Question: which band
played thirteen times in a row at the same progressive rock festival? Answer:
Dutch band
Flamborough Head.
Being the organizers of their own prog rock
festival, they’re always certain to perform during the finest progressive rock
event in the Netherlands. They always succeed in booking the best-unknown bands
of the current prog scene. This year’s edition was no exception. As usual, five
bands were on the bill and they all had a high quality level as turned out at
the end of the day.
ICE
Ice hails
from The Netherlands and they had the task to
start the event about three o’clock in the afternoon. Like a phoenix, Ice emerged
out of the ashes of
Maryson. In 2006, they
already released the impressive debut album
The Saga.
It was obvious that the
largest part of their set would consist of material from
The Saga, a fine concept album written by
René Sterk who was,
together with lead singer
Hein van de Broek,
responsible for the lyrics as well. Ice started with
Strangelight, the opening tune of the

album. Although Hein van de Broek has a great voice, he should work on his
stage presentation a bit more. He could have added a couple of show elements to
clarify the concept story. Of course, in the end only the music counts and that
part was above par. A piece like
The Trail
sounded superb and as far as
I’m concerned this is the musical direction the band should follow: neo-progressive
rock the best way possible. The new performed songs
Why Me? and
Across The Frozen Lake
strongly
moved in that direction: strong instrumental parts with lyrical guitar solos
and fine vocal lines. Ice didn’t forget their musical past and played
Hawait from the second Maryson-album
On Goes The Quest. Maybe Ice was the
first band in the history of Progfarm that didn’t make use of the available time
they got from the organization. The band finished their gig fifteen minutes
earlier than planned. There was enough time left to perform the final songs
No Choice and
Across The Frozen Lake. However, I enjoyed their one-hour
performance a lot.
Leap Day
The next band to perform was
Leap Day,
a
new Dutch neo-prog band. Due to the short performance of Ice, they could have
started
their set a bit earlier, but they stuck to the original starting time opening with
the new piece
The Messenger.
Right from the start, it was evident that the audience could expect something
special. The many rehearsals and live concerts earlier this year resulted in a solid

unit with a strong live sound. Leap Day was in a very good shape, however,
there’s some room for improvement as far as the live sound of lead singer
Jos Harteveld is
concerned.
He has a fine voice though, but he sounded a bit thin and soft in the final
mix. Guitarist
Eddie Mulder played
fabulous! I floated away many
times on the sound of his melodious guitar playing. The combination of having two
keyboard players on stage worked out perfectly.
Derk Evert Waalkens and
Gert van Engelenburg
gave each other enough room to show their talents by
playing fine synthesizer solos and great chords on the keyboards. Maybe the
biggest surprise for me was bassist
Peter Stel.
You could hear his excellent
playing throughout the concert. During this gig, I heard more details than on
Awaking The Muse, the band’s debut
album (see
review).
This was probably due to a better soundmix this time. Leap Day also
performed some new material. Songs as
The Messenger,
Skylge’s Lair and
Road To Yourself proved that there’s
a bright future ahead for this great new band. They might even become one of
the leading Dutch progressive rock bands known by thousand of fans all over the
world.
Flamborough Head
The third band from The Netherlands to hit the stage was
Flamborough Head.
Traditionally, they’re always the third band to perform at their own
festival. Being established in 1994, they undoubtedly are well-known in the
prog rock scene nowadays and unlike Leap Day, they already have fans all over
the world. Since drummer
Koen Roozen

is a member of both Leap Day and Flamborough Head, he sat again behind the drum
kit. He had no problems at all playing two live sets in a row with only a short
break in between, he told me later on. Koen is the owner of De Harmsdobbe and
besides he is the record holder in performing on the Progfarm stage. Two years
ago with
King Eider,
this time with
Leap Day and thirteen performances with Flamborough Head. We
could even witness Koen’s guest appearance with the Italian band
Il Castello Di Atlante.
Compared to the concert they gave earlier this year in Utrecht,
(see
review)
Flamborough Head’s set contained some new songs. The band had a
great start with
Schoolyard Fantasy
followed by
Don’t Forget Us
from their latest effort
Looking For John Maddock
(see
review).

The remainder of the set consisted mainly of songs from
this new album. A nice surprise was the performance of a brand new piece they
recorded for the new
The Divine Comedy
by the Finnish label Colossus.
Canto
IX: By The Bank Of The River
was one of the challenging tracks to perform,
but they finished this piece professionally without making hardly any mistakes.
Another challenging track was the title track of their latest album. Just like
Garden Of Dreams this a fine epic
piece with many changing moods and atmospheres. The musicians were quite nervous
in advance to perform this 20-minute epic, but again they did a perfect job. Probably
the most difficult part was
Captive Of Fate
acoustically performed by
Edo Spanninga
(keys),
Gert Polkerman (acoustic guitar)
and
Margriet
Boomsma
(vocals and flute). The band ended their well-played set with the new track
The Trapper.
A fine song dedicated to all the young kids, called
trappers, who slaved in the coalmines of South Wales. On this song, Margriet
played some acoustic guitar as well. They probably will record this piece of
music for their upcoming studio album.
Il Castello Di Atlante
The Italian band
Il Castello Di Atlante
had brought many relatives and friends, who made a lot
of noise to support them. From time to time, they scanned the names of the five

musicians, who opened the concert with the pleasant instrumental piece
Non Puoi Fingere. Violinist
Massimo Di Lauro and guitarist
Aldo Bergamani
had leading roles in this piece. After almost every song, drummer
Paolo Ferrarotti left his drum kit
and came to the front in order to introduce the songs and his fellow
musicians. He even read some Dutch words from a piece of paper to welcome the
audience. Maybe their music didn’t always appeal to everyone present, but the
band kept the audience focused on the stage. Just a few people left during their
warm performance and that’s a big compliment. As far as I’m concerned, the most
enjoyable moments were the tracks taken from their latest album
Capitolo 7, Tra Le Antiche Mura (see
review),
maybe because I’m rather familiar with that album. Especially I liked
Malebolge and
Leggi E Ascolta. The extra guest performance of Koen Roozen on
drums was a nice intermezzo. The first performance of this Italian band on
Dutch soil was a solid one.
Martigan
For the headliners
from Germany - although the organizers of Progfarm say they don’t have any headliners
- it was also their first concert in The Netherlands. With their latest album
Vision (see
review),
Martigan
made a real
masterpiece, so expectations ran very high for this concert. Could they ever perform
those magnificent songs on a live stage? The answer is yes! Especially the
performance of the long epic
Boatman’s Vision
made everybody speechless with astonishment. Guitarist
Björn Bisch, drummer
Alex Bisch and keyboardist
Oliver Rehban were just awesome and
impressed many people in the audience.
Wow! What more could we expect? The material from the
Man Of The Moment album

sounded excellent as well. Bassist
Oliver Baumann
performed songs as
The Pride and
Images & Tales for
the first time ever in front of a live audience. He joined the band only a
couple of months earlier, so Progfarm was his live debut. Well done!
On previous editions of Progfarm
Mangala Vallis,
Credo and
Also Eden delivered a
fantastic finale by playing an outstanding encore. Leap Day also impressed many
people with their great live show, so I wondered if Martigan could be able to
exceed their performance. Well, I dare to say that the Germans were even better
than our Dutch friends were. Martigan must have gained many new fans with this
fantastic show and hopefully, we can enjoy them in the near future again giving
concerts in The Netherlands. I can only conclude my review as usual: Progfarm is
still the best and intimate prog festival in The Netherlands. Maybe this year it
was one of the best events ever…
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)