Description
Dutch vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen is easily one of the hardest working people in music, and an artist that defies being pigeonholed by genre. She will forever be known as the vocalist for melancholic metallers The Gathering, but since striking out on her own in 2007, she has solidified a solo career, recorded and performed multiple times with Canadian metal genius Devin Townsend, launched the prog rock band The Gentle Storm, and recorded an album with Icelandic folk group Ã�rstÃðir. This has provided Anneke with a huge catalogue to choose from as a live performer, but it has also created a certain amount of confusion amongst her fans which has led to the creation of a new band, VUUR, a new band that features some of the best heavy metal players in the Netherlands. In early 2016, Anneke decided for the sake of clarity to narrow her musical focus, choosing to go in a folk acoustic direction as a solo artist and in a heavy progressive metal direction as a band vocalist. The name VUUR - translated from Dutch as "fire", which can also be interpreted to mean "passion" or "drive" - was chosen as a moniker to represent Anneke's metal side, with the idea that when fans buy a ticket with the VUUR name on it they will be getting her heavy progressive music, while an Anneke van Giersbergen show will be entirely different.