For many years, iO Pages has not only been the most important Dutch magazine for
progressive rock, but also for the organization of festivals. In recent years
they made it a two or even a three-day event. However, this year's edition was restricted
to one day. There's nothing wrong with that, but why did they invite five
bands? From my own experience I know that five bands are at least one or two
too many. Organizers sometimes forget that people aren't machines that you can switch
on and off. After three or four bands people get tired and as a result they're less
focussed on the headliners. These bands are mostly confronted with the fact
that many people have already gone home before they have played a single note. This
year's headliners were lucky enough to have an audience waiting for them to appear,
for they belonged to their favourites. Anyway, I may not be too negative because
we're still blessed to see many prog rock acts in our small, but important country for this kind of music.
Anima Mundi
|
Virginia Peraza |
It was still early in the afternoon when the Cuban band Anima Mundi entered the
stage. I had seen this band perform three weeks earlier doing a terrific
concert at Lakei in Helmond (see
review). The show Anima Mundi presented was
again extraordinary. They almost played the same set list as in Helmond, but this
time the sound and the lightshow were even better. It seemed that the musicians
felt comfortable at this venue. Keyboardist
Virginia Peraza
smiled all the time to the audience and her fellow-musicians.
Once again her fine playing on the keys was a delight to listen to, for example the fantastic church organ sound in
Flying To The Sun.
Of course all musicians played their parts very well. Anima
|
Manuel Govin
|
Mundi had also invited a guest on stage, which was a surprise for most people,
but not for those who had seen their gig in Helmond. During that concert drummer
Remco Engels
(
Mangrove) assisted drummer
Manuel Govin
on percussion during the new piece
The Return / Tales From Endless Star.
The band's superb concert was received with a lot of cheering and applauding between the performed songs. The
band rewarded the public's enthusiasm with two encores:
Sanctuary,
followed by the instrumental
El Umbral (The Threshold) from their debut
Septentrión (2002). These encores could be done for there was some
time left. Well, after two excellent gigs within three weeks you might say that
The Netherlands has become Anima Mundi's second homeland!
Knight Area
After witnessing such an amazing performance it's difficult for any band to perform
next. Dutch band Knight Area had the difficult task to let the audience forget
the previous show. With the new guitar player
|
Compliments of Gijs (r) to Mark (l). Gerben (back) agrees. |
Mark Bogert,
they succeeded in presenting a great show as well, something we couldn't be sure of beforehand. After guitarist
Mark Vermeule did his final show with the band as a support for
Karmakanic (see
review),
it was uncertain how Knight Area would sound. However, his substitute Mark Bogert
is an excellent guitarist. I already noticed that two years ago during a concert of prog metal band
Penny's Twisted Flavour at the
P=Progrock Festival (see
review). So it wasn't strange that the guitar parts were
slightly harder-edged than before, but it suited the band well. His guitar solo during the encore
Mortal Brow was
excellent. For a moment, when I closed my eyes, I had the idea that
Steve Vai
played this solo. Mr. Bogert had mainly practised the material from the band's latest album
Nine Paths, because most of the performed pieces were taken from that album, although older tracks like
Dreamweaver and
Antagony
could be enjoyed as well. During the gig Bogert got much appreciation from the other band members. Bassist
Gijs Koopman
|
Ryo (r) hands over the award to Gerben (l) In the middle: Menno von Brucken Fock (iO Pages) |
often walked to the other side of the stage to let him
know that he did a great job. Also keyboardist
Gerben Klazinga
frequently showed his appreciation by giving the thumbs
up or by giving him a big smile from behind his keys. The audience loved the performance
of Knight Area as well. They're not only loved by the fans, but also by the
critics. After finishing their regular set with
Angel's Call
they were asked back on stage by the host of the festival for they had won the iO Pages Prog Award for their album
Nine Paths.
Ryo Okumoto
(
Spock's Beard, K2)
was asked for the 'official ceremony' to present the reward to the band
which he did in a funny way since he couldn't properly pronounce the name Gerben
Klazinga, who founded the band back in 2004. Knight Area not only performed a
great show, but they also fully deserved the award!
K2
|
Ken Jaquess |
Next band on stage hailed from the USA and were founded by multi-instrumentalist
Ken Jaquess.
The two albums he recorded with K2 got the highest rating of five stars on this website. I was very
curious to learn how they would present the music from
Book Of The Dead (2005) and
Black Garden (2010) live on stage. As soon as the band started with
Cloak Of Antiquity it turned out that
they didn't exactly copy the original album versions. The reason is obvious,
for the type of music they make isn't easy to copy. Moreover, they had two
musicians on stage who didn't play on the studio albums and who were very important for the total sound. First
Brent George, the new singer. He doesn't sing like
Peter
Gabriel like
his predecessors. His vocals slightly resemble the way
Nick D'Virgilio
(ex-Spock's Beard) sings his lyrics. Second new member is guitarist
Steve Poloni,
whose guitar style often resembles
Allan Holdsworth's. Sometimes
it sounded as if he was playing on a synthesizer, just like Ryo Okumoto, who earlier
had presented the award to Knight Area. His keyboard playing was excellent, as always. He even performed
|
Brent George |
Free Fall, a song of his own. On announcing the song someone shouted
'
Camel!', but
this piece
has nothing to do with the eponymous track of Camel. The nicest surprise was
kept a secret until the final encore that got a nice start as well. Before the
band would play a superb version of the Spock's Beard classic
Walking On The Wind,
the audience started to sing a birthday song for drummer
Doug Sanborn. He became fifty on the day of their first Dutch gig. He'll probably never forget this special
birthday. However, it wasn't only a special day for him, but for me as well. I
had seen a band in great shape that gave a fantastic live performance. In
addition this concert was filmed and might be released next year on DVD.
DeeExpus
Many people came to see DeeExpus because they wanted to see
Mark Kelly play
the keyboards. What they didn't know was that he had to fulfil obligations with
Marillion. Band leader
Andy Ditchfield
|
Mike Varty, Michael McCrystal and Andy Ditchfield |
apologized to those who were disappointed to see
Mike Varty instead.
He told them that Mike is better looking than Mr. Kelly, so problem solved.
Personally I was convinced that Varty would do a great job replacing Kelly. I've
seen him many times before on stage with other bands like
Credo and
Landmarq, so I
know what to expect of this excellent keyboardist. Kelly wasn't the only absent musician who played on
King Of Number 33,
the second album of DeeExpus. Only two musicians who played on that album were
present: singer-guitarist Andy Ditchfield and drummer
Henry Rogers. A week earlier the latter visited our country to do three concerts with
Touchstone (see
review).
Ditchfield took over the lead vocals from
Tony Wright,
|
Henry Rogers |
who left in the meantime. He was also the host for the band and between the
songs he told the audience interesting stories about the way some songs have been
materialized or about the meaning of the lyrics. Occasionally he also played an
electric guitar solo. The other solos were brilliantly performed by
Michael McCrystal,
who from time to time also played the acoustically. He proved to be capable on both instruments.
DeeExpus started their show with the longest piece of the second album, the
almost 30-minute epic title track. So far it's the best piece of music they've
written and they succeeded in playing an outstanding rendition of it. All the songs from their latest album
King Of Number 33 could be enjoyed even
Memo,
a track that's originally sung by
Nik Kershaw.
Although the band appeared with a new line-up they gave a strong
performance which is surely meant to be a compliment. However, some people in
the audience felt that they played too loud and too heavy, but that didn't change
my judgment. I enjoyed their concert and afterwards I realized that I hadn't missed Mark Kelly at all!
Sylvan
|
Jan Petersen and Marco Glühmann (r) |
Of course the organizers of the festival knew that by booking a band like Sylvan
they would attract many people. And they were right. Although the clock had
passed the eleventh hour the venue was still crowded when the Germans started
to play almost one hour later than scheduled. Obviously the band's performance
was focussed on their latest album. Nearly all tracks from
Sceneries were done.
Marco Glühmann
had some problems to remember which chapters were connected to the album tracks
of this double concept album. Or was he just pretending? Anyway, those chapters
were excellently performed as expected, because Sylvan always try to perform
their music close to the original album versions. However, guitar player
Jan Petersen
had a weak moment towards the end of
Farewell To Old Friends.
He seemed to be mistaken by some of his guitar parts. Those who had
difficulties to stay awake during this final concert probably got a wake-up
call when they heard that Sylvan would perform a large part of
Posthumous Silence.
This concept album is still a favourite among their fans. This time they could enjoy strong versions of
|
Matthias Harder |
Eternity Ends,
Bequest Of Tears,
In Chains,
Bitter Symphony and
Pane Of Truth. Also the encore was a track from that album namely
The Colors Changed.
Before playing this song Mr. Glühmann held his cell phone to the
microphone. An earlier recorded translated German part could be heard in the
Dutch language which was welcomed with laughter. With the same smart phone he later
on filmed a few minutes on stage during the encore. This enjoyable moment could
be seen on YouTube some days later. For most people this late night show by Sylvan
was enjoyable too. Many prog heads find Sylvan's music not that complex, but
who cares as long as many people enjoy it. Especially when the live versions
are as good as the ones on the original album!
Looking back at this year's edition of the iO Pages Festival, I can only say that the organizers
assembled a line-up with a lot of variation. All bands gave strong performances,
although the rented drum kit could have been adjusted a bit better for some of
the bands. Then again all was organized well with enough to drink, eat and chat for the visitors.
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)