Eric van Rees: <<Dit anyone visit this performance? I was planning to go, but didn't make it on time. Any review? Was Renaldo there?>> hi, I saw this show, as well as several of the previous cobra performances in amsterdam. I am always surprised by the ability of Nathan (N. Fuhr: organizer, promter, leader of Collision Palace) to gather fresh musicians for his cobra performances. Either there are many many good players around here or none wants to play cobra for a second time (joke Nathan!). The feeling that I got from this performance was rather different from previous ones (as far as I remember). The most enjoyable new element was the death metal frantic parts, with the whole ensemble at full speed. The other parts that I really liked, and were also new sounds for me in relation to cobra, were the morrocan trance pieces (at least that's what it sounded to me) with pipes and percussion. The ensemble playing this time was very coherent, maybe due to the fact that part of the ensemble was a band in itself (suspicious white powder). Most of the music was really grooving. Maybe a bit too much for my taste. Some friends that had followed me without knowing what to expect, all liked it a lot. However, to my opinion, the players didn't take that much of an aggressive initiative to drive the game by themselves, an opportunity given to them by the rules. Lee Ranaldo was not there for the performance of his piece "All Work and No Play" which I don't remember well enough to describe. I don't know whether it is in the intention of the organizer to utterly form a stable ensemble or core of players for the performances of cobra or other modern music. In that case, the mastering of the rules would lead to increased ease with the rules and lead to more complex games; on the other hand it could reduce the freshness and enthusiasm. I think that the effort is mature and involves a more complex language each time, also as Nathan Fuhr masters the game and the ways of interacting with his players. As the performances of Collision Palace are becoming more regular, my expectations to hear more and more great music from them are growing! manolis