When THE GATHERING's "Mandylion" lineup reconvened after two decades apart, nobody involved knew whether it would be moving or merely awkward. Anneke van Giersbergen, speaking to Paolo Phoenix of Magenta TV at this month's WACKEN OPEN AIR, says the answer arrived within minutes.
"When we were young, we were young adults, and whatever you do then, you pick up like a sponge, and you take with you for the rest of your life," she said. "We were always together in the studio, rehearsal room, on tour — day and night, we were together for so many years. So, obviously, then we were apart for 20 years, but when we got back together in a rehearsal room for this, it felt like yesterday. So it's so weird that you can feel the same feeling, and the jokes are the same. They feel like brothers to me."
She is clear that it could have gone the other way. "You have this idea, 'Let's do this reunion,' but then you come together, and it's awkward. I mean, that was a possibility. But it wasn't."
What has changed is the vantage point. Asked whether she hears "Mandylion" differently now, van Giersbergen described a doubled experience: the songs still detonate the emotions they were written with, while the person singing them has moved on. "When you're young, you have different emotions about subjects like love, and so when we play these songs now, sometimes you get thrown back into the same emotions that you had 20, 30 years ago. But they're not the same. You have different view of life when you're older."
On whether the band continues past the anniversary shows, she was unambiguous — and the reasoning is refreshingly unsentimental. "We liked it to be special, right? If we would go on and on and on now, it wouldn't be special anymore, and it wouldn't have the impact that it has now." She added that the scale caught them out entirely: "We didn't expect people to be so enthusiastic. So we went from, 'Hey, let's do one show,' to, 'Hey, let's do a whole year of all the big festivals and clubs.' So it's super special, and we wanna keep it that way. So we have no plans for the future."
Guitarist René Rutten said much the same in an April interview with Chile's iRock.cl, adding that the idea was hatched over lunch after the band received a gold record for "Mandylion" two years ago.
Released in August 1995 via Century Media, "Mandylion" was THE GATHERING's third album and the first to feature van Giersbergen, reshaping the Dutch band from death-doom into something far stranger and more atmospheric. The reunion lineup opened its 2026 European run on May 19 at London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire and will play roughly 30 shows across Europe, North America and South America, closing on October 17 at Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile. Keyboard player Frank Boeijen is on a temporary break for personal reasons, with Remco van Zandvoort deputising.
As for what she wants people to leave with: "I hope people go away with, like, 'I felt 20 years old again.'"
Source: blabbermouth.net