Sometimes it takes years before you see a certain act again perform during one of their concerts in the Netherlands. Strange indeed, because those bands certainly do concerts once in a while. But most of the time at the wrong time and place or the venue is too far away from your home town. Take for example a band such as Kingfisher Sky. This Dutch outfit I witnessed in concert seven years ago. Or the British band Mostly Autumn. I haven't seen them for six years. Way too long of course. But sometimes you are lucky, and you can see bands at the same venue on the same date. Well it happened to me when Mostly Autumn chose to come to De Bosuil in Weert and had Kingfisher Sky as their support act. Lucky me!
 

Kingfisher Sky

Kingfisher Sky on stage (►more pics)

It was good to see this band from The Hague again. Even without their cello player Maaike Peterse they managed to give a good impression of what they are capable off during live performances. Just like on their albums they mix a very strong progressive rock with some metal and folk influences. The musicians on stage, all dressed in black, mainly performed songs from their latest release Technicoloured Eyes (2018, see review). Which is very obvious of course. But also, the only piece on their EP To Turn The Tables (2017) could be heard during the bands opening tune. Live favourites such as Seven Feet, My Better Part and The Craving could be found on the setlist again. All done rather well.

The chamelion

In between the songs, female lead singer Judith Rijnveld kept the audience entertained by telling some stories about the tracks they were going to do. However, one moment she forgot from which album the composition was taken. She also mentioned the story about the chameleon which they invented after the terror attack at the Bataclan in Paris November 2015. It symbolises the tolerance between religions and all races. Special mentioning goes also to the song Cornelia. This is a tribute to the late Chris Cornell (Soundgarden and Audioslave) and to all the others who struggle with their personal life and decide to end it.

All in all the people who came to see the headliners had a good time watching this band. I certainly did! So, I was glad to see them one more time after seven long years!
 

Mostly Autumn

After all these years I was hoping the band was still such a great live act like I had them in my mind. Most of all after the two stunning studio albums Sight Of Day (see review) and White Rainbow (2019, see review) I was very anxious to witness a concert by them once more. Well they certainly didn't let me down. After the impressive opener Sight Of Day I knew I was seeing something special. The video screen behind the band

Olivia Josh-Sparnenn (►more pics)

made it even more special. The images fitted perfectly to the excellent sound the band came up with. After the amazing golden oldies The Last Climb and Evergreen the band turned to their current work with Burn, Western Skies and Into The Stars before getting back to their long history with Nowhere To Hide.

All those songs proved that the current line up can do perfect live renditions of old and new material. Bryan Josh still can play excellent guitar solos next to doing fine lead and backing vocals. I guess good old Andy Smith never stops playing the bass in the band, and moved around the stage like in the days when female singer Heather Findlay was still a band member. Her replacement Olivia Sparnenn has a golden voice and occasionally played on the tambourine, xylophone and recorder to give some extra musical flavour to the songs performed. Drummer Henry Rogers can be found in many bands nowadays. So he has to learn a lot of musical parts. Well he managed the right rhythms for the old and new compositions the band came up with. I can't imagine a Mostly Autumn without Iain Jennings on the keyboards. He is just part of the household effects of the band. Playing emotional piano parts next to grand synthesizer chords the best way possible. It's great to see Angela Gordon back on stage with the band, playing the flute and whistle, next to some additional backing vocals and keyboard parts. Finally, what to say about Chris Johnson. I think he can be seen as the perfect replacement for Liam Davison, who died much too soon in November 2017. On stage he even resembled Liam by wearing the same kind of blouse and playing on the same kind of guitars. Even his long hair, moustache and beard made him look like Davison. He is certainly a great addition to the band.

Brian Josh (►more pics)

Back to the songs performed. One of the musical highlights was for me personally the live version of the title track of the band's latest studio album. This epic already sounded amazing on the album, but live this blew me away with the images on the screen and the sound of thunder coming out of the speakers. For many people the live version of Silver Glass, taken from Heart Full Of Sky (2006) came as a real surprise. It was one of the few songs sung by Johnson. More songs taken from Sight Of Day were enjoyed as well as the earlier mentioned title track. Songs like Changing Lives, Tomorrow Dies and Forever And Beyond proved once again how strong this album is and how well they can play them on a stage in front of an audience. That song was one of the three during the encore which started as an acoustic part done by Chris (acoustic guitar) and Angela (flute) only. A track (Gaze) taken from the bonus album that came along with the special edition of Go Well Diamond Heart (2010) and a song taken from the bands debut album For All We Shared, released in 1999, can be enjoyed during every concert the band does. So, it wasn't as surprise to hear them doing Heroes Never Die one more time. Well I didn't care at all, because it's still an amazing classic Mostly Autumn piece of music and every time perfectly done.

Looking back at both concerts it's easy to say that the people got what they came for. Two bands in great shape playing good sets of live music. Most of all the headliner made me realize how silly it was for me to miss them on a Dutch stage for such a long time. Hopefully it doesn't take another six years to see this amazing live band once more...

Henri Strik (edited by Dave Smith)