Progdreams (Day 2) 5 April 2014 - de Boerderij Zoetermeer

Progdreams back in a two day event form. I could not make it on Friday evening so for me still a one-dayer with the slightly long dinner break. First buzz I heard was that on Friday X-Panda was a great success. Good for them to justify the long trip from Estonia. On Saturday we had two support acts both playing an hour before the dinner break and two headliners in the evening. I won't go into much detail on the openers since both Eclipse-Sol-Air (German French theatrical too hard trying) and Harvest (Spanish neo-prog with Dutch female vocalist) were not to my taste and halfway directed me to the bar and a talk in the sun.

First headliner in the evening which attracted the younger and more metal part of the crowd were Haken. I did see them pretty often over the last years and always liked their shows. On CD after more listens I now know for sure that their last album The Mountain is the least one to me (less metal) Last year they played the Boerderij on a Wednesday night when the new album was being released and they played the perfect mix of three albums and for a crowd not much smaller than today. This time the first part was only Mountain climbing and this with a new bass player whose name I forgot, but he was American and doing fine. So did the show around their last CD disappoint? well no. Haken to me are a great live band and they seem to enjoy themselves while playing their breaks and solo's as if nothing could be easier. They did get great response from the hall and I wondered if they could be headliner status already for a next Progpower. Probably they are a bit too off-centre for that (the humpa bits), but quality is definitely not what is lacking. Highlights to me did come in the end when the Shapeshifter passed by followed by Celestial Elixer. When they came back for one more song which took over 20 minutes in Visions again I saw a convincing Haken show.

Talking about convincing, I was convinced that Clepsydra could never top this. My history with Clepsydra is very recent as I missed them in the nineties. Years ago I heard a song, on Prog Archives I believe, which I liked and when they asked Mark Wilkinson to pack the re-release of albums in one LP shaped box I ordered in the spirit of supporting special editions and the artwork of my favorite cover artist. I did receive the box some weeks ago and this means I never got the time to really get into all their music. What I heard on CD was a bit similar as what I saw live. They play very good, the guitar is amongst the better ones and old Marillion is an inspiration. The vocalist is not that fluent in English, but has a good voice. Main problem to me is that (maybe by not knowing the songs) nothing really stands out and the further I got within the five quarters I stayed the more similar the songs started to sound. But this was only my impression. I did see many people though who obviously were very much looking forward to the return of Clepsydra on a live stage after being away for 14 years. So they did make an impact on a big part of their fans. To my surprise also de Boerderij was not a lot emptier from when Haken played. The audience somehow gained some 15 years on average closer to the stage, but I believe this was a succesfull show. If not at the end of a long day I probably would have seen them until the end. Now I caught the Randstadrail in time and have to thank organizers for yet another great day at the farm.

Lee Abraham - Distant Days

Some 4 years ago I saw Lee Abraham live at the legendary Winter's End festival in Stroud. He and his band at Black & White times were one of the main reasons for crossing the Noordzee and we arrived just in time to see the band kick off. Sean Filkins was at the time vocalist in his band and later released an album in similar vein. While Lee has a band around him, he also counts on many guests form the UK prog scene to spice things up. The same formula is applied on his new album Distant Days, which after a few spins might even be a bit better than previous release.

Opening track Closing the Door is build around Dec Burke on vocals and guitar. As I am a major fan of everything Dec Burke participates this is the liviest and best song of the album sounding close to Progmetal, also caused by Karl Groom (Threshold) adding some solo's here. Hereafter the title song comes, which is the only song where Lee sings himself. The song is a bit too slow and his voice is not that good compared with his guests, so title song or not, no highlight to me. On The Flame and later Walk Away we get John Young on vocals and after last year's great Lifesigns debut we know how good that can sound. Misguided is a welcome instrumental power intermezzo and on Epic Corridors of Power we get Marc Atkinson of Riversea fame, guiding that song. Closer and long one Tomorrow will be Yesterday has Steve Thorne singing and ends the album in style.

The album is very much impacted by the line-up of guest appearances on vocals. Since these are all known names, from bands in the same genre I can perfectly live with that variety. Having 6 vocalists on an album, always shall mean a live show complication, but this album deserves to be heard in a live setting as well. Going back to Stroud I remember the one vocalist was no impossible hurdle, so Lee get your band out and come to de Boerderij (Supporting Pendragon might gain him some fans and fit well to the bill).

HRH Prog/AOR - Hafan y Mor - Pwllheli - 20-22 March 2014

From which country is Fish? Well I knew that one and sent an entry to the draw forgetting about it the next day. So five weeks later I got this email from Fleur HRH that I won runners up 6 tickets for this year's HRH Prog festival. I had 4 days to supply the names of people joining me. When I informed that it was too hard to get 6 people in Holland willing to commit to a long weekend Wales half a year later, HRH showed their flexibility while informing that by renting accomodation at the park we would also be allowed at the AOR and Blues festivals taking place the same weekend. This meant increasing the bands of interest and after Josie told me she wanted to join to see Wales, Hans and Mary plus Yvon and Rene informed they would like to join too and the caravan was booked. my first ever HRH festival in Wales so holiday feelings all around. Having three festivals going on for three days, means many bands and many choices. So instead of going chronological through the weekend I just pass by several impressions of this beautifull weekend in stone cold Wales.

The diversity:
What made this weekend so interesting to me is the wide variety of bands. As I like both Prog in its mellow to its loudest forms as well as AOR I had many options to go for. Unfortunately next year both events are seperated and one music form shall prevail during two seperate weekends. I think that shall result in more less interesting shows to watch and certainly less diversity. Although there might exist some Rivalry between the genres (Love/Hate: "so you are not in the Prog building, you  all choose the Music building") For me the opposites attract as usual. For something completely different there was also a slightly longer (and thus colder) walk to the Blues stage good for one beer breaks.

The atmosphere:
Going in the Uk to a show is definitely different from shows in Holland, since there is more interaction with the audience. Come the opening evening we noticed that half the crowd used the festival also for a weekend out to dress different. from Hawaian shirts, the Corona crowd, to Latex Police women who just made getting arrested an option or not. In the AOR crowd there were many eighties alike posers as well, who should 30 years ago just not dressed like that attend a Manowar or Thrash concert. I never understood the enemy search in such paralel music sorts and highly enjoyed the wide range of slightly off cliche dressed people. The audience was basically made up by people ranging 30-75 years old, so everyone could easily enjoy a warmish pint, or served ice cold in the optimistic positioned outside bar. The Halls were an adventure as such, since while the AOR stage was a proper concert hall the prog stage was improvised, which resulted in a lot of lights at the back and during the day rays of sunligh entering the hall. The Blues stage was mainly a seated experience with pooltables shovelled away.

The choices:
Many bands means you can not see all. As we also needed to eat something somewhere in the day also food was a contender. Josie prepared us two great meals, which on Friday cost us Chimp Spanner (Prog) and Pink Cream 69 (AOR) on Saturday we ate during Kee Marcello and Hawklords so those went out to start with. Further main choices were about supporting bands until Friday night came and we choose wrong. We is Josie and I, as we saw the Flower Kings 16 years ago in Rio, shortly after we met each other. In our memories that was a great show and I do have several FK CD's as well, which always show great musicianship. After a long sound check they started and went on and on without much happening. Their playing is of great level, but boring it looked and after a too long while we left. When Josie went to pick her coat in the AOR hall Tyketto was about to start their biggest hit. The roof came down, with the whole place jumping up and down and from a distance I could see Hans (who became 50 a week earlier) shouting along with Forever Young. Sorry wrong choice as Hans could confirm for him the best show of the weekend. At the end of the festival I missed Solstice playing against UFO.

The Headliners:
The bigger names I could not see all, since they would all play at the end of the evening. On Thursday Credo closed the Prog stage and I was too tired to make the full set, going to the AOR preparty the same happened with La Paz. On Friday I saw a bit of The Pineapple Thief, who did not impress me, missed Focus (a huge success according to Yvon and Rene) and already mentioned the lame Flower Kings performance. In AOR the main names were cliched Bonfire showing their German Rock, House of Lords who were great although lacking some old uptempo classics. Tyketto were brilliant as Hans told, but missed by me. By coincidence we did enter AOR when Robin Beck played her hit, but not my cuppa. On Saturday Prog gave us The Enid (strange and different, but no time) and Fish. Well Fish filled the Prog hall well and always dominates his crowd. Shorter version of the show I saw in Paradiso a usual highlight. In the AOR hall we had some veterans. Semi headliners Love/Hate got good reaction from the hall and in the evening I saw Graham Bonnet for the first time. As I was in doubt to stay full show or go to Fish I guess his performance made me move to Prog after half an hour, not very impressive how good the songs might be. UFO closed the festival and in spite of some debate on how long they were allowed to play they did so in style. Apart from several obligatory classics they also gave us several oldies who did not appear on Strangers in the Night or came shortly after that.

The winners:
Every festival shows some negative and positive surprises. I shall skip the disappointments and concentrate on the highlights. Some unknown bands to me made an impact like Tax the Heat, Arcane Roots, September Code (from Greece) and Welsh band Sankara. The Custodian played there first show ever and I was there. The absolute highlights, because they were new to me and very good or as good ads I hoped for were:
Lawless: Every yin has its yang and to me every complicated Cynic deserves a balls out straight forward Lawless. Original titles like Metal Time, Rock N Roll City, S.O.S., Heavy Metal Heaven and what a great band. In Black Widow Ladies they had the catchiest song of the weekend.
Logan: Unknown to me sympathetic band from Glasgow reminding me of Gun. No attitude just great songs and a band enjoying themselves so why did they not bring any CD's? Ordering one now.
Shattered Skies: Similar as on Progpower 2012 Shattered Skies were a highlight of the festival. It still is all about the energy Andrew. They even promised to release a CD later this year, now got a Tee as support for this great band.

Thanks to Fleur for the runners up, the organization and the friendly people all around from the car rental in Liverpool up to the Hafan Spar Hope to be back one day.

Vengeance - De Boerderij Zoetermeer 15 March 2014

For those who don't know Vengeance. In the Eighties Holland had two much touring bands fronted by slightly mad vocalists and consisting of great musicians: Jewel and Vengeance. I still remember the stage dive trampoline at Jewel shows or the bottles of water and Ms. Haverkamp strip during Vengeance shows. So basically you could go and see them always, being sure of great entertainment. I don't know if at a certain time Vengeance called it quits, but for several years they are back releasing albums and touring. As the musicians have changed over time, vocalist Leon Goewie is still there and  able to entertain slightly more than the average Dutch vocalist. I had not seen them for some years, so I did enjoy hearing their old classics passing by.

While writing several of the best hard rock albums ever made in Holland Vengeance live was also always about humor. When Leon came up duck walking with his grin on the face we knew it was still about entertaining. Starting with some new songs I could hear that the music is still very much OK. Their classic line-up also had a certain Arjan Lucassen later worldwide known for Ayreon fame. These line-up did release several songs that upon hearing again rang that Oh yeah that one bell. "May Heaven Strike me Down", "She is the woman", "Take it or Leave it" and "Rock and Roll Shower" still stand strong and in "Arabia" they even honored my trip earlier this week to Saudi. So Vengeance are still going strong and with their party-creating abilities should be called for by summer festival organizers on a large scale.

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free Us

Special Editions: Who ever wants to buy a download, while you can order all these extras in beautiful packages? Last year Fish showed how the packaging can already be worth the money spent, while this month Cynic does the same. They actually released a bible and with a poster, a lyrics booklet, a full score (so you can cover them, right!) plus some cards the special edition is pretty complete indeed and again does not fit into the CD rack.

But as it is all about the music anyway, let's focus (pun intended) on that. Releasing a debut filled with grunts and extreme technical metal Cynic developed to much lighter, yet still beautiful areas nowadays. I am in the fortunate position that my musical taste easily covers both extremes, so Focus I still pick up occasionally, while also Aeon Spoke still passes by. After their long hiatus I think they came back brilliant with Traced in Air and that line further developed into the new album. This time it took me several listening sessions, before I started appreciating the CD. Initially it came over as a bit too tame, but now I start recognizing songs I must admit that Cynic are still a band on a creative peak. The nine songs don't come near death metal any longer and the Buddhist atmosphere is so present that you can almost smell the incense when True Hallucination Speaks.

Actually the album is to me a logical follow-up to Traced in Air and EP Carbon Based Atonomy, with similar atmosphere going around. That said I did not yet discover a song that stands out above the rest, like "King of Those Who Know" or "Box Up My Bones" on those releases. Best way to appreciate the songs more shall be seeing them live later this year. Here lays my concern as I think Cynic are a brilliant band, but by creating a category of their own I do not see large masses appreciating their directions. They shall play Graspop in Belgium and somehow I believe they might be too artistic to please large crowds. Brave they are though and bands that go their own way usually are the best, so stop the cynism and up with Cynic.

Stampede, Toledo Steel and Neverworld - Break Manor Hatfield 22 February 2014

STAMPEDE!!! Over 30 years after getting very much into their LP Hurricane Town, swiftly followed by  their debut Official Bootleg, I had a chance to see them live. It was not that obvious and I have to admit that internet brings us great things too. So John Tucker wrote this book Suzie smiled... about NWOBHM, which I found through the internet and is a great read. We exchanged some emails and I hope to meet him one day at Progpower where he also passes every now and then. Checking his site I saw that he rated Soldier best album of 2013, so I ordered a copy in the blind. In comes Miles Goodman, guitarist of Soldier who appreciated some feedback from me on why I ordered their album. While explaining and mentioning my favorites Stampede he pointed me in the direction of Hatfield. Without confirmations all around in came Deano from The Rock Den and the welcome and replies I received were sensational, so off I went to Hatfield. There is no other band I like to this level so long and never saw playing live. The great thing was that seeing them the first time I now understand Stampede is a band to see playing live. The songs even gain more on stage and I already know that last night entered my  list of shows I will never forget. Backside is that this year I plan to go to many shows, but I already saw the best show of 2014.

But first things first and those were opening acts Toledo Steel and local band Neverworld. Both were pretty good and the Maidenish Toledo Steel (with a surpise cover in Tooth & Nail) made me buy their EP afterwards, while Neverworld sounded promising and shall release an album soon, which I shall check out and possibly order hereafter. Both promising bands showing that British bands usually have a more natural stage performance than continental ones. Mentioning prices I did have the expensive HMH in mind where Dream Theater played last Monday. The money you spend there on a locker gets you a Stampede CD in Hatfield. Beer was also fairly priced (half HMH again) and with T-shirts at a fiver I got both.

Being welcomed very friendly by Deano, the crew and some of the frequent Rock Den visitors, I got perfectly in the mood to see Stampede live. The band consisted of the Sudden Impulse set-up with drummer Ted? coming from Reuben Archer's solo band. Colin Bond kicked of bassing us into Shadows of the Night. After follower Having Fun I could see that all music would be at top level today. For those who pointed that Laurence Archer is no longer there, no need to worry. Chris Clowsey and Rob Wolverson take the honors as they did on the A Sudden Impulse album. While Chris soloed occassionaly main parts were taken by Rob who proved to be the next guitar hero, far too little people have heard off. His melodic soloing was so strong that I wondered why I did not recognize that to this effect on the last CD or Reuben's solo album. Mentioning  Reuben Archer it was a pleasure seeing and hearing him live. Although he did halfway apologize for a bad throat (it's that time of the year suppose) I found his voice still showing all the character he has in the studio as well.

Hurricane Town was the album that got me into Stampede and I played over and over again. The setlist however was built around the last album A Sudden Impulse and their debut the Live Bootleg. This did not harm the show at all, since the newer songs in a live version showed to be off the same level as HT. Highlights? hard to say although Hurricane Town itself is a Classic, now unfortunately still relevant in rainy UK winters. Their last "hit" Send me Down an Angel was definitely a highlight and my throat is still recovering from my requests to Shine the Light on Me. As I know all their songs I did in reality go from one highlight to another and maybe a last extra mention is needed for closures Moving On and The Runner, speaking about ending with a blast.

What a show and what a day. Defintely worth the trip and I shall make an effort to see Reuben Archer performing his solo album as well. After the show when I wanted to thank Deano for making this possible he proposed to bring me to the band. It was very nice to see their surprises that I came from Holland to see them. As I explained to several people I belive that bands deserve more support than football teams. While the latter are followed thousands of kilometers by thousands of fans when playing abroad, Bands don't get this for small club shows. To me Stampede was the show missing and I am very pleased to have corrected that. By doing so I met a nice place for metal shows, met really nice people and already start planning a return to Hatfield for Power & Glory Festival in August. Massive thanks to Deano, Miles Goodman and I guess John Tucker as well. Apart from that to Stampede for their show, Live they are even better!! When the world was supposed to come to an end on Ragnarok I saw that life can even get better.

Dream Theater - HMH Amsterdam 17 February 2014

An evening with Dream Theater Along for the Ride tour. This means three hours of Progmetal in all its glory: melodic, heavy, emotional, thundering and whatever more you need on a Monday night in a packed HMH in Amsterdam. I got introduced to Dream Theater on their debut LP When Dream and Day Unite and saw them live during their first European trips for their career highlights Images & Words and Awake. From there onwards I kept on buying all their CD's but started missing shows in general due to bad timing. I remember that thet played twice in Holland on a weekday after Progpower weekend and I always wondered why Progpower had to settle at 500 tops while 5000 people would go to see Dream Theater on a weekday. No matter how varied one band is, they can to me never top 15 bands at Progpower, but that is an old discussion where no matter the niche market always the better known names attract illogical larger audiences. To go back to the opening line, this was for me the first time I saw Dream Theater playing a three hour setlist and what great value for the not small money it was. My first conclusion was that Dream Theater should consider the Marillion setup of a convention, where they play three nights in a row With such a large back-catalogue there is too much to choose from.

The band started with a focus on the last albums which showed that the last self-titled album, might indeed be their best of the last 10 years. Opener The Enemy Inside was rocking and all new songs came over great, while they even could afford to skip my favorite song of the album: The Bigger Picture. The first half existed of new songs and especially The Shattered Fortress was brilliant. For me this was also the first time in HMH and the sound was great, the beer expensive and the lockers ridiculously unpractical. As the sound is the only one that really matters the hall was approved and the lightshow mixed with small films was very nice. After one hour and twenty minutes we got a break, which was partially filled with soem humorous clips, which were not all that funny (If they want to make us laugh they should bring Jim Breuer along with his hilarious metal stand-up comedy act).

And then came the second half. If you would ask me from all  Dream Theater albums which half would be my favorite one, I probably would say Side 2(or B) from Awake. To my tremendous pleasure they decided to commemorate 20 years Awake by playing Side 2 in total. This meant from the metal of The Mirror/Lie until one of their best ballads Space-Dye Vest. To me this is their highlight, but I did get the feeling that I was a minority in the audience (what is it with my taste?) When they played hereafter the Illumination Theory plus an encore of a medley from Scenes from a Memory the hall got somewhat louder and everybody left realizing they just saw one of the better productions that shall tour Europe this year. With their great list of classics I would like to do a request for their next tour already: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence in full. Come to think of it, I believe they fully ignored the first two albums, so some from those to complete next to newer songs and I already have a setlist as good as last night with all different songs. Probably the biggest Progmetal band for a reason, without mentioning so far the unbelievable guitar playing from John Petrucci.