Marillion Weekend - Port Zelande 20-23 March, 2015

Get 3000 people out of 52 different countries, put them in a Centre Parcs bungalow, have this all organized by (one of) their favorite band(s) and you have the Marillion weekend setup. Three nights of Marillion live playing two full albums and one surprise set, plus the best atmosphere any music event can create. As most people who attended once feel like coming back this event was one year ago extremely fast sold out, but we were lucky enough to book on time and keep a 12 person bungalow which was even closely located to the centre. Still in the afterglow of this great event herewith some of the highlights:

The support acts:
The weekend was opened by the most popular Marillion member Steve Rothery with his solo band. As his last year's album The Ghosts of Pripyat, made it to my top 14 of 2014 I was very much enjoying the live versions. He is simply one of the best guitarists around and presentation in his usual modest sympathetic style. Second night opener was Ranestrane from Italy, playing Iatlian Prog sung in Italian. Having nice moments I was not so much overwhelmed that I would look for the CD afterwards. Last evening was opened by Lifesigns. I do have their debut album and really like it. But as it is mainly calm I did not know what to expect live. Also caused by tired last evenings I did not really get into their show, while enjoying the music. Maybe better to see fit in a smaller place.

Marillion live:
Three nights live means some 7 hours of songs to play. In order to help them decide on how to fill these hours they applied since 2013 weekend the habbit of starting the first two nights with one full album show.  The first evening was Anoraknophobia, one of my favorite Hogarth era albums. Great album perfect Friday night. While the encores started with a new (Gaza) and old (This Strange Engine) Epic my favorite of the evening came in a great version of Three Minute Boy.
Saturday night had Marbles as main part. I Liked that album at the time, although not all songs are that interesting to me, which is the risk of a double album. Again the encores were very good and the emotional clips behind Out of This World and King were beautiful.
The final evening was the only one where the setlist would be a surpise. Soon it became clear that we would be treated on an evening of Singles starting all the way back with Market Square Heroes. Knowing that Hogarth who had some issues over the weekend might not like it, always when the Fish songs are played the audience gets more excited. Playing 8 of them to open the evening means we just got the best hour of the Marillion weekends I attended. It was remarkable to see how singles died out after 2000 and the last songs were maybe released as single, but showing that only albums count nowadays. Ending with Hocus Pocus from Focus gave a double feeling. Great song, but they did that before and Market Square Heroes would really be the best closing song in my view. Still Sunday rocked and was very good indeed.

The After Parties:
Apart from the great shows, the after parties are the major treat during Marillion weekends. While in the past the DJ always showed he had two Classic Rock Best Of double CD's by playing always the same songs, this year we were in for a great surprise. On Saturday and Sunday we got a Rockeoke. A brilliant live band had a list of many many songs and people could sing along. I was very sorry to have lost my voice the Friday night already, so really unable to produce any sound. We got some very decent singers and some horrible performers and voices. Interesting to see that the majority of the fans picked the heavier songs of the list. Great fun and what a band. Surpise on the last evening came when Hogarth joined in for Led Zep and two Beatles songs. This showed that a good vocalist cannot sing everything as Rock and Roll did not really Rock, but the roof came off anyway.

And when it is over  there is a sad feeling of ending, completely overruled by the great memories of a weekend one shall always remember. As I did not even mention the outside warm wild water pool with benches, or the volleyball, or the Swap the Band (which I missed due to the two before mentioned activities) I can only hope that I can attend again in two years time. A Great thanks to all who organized this perfect weekend.

Northlands - Steven Wilson - Born of Fire - Alkaloid

Inspired by DPRP's Something for the Weekend, this week 4 different CD's in all different styles. Unlike SFTW not by different authors, but more displaying the very open minded range of musical genres I appreciate. As my normal reviews are kind off short already, I now really stay with a minimum of information. Going from soft to loud, my recommendations are:

Tony Patterson & Brendan Eyre - Northlands
This is what I like to call Sunday morning prog. There is no rush to get up and the musical background is reassuring. Painting the North East of England with a very nice calm form of very British Prog Rock. Known from Re-Genesis (Tony) and Riversea (Brendan) this sets a benchmark they manage to live up to. You can't wake up more pleasant really.

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.
The Internet is full of extensive reviews of this album. My favorite CD's where Steven Wilson appeared were: The Sky Moves Sideways, Stupid Dream and The Raven that Refused to Sing. This one might be even better than all three as only time shall tell. Superb album by extremely talented and still underrated Mr. Wilson. Simply Beautiful this is Steven Wilson's answer to Marillion's Brave.

Born of Fire - Dead Winter Sun
If Aardschok is very positive and mentions references like Savatage, Nevermore, Iced Earth and Queensryche I am interested. US Metal at its best and that never disapppoints. Dark lyrics, American Flag on the cover, moody intro's fast guitars and some screams. Great band all out and some good songs to match. Not Earthquakingly orignal, but very good.

Alkaloid - The Malkuth Grimoire
Crowdfunding at Indiegogo and I joined due to Obscura members participation. Well this album shall need a lot of listening sessions still, but what I heard so far it can reach very high on my 2015 end of year list. Extreme Prog Metal, so one must accept grunts, although some songs are mostly or fully clean vocals. Many different styles passing giving us great variety. I might fully appreciate this one only in six months (or understand the album title), but very promising to say the least.

Lonely Robot - Please Come Home

John Mitchell is a frequent visitor to de Boerderij. On stage that is, as he plays in many bands that typically would pass Zoetermeer on any European tour. Most famous names being Arena, Frost*, It Bites and Kino. Lonely Robot is his solo project and with help of some friends (Steve Hogarth, Heather Findlay, Jem Godfrey amongst others) he released this very pleasant sounding Please Come Home album.

John Mitchel has a raspy voice which fits the songs well. He also is one of the world's most underrated guitarists and again amazes with his heavy riffs and great melodic soloing on this album. I remember seeing him live with PB2 some years ago. He played one guest solo and immediately that song stood out by a mile and then some during the show. He also gave twice in a short period a keyboard only version of Peter Gabriel's Here Comes the Flood, where his voice showed great range. So I knew I liked most if not all of his work and this CD is an easy goal to make in that respect. I read that not being in a band he could go wherever he liked and be more open. First song I heard however, came with Prog Magazine and Construct/Obstruct to me sounded nothing different from the last two albums of It Bites. Hearing the full album there is more variety indeed. Still all has this easily acceptable melodic rock overflow which makes this an album that could be big, if only getting some exposure. As this is not going to happen Lonely Robot shall remain one of the many secrets for the happy few.

John Mitchell shall be back in de Boerderij in April with Arena. I do not know if this project shall ever tour as well, but don't let that stop you from buying Please Come Home. You get what you expect and in this case that is just fine.

The Erkonauts - I Did Something Bad

Many fora bring you to new music to discover and I mentioned several times Progstreaming, Something For The Weekend or Ave Noctum. A Major source I might not have mentioned before is Prog Metal Zone, with their weekly new releases including links to songs or full albums. So I ran into this band from Geneva Switzerland. PMZ spoke about Progmetal with a Punk attitude and the clip of Domimium Mundi sounded very promising. Check it out on YouTube. If you like the heavier parts of this semi ballad you might just order this CD as well. Otherwise first go through their clip with parts of each song as I did.

Punk attitude might be a good description as there definitely is a raw edge to their music. Sometimes I hear a Motorhead like bass running as well. But at the same time I hear adventurous Prog Metal which has always a heavy bass very present. Then I also heard some Thin Lizzy on triple speed passing in Tony 5. As these guys are like me non native English speakers they can get away with somewhat dubious song titles like The Great Ass Poopery or All the Girls Should Die. It is all about the music, which has a party atmosphere around it and I can imagine this to be live quite an energetic show.
Highlight of the album comes in the Hamster's Ghosthouse. This songs greets Voivod openly while at the end of it we get several instrumental minutes with a solo that reminds us of Gary Moore while still hard rocking. A song alone that justifies purchasing this album.

So I did order directly with the band after listening to the two clips at YouTube. To my surprise I was ordernumber 22 only. I guess the ProgMetal loving world can do a lot better. This is just the next great finding in very young 2015 for me. And finishing with Prog Metal Zone, this week led me to the next great discovery in Vola. That band emailed back that they are working on a physical CD now, so watch these pages for more PMZ discoveries soon.  

House of X - House of X

A self-titled debut album of a new band, with rather famous names in it. Until recently House of X was named X-Ufo as most band members used to be in UFO at one time or another they focussed on covering UFO songs. On vocals we have Danny Peyronal who used to be UFO's first keyboard player and backing vocalist, playing on No Heavy Petting, On Guitars Laurence Archer who played on the High Stakes and Dangerous Men album, but also knwon from his work with Stampede and Phil Lynnot's Grand Slam. On Bass Rocky Newton, who did not play UFO, but was in Lionheart and McAuley Schenker Group and finally drummer Clive Edwards who was amongst many bands in UFO as well.

With these names we get Bluesy Hard Rock which sounds very British and therefore great. This is not an album that will shock your world maybe, but it sounds very nice from start to finish. Not attempting to sound like UFO, they do include one cover, the Danny Peyronel written Martian Landscape. This holds a risk since Danny has a good voice, but not many people can get away with covering Phill Mog on vocals and come out winning. The slight upbeat version makes up partially though. Actually other ballad Alive sounds better to me. Highlight of the album I guess is uptempo party-rocker No More Tequila, which should close many future parties around.

While saying that this album might not move the earth, it definitely is highly recommended. Maybe because of Laurence Archer's presence I can hear a certain Stampede vibe in many songs as well, so just listen to this album. Meanwhile as I am on book tips as well, for ones interested in the passing of these people in UFO read the biography: High Stakes and Dangerous Men by Neil Daniels.  

Audioplastik - In the Head of a Maniac

I believe it was end 2013 when I voted for promise 2014 to be Alpha Flood on the Prog Magazine Poll. Then drummer Collin Leijenaar left and the name changed into Brave New Sky, which kept me waiting for this CD that never came. And now I received my copy of the pre-ordered debutalbum of Audioplastik and a new highlight of 2015 arrived. Audioplastik are: Dec Burke from Darwin's Radio, Frost*, two Classic solo albums and helping out British Prog artists like Lee Abraham (I believe he also played Rush covers with or before Darwin's Radio). Simon Andersson from Darkwater and ex-Pain of Salvation on guitars and bass. Richard West best known from playing keyboards in Threshold.

Looking at the past and current bands of the members we could expect some melodic progmetal light or melodic heavy prog and that is exactly what we get. Compact and accessable Audioplastik presents a great set of 13 songs, some of which even can be considered radio-friendly (if you don't live in Holland that is). Audioplastik are blending nicely the bands mentioned above. Being heavier than Dec Burke's solo efforts they also remind of a softer Threshold and melodic Darkwater is on the background. Running through the songs I have no outstanding favorite yet, while there is plenty to choose from instrumentals, uptempo or semi-ballads.

Next to Shatterd Skies this was one of the CD's I was looking forward to in the new year and again my expectations were met. Seeing Dec Burke live is for me less of a succes story. When he opened for Script for a Jester's Tour snow was stopping me from driving to de Boerderij and half an hour waiting for a tram that never came, made me throw the towel. Than in 2012 I was going for a training in London and arranged flights so that I could catch Dec Burke's Band in Milton Keynes on a Sunday afternoon, a show that got cancelled shortly before. Now Audioplastik should make it to de Boerderij, play this album completed with covers from all bands mentioned at the introduction and a great night at the Farm seems guaranteed.    

Mark Gregory - No Sleep till Saltburn

Mark Gregory is not a musician, he is a writer, former milkman, radio maker, band manager and creative director amongst other jobs. As such this is not a CD, but a book. And what a read it was on my last week's trip abroad. The full title being "No sleep till Saltburn -Adventures on the edge of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal" this is a first hand story of the do it your self mentality that resulted in the boom of many great (or not so great) NWOBHM bands in the early eighties. After finishing this book in almost one read I can only say that anyone with a slight interest in Heavy Metal or NWOBHM and no strong dislike of reading should have this book. Almost as captivating as Anvil's The Story of Anvil, this book is also filled with humour when going through the learning on the job experiences and painful mistakes. In the end it has been mainly thanks to people like Mark Gregory that the news on the NWOBHM got spread around through his magazine Cleveland Rocks as well as his local radio show.

All the bands mentioned in the book sound familiar to me, but as I was still at school and only started seeing live shows at the end of the NWOBHM movement, with Diamond Head first time outside the UK being one of the first of them. There is a link with Holland though as Mark talks about the letters received from abroad asking for his first edition of Cleveland Rocks. He specially mentions a certain Metal Mike and Andre Verhuysen, both World Famous in Holland's metal scene as the original and still running Aardschok magazine editors. They took care that Holland always learned about new bands fast and some broke through in Holland before conquering Europe really (Metallica and Queensryche for starters). The Chapter No Sleep till Eindhoven was therefore an extra interesting read, as Mark joined Satan on their Dutch tour 1983, where they played the Dynamo club in Eindhoven. Satan proudly mentioned to be ranked above Whitesnake, Quo, Gillan and Van Halen and as I have my Aardschoks 1983-1986 saved for historical value, I could check the facts and indeed they were , ranked number 40 and above these more known names. The review of Mark for that show was one of great admiration of band and audience, so I had to check the review in Aardschok as well, which was a bit more down to earth. As a Dutchman it was nice to read though that Dutch crowds in the early eighties looked maniacal in the eyes of an English band and journalist.

Repeating again this book you read with a smile on your face. The comments on the Battleaxe cover for Burn this Town, their tourbus, the rockstar behaviour of some names that disappeared pretty soon, the drinking sessions in London interviewing Saga, his first impressions of Venom (similar to mine at the time) it all brings you back to times when music was made out of love for the music and no X-Factor/Idols shit existed. So sorry I can't make it to Brofest to return to NENWOBHM heydays.