The Dutch Serious Music Café has organized concerts in
Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands since 2010. In particular the more
unknown progressive rock acts get a chance to perform at the Parktheater venue,
a location which has seats only and therefore everyone has a perfect view of
the stage, from which the sound is perfect and the images projected at the back
work very well. For me, it was the second time I entered this warm and cozy place. After watching
Kristoffer Gildenlöw and
A Liquid Landscape in 2013 (see
review), the stage was reserved for acts coming from France and Scotland this time, namely
Franck Carducci and
Comedy Of Errors. However, the original line-up for this fifth Serious
Music Event had undergone some changes.
Nine Stones Close
had originally been booked, but have had to cancel their
performance due to line-up changes. One of the events organisers happened to see the French musician
Franck Carducci and his excellent band at 't Blok earlier this year (see
review), and he impressed
him so much that he asked this friendly musician to replace Nine Stones Close
and fortunately he agreed to do so! Comedy Of Errors had already been booked
last year, but they were forced to withdraw because their short tour through
the Netherlands was cancelled at the very last minute! The organisers of this
event still wanted them to play on their stage, and fortunately they also
agreed to come for this one-off concert in the Netherlands!
Franck Carducci
Well I suspect the organisation never regretted booking Franck and his band, because
all of them showed how they turned out to be a well oiled unit after performing together so many times.
Even with a new face behind the drums, they showed what professionals they all are.
Laurent Falso
was perfectly replaced by young
Nicolas Chona and hit
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Franck Carducci |
the drums as if he'd played in this band for years. Although the songs
performed were almost the same as at the already mentioned concert at 't Blok,
I was impressed again, and most of all entertained throughout the entire
concert! After the show Franck asked me whether the show was better this time
around. Well musically and visually it was of the same high level, but sound
wise it was even better. Once more the show started with the sword fight between guitarist
Christophe Obadia
and keyboardist
Olivier Castan prior to the band performing
Achilles in an
excellent way. However, the stage was a bit too dark for the audience to see
what actually happened. When the lights turned on it seemed the band was
playing in the fog because during the first minutes of the song the dry-ice/ fog machine had worked overtime.
Alice's Eerie Dream was also on the menu again, with the beautiful
Mary'Alice' Reynaud in the role of
Alice, who had turned into a hooker. She entered the stage in a very sensual
way and touched her fellow musicians very shortly one by one. After that she
contributed in the vocal department very strongly! The songs which will appear
on the next studio album were already played as well; this time all in sequence.
Torn Apart,
Closer To Irreversible (with a guest role by former drummer
Toff 'Crazy Monk) and
Artificial Paradises
sounded even better than when I heard them for the first time earlier this year, therefore
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A lot of fun on stage |
Im already looking forward to hearíng them on
Torn Apart after its expected release date of late 2014!
The Last Oddity also ended this regular set and blew me away once again. This live version really sets the stage on
fire and lifts this epic piece to an even higher level, mainly because of
Mary's additional vocal contributions, but the guitar tandem of Christophe Obadia and
Mathieu Spaeter makes
this song very special too. The way they entertained the audience by playing
together on a single guitar really put a smile on my face! The smile stayed
there after they finished this piece of music with the final part of
Supper's Ready again. Thank God they
returned to the stage for an encore and to perform their version of
Supertramp's
School.
As previously, the harmonica had been replaced by a
didgeridoo and was played by Obadia. After this well performed cover, a nice
extra was served with the addition of a not-foreseen birthday song for someone
in the audience. The band who had to follow this act and finish the event
certainly had to come up with something special to top this awesome performance!
Comedy Of Errors
It's hard to say whether the Scottish musicians from Glasgow 'beat' the performance of
Franck Carducci and his band. Well, to be honest it doesn't really matter, because after all it wasn't a competition.
What I do know is that they most certainly
entertained the crowd to the level of the act before them. Of course was I
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Sam McCulloch |
curious how they'd perform the many songs, taken from their last albums
Disobey (2001, see
review) and
Fanfare & Fantasy (2013, see
review)
live on stage. To be honest, I never doubted them to succeed and play their
complex music in front of an audience flawlessly, an audience which was surprisingly
rather large if you know how few people know this band's music. This certainly
motivated the band to give a strong show, a show that must have been rather difficult for guitarist
Sam McCulloch,
because he joined the band only very recently to replace
Mark Spalding. So thumbs
up for him, because he played the guitar parts excellently! You
could dream away on his melodic solos many a time, just like you could at the moments keyboard player
Jim Johnston
treated us to a wonderful solo. As for the rhythm section I don't have any complaints either.
Bruce Levick
played his drum parts in a very relaxed manner and got bassist
John Fitzgerald
to play a solo part on his bass from time to time. Those who were present can only agree that lead singer
Joe Cairney was the main attraction during the band's performance. First off I must pay Joe a big
complement for his excellent voice. It's just as strong as on the afore
mentioned studio albums. Bravo! Furthermore he is a wonderful host who tells
all kinds of stories in between the songs like, for instance, about the recent
referendum about Scottish independence. It probably had to do with the title of
one of the songs they performed called:
Joke.
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Joe Cairney |
The days spent in Amsterdam to play at Paradiso were mentioned as well,
which must have been in 1987 when he was only 15 years of age or 21 or 22 or
somewhere around there... Anyway, one of the spectators from those days was
present in the audience today, to see if they still could make his heart beat
faster. They made mine, because many of the musical highlights of their latest releases were performed, like
The Student Prince. An epic piece divided into four parts. Too bad they didn't include
Part 4- Green Light Coda
and only went for
Part 1- When Will I See You Again, Part 2- And So To Bed and
Part 3- Foolcircle.
A nice surprise could be heard at the end of the third part; a very small section of
Tubular Bells
(1973) from Mike Oldfield's debut album was included. The encore was reserved
for the band's musical legacy of the eighties. During their performance of
Times There Was it was easy to tell
which bands influenced them in those days:
Marillion with
Fish on vocals. No argue about that! B
ut a second neo-progressive rock outfit could be mentioned, especially when you wear their t-shirt on stage: I'm
talking about
IQ. When Joe took off his black coat and black blouse he revealed a shirt with a print of
The Wake (1985) on it. With this strong encore from Comedy Of Errors a very strong concert from the band in the
Netherlands for the first time in years was ended. Hopefully they will return
in 2015, and maybe even in the company of bands like
Credo and/ or
Abel Ganz.
I would certainly like that!
Finally a big thank you to the people of The Dutch Serious Music
Café for organizing a fantastic double-bill which featured two amazing acts! Bravo to them!
Henri Strik (edited by Esther Ladiges)