring their saxophonist friend Bertus Borgers, who was a star in his own right. That 1975 performance was also a couple of minutes longer.

I still like to watch this performance sometimes since it is different, including a slightly different guitar solo by George Kooymans, who's playing what I believe is the famous Les Paul - one of the first two owned by any band in the Netherlands - that had formerly belonged to the Tielman Brothers and was used in their most famous TV appearance in 1960 (George also had a backup Les Paul in the early '70s, and that backup guitar was acquired by Joe Bonamassa recently - https://www.guitarworld.com/news/joe-bonamassa-gives-guitar-world-an-exclusive-video-tour-of-his-newly-acquired-albert-king-inspired-flying-v-and-59-les-paul-custom-black-beauty ). And with this 1974 video you see more of keyboardist Robert Jan Stips, formerly of the Dutch band Supersister, than in the Winterland video.

Btw, I would like to know if anyone here sees this video in proper color. Maybe I should try messing with those settings.

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Interesting

I'm seeing it green too, BTW.
It was fun with all that vintage gear.
George playing that 3 pickup Les Paul, the bass player with that beat up DanEectro longhorn, the keyboardist with the Fender Rhodes, Mellotron, what I'm pretty sure is a Micromoog.
Pretty fun.

[highplainsdem]

2. That Les Paul is probably worth well into six figures now, if George or his family

ever decide to sell it. I posted about it having been owned by the Tielman Brothers originally in a thread about them in the Lounge: https://democraticunderground.com/10181711813#post4

I'd noticed how battered Rinus Gerritsen's Danelectro was. That guitar was stolen later during a US tour, and that was when his dad built a double neck bass for him. See this thread, with a lot of really interesting replies:

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/so-who-can-tell-me-something-about-this-bass-golden-earring.1172719/

Unfortunately the video that had been posted in the OP there is now missing, but the replies have other photos and videos.

[highplainsdem]

3. Re the keyboardist who was with them then, Robert Jan Stips - he's been touring this year,

doing Supersister songs, with a band that includes Golden Earring bassist Rinus Gerritsen

https://www-rodi-nl.translate.goog/denhaag/296712/uniek-stips-en-gerritsen-spelen-vanavond-samen-in-het-paard?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

https://www.rodi.nl/denhaag/296712/uniek-stips-en-gerritsen-spelen-vanavond-samen-in-het-paard

and he has a biography out (only in Dutch, unfortunately) that he's been promoting with Rinus's help

plus he's been in a documentary that included Rinus and Golden Earring drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk - and btw, re gear, at a bit over two minutes into the video below, Robert Jan mentions the Minimoog:

Rinus also plays keyboards, as you can see in some of the Golden Earring concert videos I've posted.

[highplainsdem]

4. Some info to add to the post above about Robert Jan Stips and Golden Earring:

The second video above should be viewed on YouTube, since the video description includes the English translation of part of the documentary, linking the quotes to that part of the clip. (No translation there of the section about the Minimoog, though.)

I want to add an excerpt from the recent article from Rodi.nl that I'd linked to above, the interview with Rinus and Robert Jan talking about their touring together this year...and this excerpt starts with mentioning an earlier tour, for Robert Jan's Supersister Projekt 19, which had new music he'd written in the style of Supersister, for whom he'd also been the songwriter as well as keyboardist and lead vocalist:

Gerritsen already played twice with the Supersister Projekt '19 when the band did a few big gigs in the Paard and Paradiso, among others. "That felt pretty good. Great experience and more or less my first introduction to his music. I didn't know the real Supersister work 'by heart', so to speak. And then that is suddenly a whole new experience. If you only hear it laterally, it's all quite complex, but now I had to immerse myself in it. And then you suddenly get a lot of fun in it and you only hear how well it is actually put together. So when Robert Jan asked me to participate in the further club tour, I saw it as a nice challenge. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoy performing, but I wasn't at the stage where I missed it. I was especially satisfied looking back. But Robert Jan did come along at a good time. I see it as it is that you stay in shape by playing. And believe me, to play his work you have to be in top shape musically. In addition, it doesn't hurt to step out of your 'comfort zone' every now and then as a musician and to learn something new."

Stips says that since Gerritsen has been playing for a while now, his music is starting to take on a special form. "It's still 'Supersister music', but it clearly sounds different because Rinus plays along. It got a little more balls." Rinus agrees: "Your music does have balls, Robert Jan, absolutely. It is often the case that because of many notes too often it tends to evaporate a bit. And I'm the one who plays a little less notes, but maybe gives it a certain drive that makes it a bit more accessible."

The Supersister performances have been successful so far. "Fantastic evenings to play, very nice, crowded and a good reason to continue," says Stips. "After that we did a few club tours with a small line-up including bassist Bart Wijtman and violinist Marieke Brokamp. Those club tours of 2021 were suddenly rudely aborted due to corona, so it was actually entirely in line with the expectation that we would finish them neatly." Because Brokamp dropped out and bassist Wijtman also had other concerns, Supersister Projekt '22 consists for now of Stips, Gerritsen and drummer Leon Klaasse, known from a.o. Powerplay and the Analogues. Supersister Projekt '22 plays Friday, May 6 in the Paard.www.supersister.nl

And since I posted that reply yesterday, I found a documentary showing those 2019 performances, which had included Cesar from Golden Earring as well as Rinus.

This does show how talented Stips is as a frontman. He never added vocals to any Earring songs, as far as I know, but sang lead in Supersister, backed by three bandmates who played bass, drums and flute - no lead guitar. (Another very talented band, like the Earring, though Supersister's jazz-influenced prog rock isn't really to my taste.)