Temic & Rendezvous Point - de Boerderij Zoetermeer, 28 March 2025

An evening of Progpower Europe in de Boerderij. That sounds simple, but I almost did not make it, First I was invited to attend Pentesilea Road's new videoclip premiere in het ZeeheldenTheater in The Hague. When I found this week, that I had to reserve a seat and it was booked, plus Vito telling me than that it was more a movie evening than a music evening I checked upon my other options. Musicon had Infinty whom I saw a few times before plus a German Black Metal band I did not know. Than this package hit de Boerderij on their European tour. With five of our regular PPE group already going and Hans and Mary telling enthusiastic stories about the show last week in Barcelona, my choice was made. One evening of progmetal in good company and still not far away from home.

Temic opened this evening of two headliners. I know of Temic, they played already a few festivals in Holland, but I never saw them. Nor did I buy their CD in 2023. Still I saw almost all of the band members before. Diego on Keys many times with Haken, Fredrik singing with Maraton and Simen on drums with Evergrey and Arkentype. Finally how nice was it to see Eric Gilette in a proper progmetal band, without someone praising his imaginary friend next to him. Only Miguel on bass was new to me as I never saw Withem live. But how about the sum of all these strong parts? Well pretty damn impressive. Temic surpassed my hopes for the evening as their show was massive, great epic songs and enough space for all to shine. Fredrik jumped into the audience twice, but not in a Damien-Wilson-look-at-me-I-am-great way. The band seemed to be enjoying themselves and even with the balcony closed it was good to see that many people found their way to Zeotermeer to appreciate this. As I did not know the songs I can't comment much on the setlist. What I can tell is that Temic has everything to become one of the leading forces in progmetal. This show engaged all present tonight from start to finish. Now it is only time for new music as I understood from Menno who saw them a few times before still touring that same one album. A perfect opener they were, but a busy merch area never made me bother to check that this evening.

I was worried for Rendezvous Point, how to follow up on this? Than Hans and Mary told me that in Barcelona the hall emptied a bit during their show. Well none of that tonight as everyone in stayed the whole night. The audience reactions even increased and I loved to see the young couple in front of me singing along with every song and being recognized by the band as true fans. I did remember in advance that when Rendezvous Point played Progpower 2019 I stayed the full hour. That is always a good sign as when not my band I leave after 15 minutes (or 3 minutes when it's Meer), when just ok after some 30-40 and only if to my liking the full hour. I saw them another time, but can't remember where. At the start I thought will they always remian this band known from the girl in the hotpants on bass? Turned out not to be the case and again all five played their parts impressive. Baard is a beast on drums, but the symphonic keyboard driven song was nice too and the presentation of the vocalist was very lively and it worked, When during the encore we saw a Boerderij jumping up and down, we got a rare sight in this venue during a prog event. 

So that made it two great bands on this very fine evening in Zoetermeer. That on the day that Progpower confirmed their final band for October, already looking forward. For those willing to stay in progpower moods, today Tapfest hits Scum with several Dutch bands who played the festival before. I stay in my hometown and go see some Scottish atmospheric Black Metal. Let's see if it gets as good as last night.