Maria Mena is a singer-songwriter from Norway, only 21 years old she has already released 3 cd's, of which her last album``Apparently Unaffected'' with the single ``Just Hold Me'' put her on the international charts.
She has already played a vast set of shows in the Netherlands, but playing at Pinkpop is a huge event.
She has already played a vast set of shows in the Netherlands, but playing at Pinkpop is a huge event.
Starting with ``What's another day'' most of the crowd is rather impatient and waiting for her to play the two big hits she scored in the Netherlands; ``Just hold me'' and ``Miss you love''. I move more to front, impatient myself because of the people only standing in the tent because it's dry. While getting to the front she gets on with ``You're the Only One'', an upbeat song which gets the people more into the music. Maria then announces how terribly nervous she was for this big show and how she had been peeing every 15 minutes, only then to apologize that that was rather a gross thing to say. ``A few small bruises'' follows, a song she wrote for her best friend who helped her with a depression. A beautiful song and very emotionally sung by Maria Mena. She jumps to the next song ``Blame it on Me'' and wants the crowd to do the same. Only a few actually do, but she seems to enjoy herself enough. Again she thanks the crowd for coming to see her by saying: ``it feels like its my festival, oh my god 65000 people bought tickets.. for me!''
Then going acoustic with the song ``Internal Dialogue'' Maria's voice comes to the fullest and just gives me the chills. The lyrics to this song are written as if she were argueing with herself, the emotion she puts into the singing makes this song almost perfect! Declaring the Netherlands with our ``poffertjes en bitterballen'' as her second home she moves on to a really emotional song ``Sorry'', this being a personal favourite and a very meaningful song to me, it actually brought me to tears. Again by the true emotion in her strong and beautiful voice this song is a real pleasure to hear live. Moving on to her second hit ``Miss you love'', I'm still and again emotionally touched and can't help but thinking of old memories.``These Shoes'' is a suprising next song being very upbeat and happy, but helps me get my mind back to the show. Getting back to more serious songs she plays ``He's hurting me'', a short but very good song. The verse ``don't leave me, please believe me, baby there is, I can explain, please love me.. please need me, ohh'' just gives me the chills! Once again telling how fine we Dutchies really are, she claims she should get a Dutch boyfriend.
The next song is ``Patience'', the backing vocals terribly off was abit of a letdown compared to Maria Mena's wondeful voice. Up next is a song for all the girls in charge or as Maria would say ``I need you to shake your asses with me, I need you to take out your boob! No don't do that..''. The song ``Boytoy baby'' really gets the crowd going, singing loud to the line ``boytoy baby, nananana'' when Maria Mena wants them to.
``Your Glasses'' I find an again surprising song, a song not so easy to relate to. Her performance is still great and with a really long ``me'' at the end I just get the chills once more by her amazing voice. After introducing her band she finally gets to the song the most people have been waiting for.. ``Just Hold Me''. The whole crowd enjoying this one it's a pity she gets to one of her last songs; ``Free'', a song from her first album. Again the crowd sings along to this song although it is a rather unknown.Maria Mena really surprised me with her stunning performance. Her voice is just as great live as it is on her cds. Her energy and interaction with the crowd makes it even better. So if you get the chance to see her live.. take it!
Maria Mena Official
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