The legendary annual Dutch Progfarm Festival, held at the farm De Harmsdobbe in
Bakkeveen, once started in 1997. Its last edition was held in November 2011.
During the fifteen years of its existence it had become a cosy festival where
devotees of prog rock from all over the world could meet, greet and enjoy
fantastic live acts. Unfortunately during the fifteenth anniversary edition
(see
review), the members of prog band Flamborough Head who organized this
festival, called it a day. For me it was the best prog rock festival in the
Netherlands ever. Now two years later, some of the former organizers decided to
set up another festival in the northern part of our country. They called it the
Northern Prog Festival held only a couple of miles away from the location where
Progfarm took place: venue De Uthof in Siegerswoude, a community centre with a
rather large stage. For this first event they invited five Dutch prog bands.
Odyssice
|
Bastiaan Peeters |
The instrumental prog band
Odyssice had
the task to bring the people in the audience in the right mood. Those people
came from everywhere in the Netherlands, but there were also German people
present! The last time I saw Odyssice play live on stage was in Oktober 2010,
then being a support act for the Australian band
Unitopia (see
review). In the meantime their bass player
Peter Kosterman had left the band. Since a replacement was hard to find,
Sven de Haan (ex-
Salmon, ex-
Genesis Project) was willing to help them out during a couple of live performances. Just the other
night, they gave one of these performances as a support act for the Italian
Rush tribute band
La Villa Strangiato. For that reason they hadn't slept much when they entered the stage at De Uthof.
|
Sven de Haan |
However, I couldn't notice any tiredness at all! They just played an excellent set.
Accompanied by a nice atmospheric lightshow, they presented a fine compilation
of songs taken from their three studio albums. These albums contain music that
can be best compared to the instrumental music recorded by
Camel.
Especially guitarist
Bastiaan Peeters sounded just like
Andy Latimer from time to time. However, on the eastern sounding piece
Anuradhapura
he used his guitar synthesizer, which sounded completely different. When keyboard player
Jeroen van der Wiel used his headset he noticed that someone in the audience with a smartphone seemed to use the same
frequency thus interfering his. However, it could hardly be perceived that it
had any effect on his playing because his keyboard parts still sounded good.
After this strong gig the band members told me that the good live show was the
result of the warm welcome they got while entering the stage!
Minor Giant
|
Rik van Dommelen |
The next band already impressed me during their strong performance at the first
Progmotion Festival in Uden (2012, see
review). At the time it was
Minor Giant's debut concert; in the
meantime they started recording their debut album
On The Road, which is now in the mixing phase, and their bass
player
Harry den Hartog left the band. Just before the festival they found
Rik van Dommelen
as a good replacement. Just like last year they opened their
performance with the superb title track of their forthcoming studio album. This
time they had the opportunity to use a video screen; a perfect way to start a
concert. The band played all the tracks that will appear on their debut.
Minor Giant's music seemed to be inspired by
Neal Morse (
ex-Spock's Beard),
but not only the music is in the vein of
|
Jordi Repkes |
this excellent musician. The way composer
Rindert Lammers
moved behind his keyboard resembled the act of Neal
Morse on stage nowadays. Well, I can't blame him at all because the music Minor
Giant played was excellent; it was hardly possible to stand still. Lammers'
synthesizer solos and the guitar solos played by lead singer
Jordi Repkes were just outstanding.
Next to playing their own material they also included two covers. The first one wasn't a surprise at all because
We All Need Some Light by
Transatlantic was written by Neal Morse, but the
Camel tune
Song Within A Song was a rather surprising choice. They showed to be capable of performing the music of this
great band. Especially keyboardist
Jos Heijmans
stole the show during this piece. He strongly sang and played most
of the synthesizer parts almost similar to the original version. In general the
audience was very much impressed by this new and young progressive rock band,
just like I was last year. I guess most of them, including myself, are eagerly
waiting for their first album to come out!
Leap Day
|
Jos Harteveld |
The band members of
Leap Day were the organizers of the first Northern Prog Festival.
Compared to the bands that performed earlier they didn't have had any line-up changes so far.
Since
they officially started as
Leap Day in
2008, they are a rather steady band that released two studio albums to date, namely
Awaking The Muse (2009, see
review) and
Skylge's Lair (2011, see
review). The third one called
From The Days Of Deucalion, chapter 1
was presented during this festival, so most
people in the audience were unfamiliar with the performed songs from this
album.
The band played five out of eight tracks from the new album and once
|
Front: Eddy Mulder (L) and Gert van Engelenburg Back: Peter Stel (L) and Koen Roozen |
again it appeared to be top-notch. Obviously they wanted to share those strong
compositions with the audience. They even performed
Phaeton,
a piece of music that will be included on the second
chapter of this concept album which is probably due in 2014! However, we still
could enjoy three songs from their previous albums, songs that contained beautiful melodic guitar parts by
Eddie
Mulder and excellent keyboard parts by
Gert van Engelenburg and
Derk Evert Waalkens.
Before they started
Secret Gardener from their debut, lead singer
Jos Harteveld
dedicated this song to a prog lover who had passed away recently.
He strongly believed that he was watching the band from above!
The Aurora Project
|
Dennis Binnekade |
The music
The Aurora Project produces
can be labelled best as prog metal. This is also the musical style that can be heard on their latest album
Selling The Aggression (2013, see
review), which received very positive feedback and
reviews. It certainly lifted the band to a higher level. They can easily
compete with related foreign bands which they proved during a strong
performance at this festival.
The audience got a complete live version of the
|
Remco van den Berg |
new concept album. Unfortunately they didn't bring the accompanying images that
should have been shown behind them, but even without these images they succeeded
in entertaining the audience. The charismatic lead singer
Dennis Binnekade
did an outstanding stage performance. With his
strong voice and partly dressed as a military man he impressed most of the
people in front of him. That also applied to the fine guitar solos of
Remco van den Berg and the keyboard
sounds provided by
Marcel Guyt. After the 'aggression' was over there was some time left to do songs from the
two previous albums. In return the people present gave them a well-deserved
show of hands! I guess The Aurora Project may look back at a well-performed show.
Pink Faces
|
Jos Harteveld |
The final act was
Pink Faces, a
Pink Floyd tribute
band, which is more or less revealed by the name of the band. They were formed in
2011 and some band members had played with the
Pink Floyd Project, another well-known Frisian Floyd
cover band. You might say that Pink Faces are a more stripped down version
of the Pink Floyd Project: less stage props and visuals, but with the
same outstanding music of this legendary band. Two members of Leap Day also participate in Pink Faces, namely
lead singer Jos Harteveld and guitarist Eddie Mulder. However, they could still shine during this second
performance for which I would like to compliment them! In fact all band members
deserve a big compliment, because the way they performed the Pink Floyd stuff
was very impressive and came close to the original versions.
|
Pink Faces |
During the performance they played certain parts of Floyd albums. They started with
In The Flesh? followed by
The Happiest Days Of Our Lives and
Another Brick In The Wall, part 2, all taken from
The Wall
(1979). Next to it we got parts of
Dark Side Of The Moon (1973) and
Wish You Were Here (1975). To my
surprise they also included two songs from Pink Floyd's psychedelic period, namely
Julia Dream,
the B-side of the single
It Would Be So Nice (1968), and
Fat Old Sun from the album
Atom Heart Mother (1970) of which the latter included an excellent guitar solo by Mr. Mulder. During the encores
One Of These Days and
Comfortably Numb some people in the
audience felt the need to start dancing in front of the stage. It certainly
contributed to a good atmosphere of the festival that ended with a superb
guitar solo by Eddie Mulder during the classic Pink Floyd piece
Comfortably Numb.
Looking back at the first Northern Prog Festival, I can only be positive. All of the
five bands gave excellent shows and the organizers managed to keep everything
under control. Thanks to sound technician Dammes Nienhuis the sound during all
gigs was perfect and that also applied to the stage lights. There was enough to
eat and to drink for the visitors. Although the catering was done well, we
sometimes had to wait rather long! Enough people showed up to call it a
success, so a second edition of this event has already been confirmed for the
first of November 2014, maybe this time with some international acts that
previously have never performed in the Netherlands. This was also one of the
principles of the Dutch Progfarm Festival. As far as I'm concerned the Northern
Prog Festival was the best progressive rock festival in the Netherlands in 2013
and a splendid alternative for Progfarm. Thank you guys!
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)