Lenny Kravitz makes his Dutch debut at Paradiso!

Lenny Kravitz – Paradiso 12/13/1989

Paradiso, 12/13/1989

On Wednesday December 13, 1989, Lenny Kravitz played his first ever show in The Netherlands. I was there and witnessed a beautidul, exciting and moving concert. 1989 was the year of Lenny Kravitz!

For a long time people were looking forward to the coming of the new wunderkind, who undoubtedly had a great future ahead of him. That Kravitz was going to be huge was just a fact of life. Kravitz was compared to almost every known musical great: Prince, John Lennon, Sly Stone, Jim Hendrix, Bob Marley and Elvis Costello. The upcoming concert was completely sold-out.

Finally, on December 13, it was time. I had been waiting for, what felt like, ages for that particualar event. I distinctly remember standing to the left side of the stage on the floor. The electricity in the room was palpable, something special was about to happen. Kravitz dove straight in with Flower Child. The concert was stuff for legends from Blues For Sister Someone and onwards. Kravitz had a gift of going all the way and making the audience go wild, like he did on the Let Love Rule album (Freedom Train!).

The closer of the main set, Let Love Rule, was unique and came as a surpise to Kravitz himself as well. The song was closed by letting the crowd sing the text “Let love rule” interspersed with the “We got to let love rule” chant. So far so good. But at the Paradiso the singing lasted for minutes (Kravitz himself stated it lasted up to 20 minutes), during which the band just sat down on the stage. Kravitz was moved to tears and has never ever forgotten that moment.

Setlist

Flower Child / My Flash On You (Love cover) / Blues For Sister Someone / Mr. Cab Driver / Be / My Precious Love / Freedom Train / If 6 Was 9 (Jimi Hendrix cover) / Does Anybody Out There Even Care / Let Love Rule // Rosemary / Fear

I remember I Build This Garden For Us being played, but I can’t find any evidence of it.

Reviews

The Dutch press was present. Every music reporter who took themselves slightly serious was there and wrote extensively about the evening. Barring a single review (NRC Handelsblad) the overall conclusion was that Kravitz was a huge talent, who had played an amazing show.

All the reviews of the Paradiso show are in (my native tongue) Dutch. Since I know that many of the readers on the English version of my blog don’t understand Dutch, I omitted those reviews from this article. Would you want to read the reviews anyway, please click here, or click on the Dutch flag beside/below this article.

The main conclusions of the reviews:

Those were moments that made clear that Kravitz can grow into an important artist within the next few years.
(Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 12/14/1989

Kravitz is a mediocre singer, whose strength lies in expressing raw emotions using a rusty voice.
(NRC Handelsblad 12/14/1989

Lenny Kravitz was able to convey the highly relaxed, but nowhere non-commital atmosphere of his album onto a stage.
(Parool, 12/14/1989

Should Kravitz succeed in maintaining his original mix of musical influences from the sixties, his talent will turn into a 24-carat gem.
(Limburgs Dagblad, 12/15/1989

Kravitz deliriously walked the stage with his guitar, frequently waving his rasta curls.
(Trouw, 12/15/1989)

Kravitz has Soul, you can admire the way he mastered all the forms of that style, but what’s truly convincing is that he delivers it with substance and depth.
(de Volkskrant, 12/15/1989

Kravitz’ debut on the Dutch stages would have been more convincing if he had known when to stop.
(Algemeen Dagblad, 12/16/1989

Lenny Kravitz – Live In Amsterdam

Legacy

In 1991 the Paradiso show is broadcast on British and Australian radio. The recordings stemmed from the promo release Lenny Kravitz Live In Amsterdam and contained the first 10 songs of the show. The recordings have been officially released, but were remarkably lacking from the Let Love Rule – 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition release.

On October 5, 1995, Kravitz revisted the Paradiso, when playing his Circus tour. He explained why he wanted to play at the Paradiso: he had often thought back at how the Dutch audience had elongated his anthem Let Love Rule up to 20 minutes with their two-part community singing.

On May 10, 2024, Kravitz gave a radio interview, where Amsterdam and Paradiso came up.

… and great memories from the early days, you know. Oh God what’s the place, the church… Paradiso. Paradiso, man, I remember playing there for the first time and just loving it, and loving the vibe. And you know, you know when I do the shows and we do Let Love Rule, that whole thing of singing Let Love Rule together started in Amsterdam at the Paradiso.

Lenny Kravitz, May 10, 1989

In hindsight, it’s almost unbelievable that Kravitz’s career didn’t implode on December 13, 1989. Expectations were sky-high, both from the audience as from the press. In The Netherlands Kravitz was crowned a global star before the rest of the world caught up. For a short period The Netherlands were the musical guide to Europe once again, as it had been during the 1970s and early 1980s.

N.B.:
The 2009 Let Love Rule re-release (Let Love Rule – 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) contains two songs recorded at the Paradiso concert. The date mentioned in the liner-notes is wrong (12/20/1989).