Many cities nowadays have good facilities to give new bands the opportunity to rehears and perform their material on a real stage. The Starsound Studio in Utrecht is such a location. It has a real professional recording studio and several rehearsal rooms. On Saturday evening, you can both rent the stage and the bar. The concert hall is suitable for an audience of about 150 people and there is no curfew. Everyone who wants to do so can organize a concert or a festival. That is just what Dutch band Flamborough Head did after visiting a concert at the Starsound Studio earlier this year. They asked local band Silhouette as opening act supposing that they would bring along many fans.

Silhouette

Silhouette is active in the progressive rock scene since 2004; they released the promo CD A Maze in 2006. To my surprise, they only performed Long Distance from that promo. Their gig did not start the best way possible. It seemed that the band members suffered from stage fright. It took them about three songs to get in the right mood. Their forthcoming second album with the preliminary title Moods dominated the set. Moods is a 79 minutes long concept album mixed by Gerben Klazinga (Knight Area). Although the new songs sounded very promising, they do not reach the same quality level of a band like Knight Area yet. The band still has much to learn to become as good as Knight Area. Take for instance their drummer and singer Jos Uffing. He must learn to sing in a proper way and not to scream to loud in the microphone. Guitarist Brian de Graeve has to practice harder to get a good solo out of his instrument. On the other hand, he has a nice voice and he should try to do more lead vocals. Keyboardist Erik Laan also has a pleasant voice that he should use more often. From time to time, he showed the audience that he has listened well to Tony Banks and Rick Wakeman. Maybe bass player Gerrit-Jan Bloemink should use bass pedals to give the music of Silhouette more body and depth. I am sure that this band will grow to a higher level if we are prepared to give them enough time.

Flamborough Head

Flamborough Head must have practiced a lot lately, because they played extremely strong and tight. New lead guitarist Gert Polkerman turned out to be a good replacement for Eddie Mulder. He resembles Dutch blues maestro Julian Sas, but thank God, he plays in a different way. A big compliment to Gert for his guitar solo performed during the live classic Limestone Rock. At the Progfarm Festival in November, he already impressed me, but this time it seemed as if he had invented the guitar parts himself. Bravo! The band always performs material from their early albums when Siebe-Rein Schaaf was the lead singer of the band. They are all favourites of their current lead singer Margriet Boomsma. This time they included three old pieces: Schoolyard Fantasy, Childscream and Garden Of Dreams . Margriet sang those songs as if they were written for her voice. The band played two tracks from their upcoming fifth studio album: Don’t Forget Us and Sleepless Night , strong pieces that made clear that Looking For John Maddock will be a next fine release from one of the best progressive rock bands in the Netherlands.

Also Eden

Nowadays, one of the best progressive rock bands from England is without any doubt Also Eden, for me one of the reasons to attend this mini-festival. I could have visit a double concert of It Bites and Saga, but I followed my heart and went to Utrecht. Unfortunately, there were not so many people sharing the same feelings. The concert started with approximately fifty people, but during the time, Also Eden finished this triple concert only a few people stayed to see this wonderful band in action. Bad luck for them, because they missed a high-level prog rock concert. I had seen them twice before at the Progfarm Festival, but this performance was their best on Dutch soil so far. According to lead singer How Lloyd-Jones, they came to The Netherlands in the best possible line-up ever. They found in Dave Roelofs an excellent new Dutch drummer . The future looks bright for Also Eden if they manage to keep Dave in the band for a long time. Dave told me that he liked fusion but during the concert it looked as if Neil Peart ( Rush) sat behind the drumkit. The band kicked off with Star, the opening tune from their second album It’s Kind Of You To Ask. Wow! That really sounded awesome. More material from this album followed. The audience reacted very enthusiastic. The first title played from their debut album About Time, was Between The Lines. They did it in the best possible way. In spite of the high temperature on stage, the musicians gave everything they had. Bumble and the encore Children Of The Night were the other two pieces taken from their first release. Singer How looked satisfied when the small audience made enough noise for a final encore. Those who decided to see the three bands in action did not regret their visit to the Starsound Studio in Utrecht. For only € 10, they saw a band that has the potency to grow to the top of progressive rock bands in The Netherlands. They also saw two bands that already belong to the premier league of the progressive rock scene. Too bad for those people who spent their free Saturday elsewhere! These bands deserve a larger audience.

Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)