Solarfall's Daily - or rather, weekly - Muses

OMG, the ULTIMATE ProgDork Mockumentary!

2009-11-14T02:24:31Z

It's fantastic.

Progressive Rock is an attempt to musically orgasm as many times as possible during a 15-minute song.

Just DIED LAUGHING. Thanks so much Nat, kudos for that!
Absolutely BRILLIANT!!!

Aviv Geffen & Opening Band, Tivoli De Helling, Utrecht NL - November 3rd, 2009 -

2009-11-14T01:41:16Z

I'll try and keep 'em coming for tonight. Bear with me. I'm still behind quite some bit.

I know, I'm just TERRIBLE, but I just can't help but completely crumble at the sight of this particular piccie:

Haha. Porcupine Tree's Mr. Steven Wilson, with, 'hanging round his neck', colleague & friend Aviv Geffen, Israeli emo-rock superstar. The two of them together also very well known as Blackfield. Steven did his job fantastically lately with his Arboretic Pork, as can be read over here, if you like.
But, eh, how about his dear buddy, Mr. Aviv Geffen?

So we, in this case the ProgDork Squad consisting of Mr. Emilio, Mr. DeHuiz and me, set out to check out the guy. And we wouldn't end up being disappointed.

Had a very nice dinner together, the three of us, as usual. It's always a pleasure to set off for a nice concert with those lovely fellows.

Opening act tonight were a lovely German band of whom I - I dare admit - can't remember their names anymore. Jeebus. What a failure for a reviewer! According to their singer, Aviv picked them up during some kind of a 'Boat Trip' in Germany. WOW. ~~Heavens I feel like a TOTAL FOOL right now...~~

Well then, Mr. Aviv Geffen. Did he do well? Oh yes he did.
It must be quite a hard job for him to play in Europe in the tiniest clubs imaginable, being such a major star in Israel, performing for over 10,000 people over there. But still he does, and deserves all the kudos for that. Like I said before - THAT's the spirit!

Aviv truly showed *why* Mr. S.W. is impressed with him as much as he indeed is. Lovely, intimate songs, straight up to the HEART - if you have one, that is.
Once again, it became clear how much of an underrated force Aviv is to the loveliness that is Blackfield. Fantastic composer, lovely singer, we enjoyed and appreciated every minute of his concert. He so much deserves so much more acknowledgement than he seems to get... as well, when I saw Steven and Aviv perform together, January 21st this year, became so bloody obvious.

My *horrible* recording of his/Blackfield's The End of The World:

In all, a very charming perfomance. Kudos to the sound engineers as well, as this evening truly showed that it's perfectly possible to have a good concert without blowing folks' ears out.

Oh boy, I soooooo missed THIS one:

"We are a fucked up generation!!!"

Now WHY didn't you play this one tonight, why, Aviv, WHY???

And that said - this concert was way, WAY too short. Just one hour. Sorry Aviv, you have a LOT more to offer than just that, and YOU KNOW IT! Meh.

WOW, how much I am waiting for a *fresh* new Blackfield-album right now, as it seems to bring out the BEST of the two of them. Not joking here, however much I like either of their works, the two of them combined is just immaculate.

Guys, you two are FUNNY, really you are.

Cool fellows you are. LOL. Love ya.

Pfft. One more to come, as the past weekend, yes again, I visited a festival. :HELP:

Gritty Grooves (Goes Instrumental) Festival, W2, Den Bosch, NL - November 1st, 2009

2009-11-13T22:37:37Z

Yes, I am behind with my reviews - once again.
What should I say, "Too Many Notes", or, "Stop, You're Going Too Fast!"?
Both Classic Quotes from a certain Classic Movie apply here very well indeed.

Just a mere two days after that fantastic string of Riverside & The Pineapple Thief concerts, I got tipped by C. about a nice little underground festival in Den Bosch, which would feature the lovely Long Distance Calling, who did such an awesome job at this year's Symforce III-Festival, as a headliner.

Anyone who's ever visited Den Bosch' W2-venue knows what a delightful place it is. Intimate and friendly, just like a club should be, and the perfect place to hold an underground festival like this one.

First on the block were the Dutch (well, even more, from my own hometown!) outfit Atlantis. Originally started off as a solo-project by guitar player Gilson C. Heitinga, the band currently manages to draw quite a bit of attention with their trippy, filmscore-like, stoner-progressive noise, their influences ranging from Portishead & Massive Attack to as far as Neurosis & Nine Inch Nails. All bands I happen to appreciate, so no big surprise that I quite well managed to appreciate Atlantic just the same. Most definitely a band to keep an eye on - and guess what, in December they'll indeed be playing my home town. Nice!

Next on stage were Monkey 3. Psycho-Stoner, the way it was intended to be - think Hawkwind, Monster Magnet and the like. From Lausanne, Switzerland, no less. Not even a microphone on stage to allow them to communicate with the audience, but instead fully going the 'Let your GUITARS do the talking!'-route. And so they did. Think THICK walls of guitars, a doomy bass-drum, accompanied by very spacey vids on display in the background, grooving it out. Space Is Deep, YAYYY!!!

And then it was time for the headliners, Münster, Germany-based Long Distance Calling to hit the stage. As said earlier, their appearance at Symforce III really impressed me a lot. Still proud of this vid I taped of them over there, LOL:

Question was whether the band would be able to repeat that top-level performance this time, and, truth be told, no, they could *not*. Not that much of a surprise with Reimut van Bonn, the guy responsible for the Apple Computer-generated ambient SPACE sounds being absent today, as those spacey effects attribute so much to their version of 'stoner-space-post rock'.

They tried to give their best as a rather handicapped foursome today, however, being very much plagued by technical problems (at a certain point, even the guitars didn't come through anymore - something to do with the absolute ridiculous sound-level?) just to even add up to their misery, I can't conclude otherwise than that this show was a bit of a let-down. At least to those who attended their Symforce III-performance, which was just AWESOME.
Have to give it to the guys that they really tried their best to give it their all (typical German? LOL), and of course, their gorgeous heavy-guitar-based compositions still managed to convince the majority of the audience.

Spoke with their lead-guitarist Florian afterwards, and he told me that they were very tired indeed, coming off from a major tour, being forced to get up at 06:00 AM in the morning after a late night set the very evening before, allowing them a mere couple of hours of sleep...
Now THAT's the spirit guys, and kudos for that. Hope to see 'em back soon enough, as they are truly worth it!

Not much this time... bands, venue and personel being very friendly and appreciative indeed. But eh! That RIDICULOUS sound level! I know, it's stoner-rock, and stoner is meant to be played LOUD, but really... why THIS LOUD, when you see about 99% of the audience grabbing for their ear-plugs and/or toilet paper immediately after the first notes are being bombarded into the crowd??? I agree, it's nice to not only hear the music but to feel it as well, your pants waving around your legs with the tones of the bass/drums, but I just can't help but think that this was a case of 'a little TOO much' of that.
Ah, it's just me, and I'm getting old, I know. :wink:

Oh, and Atlantis - get rid of that very, VERY clichee name, okay, eh?

More to follow, folks.

Riverside & The Pineapple Thief - Hedon, Zwolle, NL, 30th October 2009

2009-11-01T00:17:11Z

Yep, the follow-up to my review of two days before. Always good to see a band/bands perform a couple of days in a row, just to make sure that if one performance was good (or bad), is the 'normal' level of said band, whether or no.
And in this case, I may well say that the 'normal' level of both Riverside's AND The Pineapple Thief's playing is... very HIGH indeed!

The Hedon-venue in Zwolle happened to be even smaller than Het Patronaat in Haarlem, some max capacity 300 vs. 500 is my estimation. And well, Hedon happened to be even more PACKED than Het Patronaat two days before - sardines-in-a-can like.

As such The ProgDork Squad - Emile, Maarten & me - on our VERY early arrival at the scene, immediately made it to the upper balcony, where we had a FANTASTIC view over the stage, as that balcony happened to be very near to the stage at its foremost ends. As such, I was able to make quite a few nice pics 'n' recordings...

The Pineapple Thief:

And a not-all-that-bad LIVE RECORDING:

Sent this one off to the band. Hope the laddies like it, as much as I liked their performance. ~~Not counting on that, though.~~
Doesn't do them much right. At least this sound on this vid isn't as bad as most of my recordings, as the sound engineer kept the sound level to a very acceptable - read: better - level than usual.

And YES, I did manage to get the missing autograph on my copy of their latest release "Tightly Unwound". Thanks for remembering me that, laddies.
Much obliged, and be sure I'll be around next time when YOU are...

Riverside:

Finally, a proper pic of... Mariusz Duda. YAY.
And a less-than-proper recording:

So sorry - the view was awesome, but my camera didn't take Mariusz & Pjotr's heavy pounding on the bass & drums, respectively, all too well. Eh. Not At ALL, I mean. So I apologize for that. Still, for anyone who wants a good view on all of the musicians doing their job so well, the vid serves its purpose I think.

What's more to say about this particular concert?
Well only positive stuff, most notably, the sound seemed to be just a mite better than two days before. Singer Mariusz Duda's slight hoarseness got dealt with by the sound engineers just a bit better, covering it up with a slight echo, which indeed did wonders.
Also, Mr. Michel Lapaj's lovely Theremin came through loud & clear this time, no cracks and buzzes like during the afore mentioned concert.

And soooooo good to hear their lovely In Two Minds once again. Will always remain my fav song of theirs. Much, much better than their equally heralded Conceiving You, imho.

Ze Shite List. Yep.
Just like in the aforementioned review of two days ago, a very short one.
And it very much resembles it from the Haarlem-concert.
Again, the lighting job. Better than in Haarlem, but I can't help but notice that once again, The Pineapple Thief got a lot better job than Riverside at this point. Might well be the band's own choice(s), I don't know. Well never mind...
And once again, Mr. Pjotr Grudzinski's guitar extraordinaries didn't always come through the way they should have.

But WORST of all: why the HELL have some 400 folks crammed into a Sardine Can which barely fits 300??? I truly hate this. So happy to know that Our ProgDork Squad is indeed Old And Experienced, and as such, managed to claim the best spots of the house nevertheless. LOL.

Ah, yet another fantastic evening.
And guess what...? Just discovered yet another fantastic band, will be playing live tomorrow, so well... I'm not done yet. Far from that!

Let LOVE & MUSIC RULE!!!

Riverside's most loveliest -

2009-10-30T01:40:50Z

If you can't appreciate THIS - You can't admit of truly appreciating MUSIC.

Get your ears fixed.

Out Of Myself - Paradiso, Amsterdam, 2007. A classical performance.

I Was There.

Riverside & The Pineapple Thief - The Patronaat, Haarlem, NL, October 28th, 2009

2009-10-29T23:51:10Z

'My Guys' are really killing me off, these past couple of months... !HELP!!!
But in a rather pleasant way I might add... by playing their asses off, all over Europe. I am in awe!

Unfortunately being forced to skip my personal #3 Opeth lately because of 'activities abroad', I was happy to know that I'd at least catch my #4, Polish Prog Lovelies Riverside. Accompanied by another very highly-esteemed band, UK atmospheric proggers The Pineapple Thief.

Another case of Two for the price of One, here? Aye, sí!
Not for the first time - both of them were also on the entry list of the lovely Symforce I-festival in 2007, about which you can read a very positive review over here.

The Pineapple Thief on stage at Haarlem's Het Patronaat. GREAT venue!
Okay, on to BUSINESS, now!

Can't get enough of that genuine current outbreak of All-UK-Atmospheric ProgRock bands - and here's yet another GEM!
Like I said already, seen them before, and when reading back my earlier comments on them back in 2007, I can't conclude otherwise than that I was indeed rather spot-on at that time.

Atmospheric, but most of all, British Prog - in the vein of, well here we have 'em, once again - Radiohead, Anathema, Blackfield, softer, non-metal parts of Porcupine Tree - not much of a surprise that the fellows released their latest album "Tightly Unwound" on K-scope/Snapper Music - what a coincidence, the same label that happens to release the material of *ALL* of the Previously Mentioned!
Welcome to the Club, fellows. Do know you're part of quite an ELITE part of progrock society right now... YAYYYY!!!

I witnessed Mr. Bruce Soord (& his band) do an excellent job, both on his singing & his guitar playing. His 'Hendrix'-like solo on his Fender Telecaster-guitar on the 15-minutes epic Too Much To Lose was just *exquisite*. But ALL of their 45-minutes performance came through very, very well, and I harbour no doubts whatsoever that the fellows made quite a few new fans this evening, deservedly so. I myself enjoyed every second of their performance, and so did the majority of folks surrounding me.
Great job, and I wonder if I ever before witnessed an Opening Act getting such a fantastic sound from the-guys-behind-the-sound panel. Kudos to Het Patronaat's sound engineers!!!

And I don't know how it is with you folks, but I always seem to *melt away* whenever a band appears to be genuinely approachable and FRIENDLY towards their fans. And with The Pineapple Thief, I can't help but say I completely melted when I saw 3 out of 4 bandmembers being around at their own merchandise booth, chatting along with anyone, and apparently very much enjoying themselves in doing so.

I congratulated the band with their great performance, and apparently, they were very happy themselves as well. Well, very much *rightly so!* - this was just awesome for an opening band, and I, as much as the band themselves, were so very happy with the very generous receival they got from the Riverside-fans. So much deserved!

I had a good time chatting around with them, and when I bought their CD, I got the tour tee for free... well that's just a simple way of acknowleding your fans, as well as to draw in new ones. I'll be back, guys, real soon! - coming Friday, that is... eh.

Dearest, DEAREST Riverside!!!
Good Heavens, I kind of *wrote them off* after their third album "Rapid Eye Movement". 'More of the Same', was my rather harsh verdict. Thought the lovely Polish Laddies would be the next of some 10,000 bands before them to not be able to live up to expectations...

How FANTASTIC it sometimes indeed is so find oneself being proven ultimately WRONG!!!
As their fantastic concerts at the closure of 2008, as well as their latest album "Anno Domini High Definition" aka, ADHD, truly did me in. They. Are. BAAAACCCKKK!!!

That 4rth album turned out to be a great one - BACK was that lovely energy, emotionality, SPIRIT, that I so much enjoyed from their first two masterworks Out of Myself and Second Life Syndrome.

FANTASTIC concert! A wonderful mixture of all of their best songs, and fortunately, the fellows didn't make the obvious mistake of cramming all of their latest material down their fans' throats just like that - in stead, a GREAT mixture of all of their *best material*, coming from all of their four albums.

Once again, kudos to the great sound engineers at Het Patronaat, who truly managed to make the band sound very good indeed, maybe perhaps for just a slight negative remark - fantastic guitarist Pjotr Grudzinski seemed to be a bit subdued in the sound mix, at least to my humble ~~opinion~~ ears.
On the other side, the techs immediately recognized that singer/bassist Mariusz Duda's singing was NOT at the best of his abilities tonight - he sounded quite a mite hoarse and seemed to have a bit of difficulties with hitting the High Notes - so immediately an extra bit of echo was added to his vocals. Did wonders.

Great, GREAT concert indeed. How fantastic to see this lovely band back where they truly belong - at the TOP of the current ProgRock/ProgMetal-scene, that is!

One of my crappy recordings of that night to be found over here:

More at Blackest Eyes1963, at your convenience, LOL. ~~Don't bother, all of my attempts are CRAP.~~

The ProgDork Squad - at this particular occasion consisting of Birdman, Hans, and me, along with quite a couple of friends we met all along during the evening, on buying a couple of tees and CDs at the merch booth - found out that dearest Riverside's current Tour Schedule consists of 40 (FORTY!!!) gigs in just *two months* time.
That tour includes Finland, Switzerland, Spain, and even Russia. In other words: ALL OVER EUROPE. No wonder Mr. Duda sounded a bit hoarse this evening... hallelujah, is this a RECORD or no? I think so!

The BEST, at least to me, of this lovely concert, was seeing that Riverside's Keyboard Wizzard Mr. Michel Lapaj had THIS PARTICULAR DEVICE installed:

Dunno what THAT thingie is? I won't blame you. Read along about this truly FANTASTIC instrument over here: the Theremin.
What an instrument. I herald ALL the bands playing that thingie, no exceptions!!!

And, to conclude this review, the ubiquitous Shite Report...

A very, VERY short Shite List this time, as everything seemed to be quite in order.
Just one very MINOR remark: the fellow who did the light show this evening. How come that Riverside stood playing in Mere Darkness about 99% of the time, whereas the lighting during The Pineapple Thief was rather okay?

Don't give me the excuse that the Riverside-laddies are 'ugly' or something the like. Mariusz Duda is a HUNK, even if he himself doesn't want to hear anything like that... LOL!
And eh... just a minor remark, but when Guitarist Extraordinaire Mr. Pjotr Grudzinski is playing a SOLO, it's rather nice if his sound is standing out at those occasions. This evening, he was barely audible at times.

That's all for now, folks - The Patronaat in Haarlem is indeed a FANTASTIC venue - and so were the both of bands performing there, this particular evening. Kudos to them.

Repise of this concert coming up... TOMORROW. Killing Me, indeed.
But thanks for that anyhow, laddies - Ending up being Killed by Loveliness is not *that* bad I think.

Porcupine Tree & Robert Fripp, Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam, NL, October 12, 2009

2009-10-26T23:05:36Z

Better late than never, no?
Had my reasons for that, one of them being abroad last week (more on that later!), and another, needing some time to put my feelings about the concert into proper words.
And then again, you find out that Time Flies, indeed.

Well, hello there, Dear Master! Nice to see you around again!
Of course it was to be expected that Mr. S.W. and his Porcupine Tree would embark on a massive world tour after the release of their 10th official full-length offering "The Incident", which doesn't 'only' hit the USA and all of Europe this time, but even Mumbai, India - and rumour has it that Japan and Australia are on the list as well.

Main question would of course be, how would the rather controversial material of "The Incident" (see a massive collection of reviews, both negative and (very) positive over here) actually translate on stage? According to earlier reports, very well indeed - but of course one has to see with own eyes and hear with own ears before passing judgement, and is there a better place thinkable for doing so than at Amsterdam's HMH-venue, which is said to have the best acoustics of all European venues?

At first the idea of seeing My Beloved perform in the HMH again didn't really appeal to me much. As regular readers over here know, I'm not much of a fan of 'Enormodomes', and with some 5500 souls fitting in, the HMH is just *that*. Fortunately, the Infamous ProgDork Squad knows very well how to deal with getting the best seats in the house by now, ~~as we're indeed all very old and experienced.~~

As such, Emilio and me took good care of getting there in time, early enough to snatch up the best seats in the house indeed - one of the first rows on the ramp in the back of the venue, where you have a very good sight on the stage, as well as an excellent sound. We took care of occupying two more seats for Maarten and Martin who came in later due to Real Life Work. As such all four of us right there on a row, excited for what was about to come. Martin especially, as this would be his Porcupine Tree Maiden Voyage 34!

Opening act this evening would be Mr. Steven Wilson's old friend and admirer Robert Fripp - a name any a Progger should know very very well, as he's one of the genuine Old Legends of this game, of King Crimson-fame! The man responsible for the immaculate "Epitaph" and "In the Court of the Crimson King" to name just two of his all-time classics...

Isn't it a true honour for Mr. S.W., having this Old Legend as an opening act for his band? Well everyone knows the admiration is highly mutual, Mr. S.W. referring to Mr. R.F. as "my old buddy" on the acoustic PT-live-recording "We Watched the Skyline", as well as having him as a guest performer occasionally, together with other Legends like Adrian Belew and Rush's Alex Lifeson... It's very good and rewarding for him to see himself liked not only by the 'younger' fans, but just as much by these old legendary fellows just the same!

Good Old Mr. Fripp played an approximately 30-40 minutes solo-set on his guitar, accompanied by a batch of computers blurring out all kind of bleeps and drones. Frippertronic Soundscapes.
I don't think all of the 5500 attendants were capable of keeping up their attention all that time, but at least most of them remembered that indeed, they were in presence of a Legend, despite there being an awful lot of chatter going on during his set, which is unfortunately not all too uncommon during Dutch concerts...

Mr. R.F.'s own words on twitter:
"A sold-out house to c. 5,000. Two flashes but no boos. I enjoyed playing to a generally-politely-supportive audience whose attention wavered after c. 20 minutes of bleeping & droning; as is conventional for Soundscapes in a support slot."

Not too bad I'd say. At least he apparently enjoyed it.

***************************

Perfectly on time, as could be expected from Ultimate Perfectionist Mr. S.W., Porcupine Tree kicked in with "The Incident"'s opening song, Occam's Razor.
Initially, the sound wasn't actually great - muddy, and kind of unbalanced, with bassist Colin Edwin coming through too loud, drummer Gavin Harrison and keyboardist Richard Barbieri being barely audible - but that got dealt with within a couple of minutes, to end up being just PERFECT. CD-quality, in fact, at least at the spot where we were sitting. I've read that the sound wasn't that good in all areas but that is something which is near-to-impossible to achieve.
To me, it was the BEST sound I ever heard in such a big venue. Immaculate!

As announced and expected, Mr. S.W. and Co. continued with the integral non-stop performance of all 55 minutes of "The Incident"-suite. And yes, it worked like a charm, a genuine emotional rollercoaster, from very harsh, disconnecting, heavy parts to the most soft and intimate. Incredible how the band dealt with all of the mood changes, time-signature shifts and the like, leaving the audience as if just getting dealt out with a truly godlike potion of nectar & ambrosia, worshipping a SOUND... fantastic to hear and see!

My highlights of this first part of the show: The Incident title track, showcasing PT in its most distant, harsh manner, Great Expectations, my fav Your Unpleasant Family with truly awesome vocals shared by both Steven and his side-kick John Wesley - did they ever before sound that perfect together? - of course the Pink Floyd-hymne Time Flies, and to top it all, the conclusive I Drive The Hearse, where The Maestro sounded as meek and vulnerable in his singing as could possibly be. Stunning!

To keep things, eh... short (?)... Highlights: Mr. S.W.'s and John Wesley's fantastic combined vocal jobs. They truly sounded as an angelic choir together this evening.
The great heavy guitar work done by the duo as well, and it was rather worth noticing that many of Mr. S.W.'s solo parts were carried out by John Wesley, whereas Mr. S.W. rather concentrated on 'keeping the whole thing together', in fact orchestrating the whole affair.
As usual, Colin Edwin did a great job on his diminutive but very solid bass work (especially on his fretless bass), just as much keyboardist Richard Barbieri's lovely subtle contributions. So much underrated - you truly don't need to be a 'Rick Wakeman' or 'Keith Emerson' to be heralded as a truly great keyboard player, keep that in mind, folks!
I'll just keep my comments on drummer Gavin Harrison for 'what-the-f**k', right now. That fellow... is A BEAST!

***************************

After "The Incident", the band took a 10-minutes break, and if PT says so, it will be Ten Minutes, not a second more or less, as was indicated by a clock running all along. Funny.

After this break, PT took off with "Deadwing"'s The Start of Something Beautiful - something very beautiful indeed. Can't help but love those very sarcastic, smashing-down lyrics, "If you thought this was the start of something beautiful, than think again!" Sorry, Steven, but IT. IS.

Next on the list was "Lightbulb Sun"'s Russia On Ice - one of their great songs from the past, unfortunately getting 'meddly'ed' with "Fear of a Black Planet"'s Anesthetize half-way the job. Both songs deserve better, but alas... Time Indeed Flies.

Quite a lot of material from both "Deadwing" and "In Absentia" came around, but unfortunately, my personal favourite "Stupid Dream" was left out of the equation entirely... might be an idea to make up for that the next time ye folks come around, no?

Two more highlights of this second part of the show surely deserve a mentioning:
1) Ahhhhh... Normal from the FOABP-outtake EP "Nil Recurring". Is it just me, or is Steven indeed *falling in love* with his own creation, here?
Fantastic, his gentle, lovely singing on this one. So intimate, so vulnerable...
Very much adding up to the magical, near-to-sacral atmosphere during this song, was the complete absence of any noises coming from the 5000+-souls crowd. One couldn't hear a needle (let alone plastic beer glasses) drop on the floor, if anyone even cared to drop one!

"... Wish I was old and a little sentimental,
You gotta see the waves, looking for the bottle in the waves, now..."

Beautiful, just f**king BEAUTIFUL.

2) Bonnie The Cat
What a showcase for the rhythm section that was. All those rhythms and time-signature changes, and how well did Colin Edwin and Gavin Harrison pull it off! Granted, I don't like the CD-version of this song all too much, just a mite too experimental for me to fully enjoy (I admit I'd rather have heard a version of Remember Me Lover, here), but in this live performance it worked out very, very well indeed.

Gavin Harrison is just A BEAST of a drummer. I said that already now, didn't I? This fellow is the one-and-only true follow-up to Rush's Neal Peart, no mistake, here! Absolutely INCREDIBLE.

Complete Setlist Porcupine Tree Amsterdam, HMH 12-OCT-2009

The Incident-Suite:

Occam's Razor
The Blind House
Great Expectations
Kneel and Disconnect
Drawing the Line
The Incident
Your Unpleasant Family
The Yellow Windows of the Evening Train
Time Flies
Degree Zero of Liberty
Octane Twisted
The Séance
Circle of Manias
I Drive the Hearse

The Start of Something Beautiful
Russia on Ice (first two thirds)
Anesthetize (middle third)
Lazarus
Strip the Soul (first two thirds)
.3 (from chorus to end)
Normal
Bonnie the Cat

Encore:
The Sound of Muzak
Trains

Ze SHITLIST, short-but-unavoidable. Bear with me, LOL!
1) Hahahaha at the HMH's policy of confiscating any attendant's camera (including mine). So in stead of having folks make 'reasonable' pictures with their cameras, now you have merely rubbish from their mobile phones posted all over the net. AAARRRCCCHHH.
On the other hand, quite nice to see for change not all of the audience sticking out their cameras all the time above their heads.
Then again, I don't really understand this policy, no.

2) RIDICULOUS pricing of the merchandise. Granted, high-quality stuff, but since when does a mere black-and-white printed hoodie has to cost some 50 euros??? Couldn't resist buying THIS long-sleeved girlie shirt myself for some 35 euros (and bloody hell, it's just GORGEOUS), so I doubt this policy will stop soon... but it was a bit atrocious to say the least... not ALL of us are millionaires, no?

In all, a heavy candidate for my 'Live Performance of the Year 2009'-contest, together with... eh you might have guessed it, The Maestro's only true rival for this matter, Anathema's Mr. Danny Cavanagh. ...AGAIN!

"Pride is just another way,
Of trying to live with my mistakes.

Denial is a better way,
Of getting through another day.

And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say.
And lying is another way,
Of hoping it will go away.

And you were always my mistake...

When I'm down, I drive the hearse"

Yeah, I AM in love. Denial Is Futile.
"After the Sex, a Cigarette...?" LOL.

5Bridges & Leap Day, Iduna, Drachten, NL - October 10, 2009

2009-10-16T02:23:02Z

And so it continues...

The Prog ~~DORK~~ Rock Squad, on this particular occasion consisting of Maarten, Birdman & Yours Truly, set off to for the long journey heading (a 2-hours drive from our home city), off too Fryslân - Drachten, to be exact. To a venue where I've never been before, Iduna.

To witness a two-fold live-appearance of some Prog 'journeymen' strutting their stuff. 5BridgeS and Leap Day, to be exact.
Ah, the so-called 'Prog Journeymen'...

People very often don't seem to have a *clue* whatsoever as to much it in fact takes to be able to even play LIVE at all. I personally know too many musicians having been forced to struggle for over TWENTY YEARS to be able to get any a decent living from performing their art, and here are two bands who apparently are just on the beginning of that route...
All I can do is offer them all my support and, more than anything else, GOOD LUCK.

As it's pretty HARSH, out there...

Okay. Here we go.

Well first of all, it should be noted that the Iduna-folks, as well as the lads from Leap Day did a great job to try and manage to give them a Good Sound. Kudos to both of them for that great attempt. That mighty helps a lot!

The band did a great job. I don't think I've heard the band's sound come through so well ever before. And singer Piet did better than ever before imho. Well how could you fail with such lovely material as their critically acclaimed debut album "The Thomas Tracks", which indeed is a genuine Masterpiece, as the reviews on ProgArchives.com indeed show?

Too bad my camera failed when taping their best, so all I have to offer for now is THIS rather crappy recording of one of their best songs, "Sign on the Wall".
Don't blame the band - blame ME. Yuck. Sorry, laddies!

Okay, I'm leaving my notorious Critical Remarks for 'laters'.

Well there we had this Frisian headliner Leap Day. Awesome band, indeed! A collaboration of several members of acclaimed Dutch ProgRock bands Flamborough Head (most notably, drummer Koen Roozen) and Nice Beaver - I hope you won't bash me if I say that that is indeed the most idiotic band name EVER, but okay, we're talking about ProgDork bands, here, no?

Most impressive member of this band must indeed be guitar player Eddie Mulder, whose gentle guitar playing apparently is the key hold to all of the band's music - at least in MY humble opinion. The fellow might well be my country's Andy Latimer, of Camel-fame. At least, that's how he came across to me.

Well there you are, appearing at a concert and being forced to witness the opening band having a LOT more difficult, proggie material to offer than the headliner, who - in all honesty - play 'neo-prog'...
The difference, there? 5BridgeS play 'classical symphonic prog' - some ten shifts in key signatures, time scales, etc. every ten seconds or so. Leap Day play 'Neo Prog' - which in all honesty sounds impressive, but any a genuine musician should be able to recognize that it sounds a lot more difficult than it actually IS. Not to denigrate the fellows, but in all, the time scale is just 4/4 during some 95% of the time, in all, at some 99% if the time, the band is just backing up their fantastic guitar player.

That's bloody good, but in all, they play 'safe' - whereas 5BridgeS go 'all the way', i.e., they play a High Risk-game. Just a simple mistake and the structure FALLS. And it did, on quite a few occasions...
So I had this discussion with the band thereafter. I told them to downgrade all of the 'high-end keyboard'-stuff, just to make it easier on themselves to be able to put down a blasting performance.

It does hurt my ProgDork-heart though, but at times, one should just be realistic and accept reality. No-one is impressed by seeing some six keyboards stacked on top of eachother about anymore, if you don't manage to switch from one to the other in TIME.
Keith Emerson's days are OVER.
BLAST IT, dears! Get some bloody pre-sets! Shit it really hurts to say this...

And eh, Martin, please sing a little bit more. You have the voice. :wink:

More to come folks. As ... I've witnessed the bloody Master Of All just two days thereafter. And yes, he and his band were immaculate.

Still catching my breath, to be honest.

A review...

2009-10-07T00:58:15Z

Do you recognize the feeling, or is it just me, *laugheable OLDIE*?
You just happen to adore a certain band, and are astonished about the way they manage to put out genuine Masterworks, one after the other, in some ten, fifteen, TWENTY years of time. You just KNOW it has to end, somewhere, some time... and well... I always acknowledge that the 'Days of Glory' can't go on forever, for anyone, however much talented they are.

As such, I kind of felt myself shivering when I laid my hands on my beloved Porcupine Tree, aka, Mr. S.(teven) W.(ilson)'s latest offering The Incident.
Because... ...Am I in for Ecstasy or for the Ultimate, Disappointing Downfall?

The not-as-of-yet-adjusted review which I posted to ProgArchives.com after only having listened to this offering some 20 times, is here.

I'm just FLABBERGASTED at Mr. S.W.'s latest offering. The Bloke Did It Again!

And well, here's the ADJUSTED version of my ProgArchives-review:

Steven Wilson's 10th official offering under the flag of his main band, Porcupine Tree, and well, one might well say the bloke's apparently endless sources of inspiration surely haven't yet ran out. Barely six months after the release of his solo-album Insurgentes, here's yet another piece of astonishing music. 76 minutes of it, to be exact. And like is the case with almost *all* of his work, I barely know where to start to describe it.

This is not just a mere follow-up its predecessor Fear Of A Black Planet. Mr. S.W. is NOT in for repeating himself and making the 'same' album over-and-over again, like so many of his minor collegues seem to always do. His work is PROGRESSIVE in the true meaning of the word and it shows again on The Incident.

Lyrically, this album sounds much more 'personal' and ‘close’ than its predecessor Fear of a Black Planet, of which the central theme, however much important - in short, a major rant about the shallowness of the lives of modern society kids being completely focused on ‘cheap thrills and easy fixes’, if necessary 'aided' by the appropriate chemicals - more often than not came across as somewhat cold and distant, at least it did so to me. The rather nasty theme of that album actually ASKS for that cold, distant approach, so you won’t hear me complaining about it.

For The Incident, Mr. S.W. chose to write all the lyrics in the first person, which allows the listener to get attached to the unfolding dramatics a lot easier, and for me, it works as a charm. The central theme of the album is how a so-called 'minor incident' can completely change, if not downright destroy, a person's life. If I got that right, that is.

And now for the music - Disk #1

- fully consists of The Incident-suite - a 55 minutes epic consisting of 14 distinctive sections, varying in duration from 1:26 minutes to well over the 11 minutes mark. These shorter sections are absolutely necessary in order to glue the whole thing together, but don't mistake them for fillers, as they most definitely aren't.

"Occam's Razor" comes in with a BANG, dissolving into "The Blind House" - perhaps the first highlight of the album - starting off as a 'traditional' PT song, with its characteristic heavy guitars and harmony singing (very Opeth-like, btw!), it evolves into a trippy rythmic/spacey intermission and towards the end, it brings you to "Great Expectations" - only 1:26 minutes long, but containing some lovely singing by Mr. S.W. as well as some excellent drumming by Gavin Harrison. "Kneel and Disconnect" is the next of these shorter songs, based on a soft acoustic piano part. Lovely!

"Drawing the Line" is most definitely one of my favs on this album. Airie-faiie keyoards, fierce drumming, fretless bass work, guiding Mr. S.W.'s lovely voice - warm and emotional, here. This song, 'catchy', perhaps even *cheesy*, and very accessible, however, has that moody feeling underneath it, reminding me of stuff from In Absentia and Stupid Dream (which two albums I happen to consider PT's best). Steven himself does one of his best singing jobs in the chorus,

"I'm drawing the line, I draw the line, and I have my pride,
I'm taking controll, I'm taking controll, and I save my soul!
I'm shutting you out, and I have no doubt!"

- where he not only sounds very passionate, but even vulnerable. The song ends with a great guitar riff.

"The Incident" - PT goes industrial! Heavy guitars embedded in a layer of equally heavy drumming, trippy synths, whispered, dark vocals, a steady dark groove reminescent of FOABP's Sleep Together. Towards the end,however, the mood of the song radically, but in a very sophisticated way, changes, to finish off in an ecstatic manner, "I just want to be loved!"

The lyrics of the song form the key to the album's theme - how disgusted Mr. S.W. was to witness a car crash, with possible casualties involved, being done away with by the police as 'an incident' - making him think more of how the media in general blow up minor incidents to being events of massive proportion, whereas things that really affect peoples' lives are put away on page 13 in a short message - all for the sake of 'selling out', which makes him shudder. Blowing up 'incidents' whereas completely neglecting the 'Full Story'.
A very common theme in Steven's work, to which I can relate very well indeed. The song evolves into the truly LOVELY -

"Your Unpleasant Family" - ahhhh, the Stupid Dream-like SARCASM, BACK!
"... smashed up my car (how uncalled for) (perfectly beside you...!)" - a typical PT-'cynical understatement'-text, very reminding of Stupid Dream, both in atmosphere as in musical approach.
Great guitar solo to end it off. It evolves into "The Yellow Windows of the Even", a lovely, ambient keyboard piece accompanied by earie chorales - sounding almost as if it was made in the early 1970's, including the typical 'rumble' of an LP. If I have one complaint about this piece, it's that it barely hits the 2 minutes mark - far too short. What follows hereafter is -

"Time Flies" - clocking in well over 11 minutes, I don't think I'll be the only one saying this is the album's absolute masterpiece! This one is, once again, back to Stupid Dream- and In Absentia-quality, top-notch.
Like the latter's Drown with Me, the first three minutes are in 3/4, to thereafter completely change back to a dark, melancholic, and very FLOYDIAN mood. Do I hear some hints towards Pink Floyd's 'Animals' and 'Time'? I surely think so, as well as some hints towards Anathema, a band with whom Mr. S.W. has worked together as well, in the treatment of the underlying acoustic (rhythm) guitars. Can't say that hurts, not at all.
The song then becomes heavier-and-heavier - fantastic drumming by Harrison! - culminating into a blistering guitarsolo. Thereafter back to the original theme, back to the Floyd influences, etc. Can't wait to watch Mr. S.W. torture his guitar strings live on this song, only one month waiting time from now on....
The melancholical lyrics about aging are very enjoyable as well, "... I was born in 67, the year of St.Pepper and Are You Experienced..." "... After a while you realise that Time Flies - and the best thing that you can do, is take whatever comes to you... 'cause Time Flies..."
This is The Incident's Even Less, no less! - and in all, a very honourable tribute/hommage to that band that *both* of my MOST BELOVED, PT & Anathema love as much as they do - Pink Floyd!!!

"Degree Of Zero Liability", a piece very alike Occam's Razor in the beginning, which heavy guitars-sequence could well have come directly from Deadwing, evolves into "Octane Twisted" - starting off with mellow acoustic guitars, some fantastic vocal harmonies, developing into some real HEAVY METAL with awesome drum work. Haunting guitar solo midway as well. Reminds me a lot of Opeth, again. Great instrumental!
Hereafter, "The Seance" - a piece mainly built on acoustic guitars, and do I hear a Minimoog, here? It's the perfect introduction to "Circle Of Manias", wherein PT goes Heavy-Opeth-All-The-Way, quite close to genuine death/math metal. The groove reminds me of FOABP's Sleep Together, once again. Not that I mind, that happens to be one of my fav songs from that album. And then for the perfect conclusion -

"I Drive The Hearse" - PT back to its most mellow and lovely. A beautiful melody, vocal harmonies, and lead singing by Mr. S.W., for sure one of his best jobs on this album. The tune reminds me of Blackfield, most notably Christenings.
Perfect drumming, keyboard(effect)s and guitars, this song is enchanting and alluring. Heartbreaking lyrics as well ...
"Silence is another way - of saying what I want to say -
Lying is another way of hoping it will go away..."

Ahhhh, Mr. S.W. The Lyricist... lovely.

Disk #2 contains four stand-alone songs:
"Flicker" sounds like an old-school, atmospheric, very dreamy PT song. Some Beatles-influences here if I'm not mistaken, together with the ominescent Pink Floyd-influences. Strangely enough, the 'la la la'-vocals remind me of Yes' South Side of the Sky!

"Bonnie The Cat" - by FAR the most experimental tune on The Incident. Its groove reminded me of Mother and Child Divided, heavy and rhythmic, only this isn't an instrumental. Both Gavin Harrison and Richard Barbieri go 'all-the-way' on this song. Freaky at times even creepy stuff!

"Black Dahlia" - ah, back to the loveliness!
Is there any band in the world being able to switch moods and styles that fast, and still being capable of sounding as the same band? I think not. A perfect electronic piano-based tune with great melodies, and that guitar solo in the end - Blackfield-like.
The lyrics are very interesting as well, dealing with the modern obsessions of youth with 'becoming famous' whatever it takes, ending up with having to deal with the damage due to 'failing ambitions'. Heartbreaking. "There is nothing for you here under the sun..."

"Remember Me Lover" - ah... very melancholic and moving. I get the impression that I've heard some of the melodies incorporated in this song before on Steven's Insurgentes, but does that mind? Not at all.
Great heavy organ/guitar parts exchanging subtle guitar sequences. Yep, another hightlight of The Incident.
The song contains perhaps the most personal lyrics I've ever heard from Mr. S.W.
He's made songs about the Grand Theme of 'failing relationships' before - "Hatesong" from Lightbulb Sun comes to mind - but this one is very, very different.
Here no distant cynism at all, but rather, pure heartfelt disappointment and sadness set into perfect words. "It's so hard to get along!"

Well, as for a conclusion: this is a perfectly produced album (what else did one expect from a project of The Magician Mr. S.W.?), with quite a few amazing songs around. For any fan of Mr. S.W. work, this is a Must-Buy.
Most notably, imho, are Wilson's vocals, which are more passionate than ever before (I trust you already know his credits on the guitar), Gavin Harrison's truly otherwordly drumming, Richard Barbieri having opened his complete magic box of tantalizing sounds, and last-but-not-least, Colin Edwin's as-always very solid job on the bass.

Most amazing about The Incident, I think, is that here the ultimate mix of extreme mood swings within the music - from dark, bone-shattering heaviness to heartfelt, acoustic, sweet melodies - changing faster from the one extreme to the other than I ever thought possible - actually WORKS here.
Mr. S.W. already had a (good!) try at this on his solo-album Insurgentes, but in all honesty, I didn't think he was consistently succesful in doing so on that album, but here, he IS.

Four-out-of-five stars for now. Might well become more, but well... I need my time to fully appreciate this masterpiece to come to an ultimate conclusion.
Shouldn't be all too surprising, as this is not actually 'easy stuff' -
but I trust a genuine ProgRocker doesn't do 'easy stuff', eh?

WHAT a year 2009 has been so far for any a genuine ProgDork!

A GREAT attempt from Porcupine Tree, Anathema's fantastic concerts as of late (not to mention Daniel Cavanagh & Anneke van Giersbergen's fantastic acoustic concerts), as well as the resurrection of Polish lovelies Riverside's truly FANTASTIC new release "Anno Domino High Definition".

And that's just the 'Biggies'.
So many 'new' bands out there as well, right now. Long Distance Calling, Moon Safari, Phideaux, Swallow the Sun... and so, SO many more...

Beauty Indeed Saves The World!

Symforce III Festival, O13 Tilburg, NL - September 27, 2009

2009-09-30T23:50:31Z

The best way by far to get to know 'new' bands is visiting a festival, and being a genuine Progger-in-Heart, skipping a festival genuinely focussing on the genre is, of course, Nicht Im Frage.

As such, I've visited the Symforce III-festival, and I have kinda 'mixed feelings' about it. Why?

Well... the past two editions of the festival were, as far as I am concerned, a lot more 'balanced' in their offerings, and I personally don't understand why the festival was forced to downgrade as much as it did in the third edition. Apparently it was a matter of the Usual $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$-problem - but then again, of course, in the second edition, Opeth and Pain of Salvation, true Big Names, were the headliners, but I was around over there, and I saw that the place was pretty much *packed*... As well as was the case at the 1st edition of this festival, which saw both The Flower Kings and Riverside headlining.
Needless to emphasize any further, I attended BOTH Symforce #1 and #2. And yep, #3, as well.

So was it really the Cash Factor, or maybe... something else?
Critical Me says that there indeed was something else playing a major role, namely, the closed-mindedness of most/some (make your pick, here) of the ProgRock-community. Meh!

Fact is that last years' second edition of the Symforce Festival was packed by heavy-(prog)metal fans, as both Opeth and Pain of Salvation fall into this particular description, and I know for a fact that not all of the community is so open-minded that they are able to accept (let's not even talk about appreciate) that particular 'subdivision' of the ProgRock-community. ~sigh~

So, this year's edition saw a rather different kind of line-up...
But was it indeed better?

I dare to question that. First on the line-up were The Sedan Vault from Belgium, performing in the 'Little Big Stage' of the 013-venue. Funny, I read on beforehand when checking out music/comments about them, that they were 'tired' of getting compared to The Mars Volta all the time... Which kinda made me laugh... as this band didn't merely seemed to be inspired by TMV, but rather, they appeared to be a true Carbon Copy of theirs!

Everything. The music. The singing. The gestures on stage. As good as they apparently were - yes they were - I can only say that this wasn't just 'inspiration' by a Big Band, they were just COPY CATS. This band surely has its potential, but well... if they truly want to get rid of being accused of being a The Mars Volta-Epigone, I'd say it would be a rather good move to finally decide to find a style of your own, folks. Too bad.

Next on the block were Neo Prophet, in 013's Bat Cave. Again, from Belgium. This performance appeared to be a lot more sympathetic than that of their countrymen, as far as I'm concerned. Quite a clumsy presentation ("Jump!"), but sympathetic and well-carried out all the same.
Had a nice chat outside with Mr. Frank Debruyne (Guitars & Backing Vocals), and well, all my conclusion is, GOOD LUCK to ye fellows!

Back to the 'Little Big Stage', where the very sweet (might well be a mite TOO sweet) Swedish laddies of Moon Safari were bound to strut their stuff. Fantastic, Beach Boys-like vocals combined with The Flower Kings's musical influences. Great performance, though a just a bit too sweet & airy-fairy for me personally. Still, great performance, let that be clear!

One of the best moments of the festival, imho, was when the guys actually gave an impromptu, barbershop-like performance OUT THERE ON THE STREETS, in front of the venue, HOURS after their 'official' concert! Now that was absolutely gorgeous.
I know there was a guy there who actually recorded it, but I haven't found it yet on YouTube. well... I am awaiting....

Back to the Bat Cave - well, it might just be me, but the band I enjoyed the most of ALL, happened to be the German space/post-rock outfit Long Distance Calling.

Finally, some HEAVY GUITARS!!! STONER-PROG!!!
Folks compared the band to a heavier Mogwai and the very underrated English outfit Amplifier. NO KEYS whatsoever, just two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer, accompanied by a fellow of theirs on an Apple computer to provide the additional 'spacey sounds'. GREAT performance, also due to the immaculate job these fellows did to get their sound right - quite in contrary to most of the bands appearing at this festival.

I loved their performance and immediately got me their album "Avoid The Light".
This is how *I* discover new great bands, folks, YAYYYY!

And then there were Kataya from Finland. Wel what's about these fellows? They were GOOD, but got genuinely persuasive , as they suffered the same thing most of the bands did - a too loud, BAD sound, which truly bogged down the subtilities of their music. Too bad, meh.

Well and then for the so-called Big Shots of this festival. o_O.

Agents of Mercy, along with Roine Stolt and Jonas Reingold were.... DREADFUL. At least imho.
Heralded as the true 'New Masters of Contemporary Prog', I couldn't help but conclude both their album AND this live performance being a major let-down. Meh. BORING!!!

Aye, dear Roine Stolt - when I read that he'd give his premier band The Flower Kings - which I LOVE - a well-deserved break, I thought it was a very good decision indeed.
As, well, in the past couple of years, Roine's band never ever again managed to reach the heights of true classics like "Stardust We Are" or "Flower Power" ever again. So I thought of the fellow taking a well-deserved break and refueling with a new band outfit would surely do him well...

Alas. Imho, The Agents of Mercy are in fact this years' major disappointment, and this concert couldn't take away this feeling from me.
'What happened to your guitar? What happened to the Prettiest Star?' ... ~sigh~

On to the headliner of this festival, Swedish outfit Karmakanic - yep, ex-Flower King's Jonas Reingold did an awesome job. Great performance, 'tight' musicianship, etc.

Still... Can't say they truly convinced me. I know, it's just me...
I might have just seen TOO MUCH of the bands that happen to easily draw some 500-1000 folks on their own, just a few days before, with good reason...

So, the conclusion is that:
The BEST Band of this Symforce III-festival was indeed Long Distance Calling, as can be witnessed from a little vid I taped over there:

Honourable mention for #2 goes to Moon Safari, well done, folks.

Also - have to say it once again - so GOOD to meet the lovely ProgDorks Squad once again, Carla, most of all, but then again, Hans (ProgWalhalla), Erik Neuteboom, Bob, Luke d'Aranceno (5BridgeS), the lovely folks from Flamborough Head (Margriet!), Peter, Maarten, Birdman, and many more I forgot to mention...

Love Ye ALL, folks, let that be clear! :-D

Danny Cavanagh & Anneke van Giersbergen, Dynamo, Eindhoven, NL - September 25, 2009

2009-09-26T20:53:49Z

Just a couple of days later, and just having regained my strength recovering from their gigs with Anathema earlier this week, I witnessed Danny Cavanagh and Anneke van Giersbergen on the little cellar stage of Eindhoven's Dynamo, again.
I had never been there before, but it appeared to be a very pleasant venue.

And so good to see Carla, Irene and Hedwig again, as I missed them at the Zoetermeer- and Haarlem-concerts!

Anneke on stage in Dynamo. Well she was obviously having fun out there.
In contrary to the former three gigs of theirs that I attended (check out my reviews over here, here and here), Anneke was the first one to take the stage for a solo-spot this time. And as usual, she pulled it off very well indeed. Not much of a trouble having such an angelic, perfect voice, and perhaps even more, such a charming personality. She kept on cracking jokes and surely knows how to entertain an audience - well she has some 20 years of experience doing so by now!

She did however tell a rather disturbing story of what happened backstage after the Anathema-show in De Biebob, Vosselaar, Belgium. Some idiot plonker, who shall remain nameless, apparently brought along a can of *pepperspray*, and for some indescernable reason, it ended up getting 'explored'... and as such Anneke apologized for having some troubles with her voice. It didn't affect her performance as it did Danny's I think, as he truly sounded a mite more hoarse than I have heard him during earlier appearances. Some kind of strange story, there!

Rest of the post behind cut as I don't want to clogg up Friend's Pages - if I still have any left, as I admittedly don't bother checking out nowadays as much as I used to do.

Well after Anneke's delightful solo-spot, it was dear-old-Danny's turn. And imho it was rather obvious that Danny's voice was indeed affected by the 'Pepperspray-incident'. He sounded less 'tight' and a bit weaker in the high notes than during his former performances.
But of course, his performances on the (acoustic) guitar and the piano didn't suffer at all! We got a very nice selection of both his own and his fav songs by other artists, including Fleetwood Mac's Big Love

As such, here's my recording of his solo-performance of one of Anathema's most loved songs (which was actually skipped in the earlier Anathema-concerts this week...):

One Last Goodbye - it will always remain one of my fav songs EVER.

But the highlight of Daniel's solo-performance was a so-called 'surprise', revealed to us before the concert started off by Dynamo 'organizer' Michiel. And guess what happened? Danny invited Michiel to play together with him on the acoustic bass on his cover of Pink Floyd's High Hopes! Realizing this would be a rather one-of-a-kind experience I took out the camera and recorded all of it:

What a lovely occasion for Michiel, I guess a very fitting reward for the hard work he does as a volunteer at Dynamo!

After a short 'have-a-beer (& ciggie)'-pause, it was time for Danny AND Anneke to take the stage together. And WOW the two of them together sounded as good as always, even if troubled by pepperspray-induced Voice Troubles.

As I am notoriously bad in dishing up setlists, I won't even bother to try this time.
Just the highlights for now. I noticed a few of their 'Biggest Hits' were removed from the setlist, including their fantastic rendition of Massive Attack's Teardrop. Somehow I didn't really mind, as that particular version of that lovely song is highly conjugated with a certain 'Incident' from the beginning of this year, even inspiring me to make a bit of artwork on it. No, I'm NOT going to elaborate on that any further, sorry folks. :wink:

What we DID get, among ~~Angels~~ others:
A beautiful version of Anathema's A Natural Disaster - funny how it works so much better with Anneke in an *acoustic setting* than it does in the 'full band'-mode. At least I think so.
Also, a heartbreaking version of Fleetwood Mac's Songbird, one of their - or rather, Christine McVie's - most underrated songs. Gorgeous!
I truly loved the pair's version of Anneke's former band The Gathering's Leaves, from their debut with Anneke, "Mandelion". A timeless tune indeed.

And, not to forget - an acoustic version of a soon-to-be released single from Anneke's, to be released on iTunes (hopefully in other formats as well, duh). That got the crowd cheering for a bit! They recorded it twice, after their acclaimed cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene. A delight to hear and watch...

Afterwards, a small chat ~~and lovely hug from Danny~~ and it was time for me to say goodbye to my fellow Anathemaniacs and hurry to catch the night train taking my back to Utrecht. A truly lovely experience once again.

And the for the Notorious Critical Notes now!
Well, Bar None this time, the only thing I can think of is the nasty habit of small venue-stages to have the stage bathing in RED light, which is a true Photograph-KILLER. A thing to think of, dear Stage Producers - more blue and white light truly enables those without professional armature to be able to make decent pictures as well. :wink:
Only a VERY SLIGHT NEGATIVE remark, of course.

Well that's it for now, folks. Many, many more to come... starting... TOMORROW, when I'll be attending the Symforce III-festival at the 013 in Tilburg!

Yeah, it's a hard life, having to visit all of these concerts... LOL.

Anathema - Boerderij, Zoetermeer & Patronaat, Haarlem, NL - September 20 & 21, 2009

2009-09-22T23:19:24Z

Ah, Autumn! Time for the bands to 'Come out, come out, wherever you are...!' and so they DO. Falling out of the woodworks right as of now in fact. Some 15 concerts to come in the following two months or so. Whoopie!

The honour of being the first to kick off this Indoor Season - the first of a very long row - goes to Anathema, once again!

Daniel Cavanagh, during his opening set with Leafblade.
Anathema had three concerts to offer for the Lowland Folks (well four, if you include Belgium), and I chose to attend their appearances in De Boerderij in Zoetermeer (the ultimate Prog Rock Temple of my country), as well as in Het Patronaat in Haarlem - mostly because of both of the venues are within some two hours traveling time (by public transport...)

We - Maarten, Martijn & me - arrived nicely in time to claim our Front Row Spots. As usual, right in front of Danny, 'sorry bloke, for obstructing your view so often', LOL. Nice to see die-hard Anathemaniacs Marcel and Steffi (all the way from Gelsenkirchen, Germany!) again, as well as some other nice folks.
I don't know if the band themselves agree with me here but I was pleased to see De Boerderij pleasantly filled, not packed-to-the-rafters this time - which only got even more pleasant as we were soon to find out that somehow the airconditioning didn't seem to be working, leaving both us and the bands themselves looking like dripping candles after some while. Wouldn't wanna know how many folks would have fainted because of the heat out there if it would have been REALLY filled up. :HELP:

Opening act to Anathema were Leafblade, aka Sean Jude & Danny himself on acoustic guitars and vocals, at a certain stage aided by perhaps the worst drummer on the planet - one Vincent Cavanagh. Don't mind me Vinnie, I'm only joking - but you do have to admit your real talents lie elsewhere! :-)
Leafblade offered their usual pleasant folky acoustic stuff, nothing exceedingly special imho, but like I said, surely *pleasant*.

As usual, Godspeed You!Black Emperor's "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven" formed the intro to Anathema's set, evolving into their Balance/Closer - wherein singer Vinnie seemed to be a bit all TOO enthusiastic & passionate, rummagging half the stage's equipment to find its apotheosis into knocking down the microphone, BOINK! (seems to be getting a habit among my fav musicians lately)
I should have taken precautions once again, as the sound was good but much too loud to my tastes... well then. Here's to 'improvisations on the use of Toilet Paper'!

I always have trouble with remembering set lists, but I think I can remember at least the following tracks being played: Lost Control (BEAUTIFUL!), Angels Walk Among Us, Deep, Temporary Peace, Judgement/Panic (fortunately, BOTH in full-length, though I still can't stand 'Panic' - well good moment to check out the loo and the merchandise booth), Flying and Are You There, before the encore.

Of course I recorded a bit and a few of the songs. Here's Deep, one of my fav tracks ever from "Judgement". Too bad my camera, as well as it did on the views (being in the front row surely helps!), it didn't at all manage to deal with the heavier sounds - dreadful. Oh Well.

Well, at a certain moment, we got a very nice 'surprise', as the Lady Singer this time wasn't Lee Douglas but... Anneke van Giersbergen! Here's the vid I made this evening of A Natural Disaster:

Well then. She might well be my country's BEST EVER singer.

Still... o_O, Here Cometh The Critical Bit!
Every reader of this blog knows that I LOVE Anneke's voice. Her concerts together with Danny Cavanagh - I attended them ALL (check out over here, here and here) - are among the best I've ever seen/heard. But still, bash-me-with-it-if-you-like, I prefer Lee Douglas' singing on this particular track, surely in a full Anathema-the-band session.

Why? Because of the ultimate sad, bluesy feeling this song truly requires. Lee's delivery of the final words... "...and... I... FAILED!..." are truly heartbreaking. Somehow, Anneke just can't match that ultimate deliverance of disappointment-and-despair that the song conveys. Too much 'vocal trapeze work' I'd call it, if it makes any sense at all.

I know, I'm crazy. Anneke's voice is just perfect. But that might just be the problem with me - TOO perfect. I need to hear a bit of bluesy wobbliness in those vocals when delivering such lines of ultimate sadness, and whereas Lee does so, Anneke doesn't.
Happy to know it's not just me, though - apparently Marcel agrees with me, here. Pfew.

Well the folks who actually followed Anneke van Giersbergen's link now know that Danny and herself have released some of the tracks from those gorgeous gigs they did together (like already said earlier, reviews/ramblings/worshiping over here, here and here) on a CD named "In Parallel" - and as such, it had to get promoted for a bit, as the album was available from the merchandise booth (where I got it myself, needless to say). So the two of them together did their great rendition of Damian Rice's Blower's Daughter once again. I didn't bother to record it, as ... guess what... coming Friday... well eh eh eh... :wink:

To end this MUCH TOO LONG rambling about this concert altogether (highlights that you might have missed over here will follow in the review of the day thereafter), the next to follow were Sleepless, the 'new' song Hindsight (or whatever its name is nowadays - wonder when Danny will come up with a next NEW name for that song as well), and, after a short break, the encore, consisting of the absolutely beautiful Universal and Shroud of False/Fragile Dreams. Happy to hear those being combined again, like they are on Anathema's album "Alternative4".

This entry is much, much too long already, so I'll try and just point out the differences between this gig and the one the night before. I was on my own this night, but fortunately, Hans from the lovely ProgWalhalla-mailorder - all your wishes Prog-wise to be fulfilled over there! - decided to join in with me. And well I guess he liked what he heard and saw. Rightly so.

This concert was even better than the night before, imho.
It might just be ~~my, OUR, ages~~ me, but here the band came across as more concentrated and focussed. More INTIMATE, too. Yeah, the audience seemed subdued here (and GODHEAVENSALMIGHTY, someone remembered to turn on the airco!), but I don't mind that at all. In fact, all the clapping-and-cheering-along often puts me off, as I am there to listen to the MUSIC more than anything else... not just to *party*.
I am well capable of partying when there's no band at all to enjoy, thankees. :wink: Me = Prog Dork. I know it all too well, meh.

This concert took off just like the one the night before, with Leafblade opening the evening, and fortunately, this evening Danny and Sean DID perform their wonderful cover of Led Zep's Going To California. Can't hear that often enough to tell ya.
At a certain point, Sean dedicated a song to "... all the BICYCLES, as they seem to do awesome right here...". Laughed my ass off, especially when Danny asked for some audience participation shouting "FIETS, FIETS, FIETS!" immediately thereafter.

Well quite heartwarming for me to witness Daniel singing along with Porcupine Tree's Way Out Of Here in the background as well. Too bad I've heard that The Master will probably not be able to carry out the production/mixing job on Anathema's upcoming album. Well all I can say is that I *understand*, Mr. S.W. being on the verge of touring because of his awesome new record The Incident himself right now, and Anathema obviously haven't sent in the master tapes to him in time. Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm.

As such, just a few additional notes on this concert, compared to my rambling above on the previous one.

Danny, a solo-performance on Are You There? - until the batteries of my camera ran out. Meh!

And... eh...

Temporary Peace. One of my all-time favs.

"and there's so many many thoughts, when I try to go to sleep, but with you I start to feel a sort of temporary peace - there's a drift in and out..."

Just LOVELY. Always so emotional, yet so comforting just the same... ANATHEMA, I love ye!

I'll leave it for here. Just too many thoughts, too many impressions... too much love.
I didn't even care to end up stuck at Amsterdam Central Station for 45 minutes at 2:30 AM again. LOL.

Next up... you might have guessed it. Danny Cavanagh & Anneke van Giersbergen, Dynamo Café in Eindhoven, September 25th, 2009. Looking forward to it, YAYYYY!!!

Just some Random Rambling -

2009-08-27T00:11:02Z

... because I feel like it.

If there's ONE thing that always makes me squee, it's when I see a picture of two lovely, talented men hugging each other. Yeah, hit me with it!
As such I was very pleasantly surprised when I came across this picture recently:

Haha. Porcupine Tree's Mr. Steven Wilson, with, 'hanging round his neck', colleague & friend Aviv Geffen, Israeli emo-rock superstar. The two of them together also very well known as Blackfield.

Blackfield slash??? uhm, not ready for THAT yet.
But I'm quite sure that pictures raised some fantasies left, right and center. Thanks dear lads!

And, oh jolly jolly, as if it wasn't enough seeing ALL my beloved bands come out to play this Autumn - yes, EVERYONE - I just read that Aviv will be playing my home town on November 3rd, and that he'll joing dear Mr. S.W. with Blackfield on the upcoming Crossing Border Festival in Den Haag as well, November 20th!

Are my musicians trying to KILL ME or what this year?

"Exceeded Bandwith"

2009-08-22T16:24:55Z

Wow wow. So now ALL of the 10,000+ pictures I uploaded to Photobucket (link NOT included for obvious reasons) won't be visible up till September because of "exceeded bandwith". Apparently some folks have been enjoying my rather silly collection of stuff a lot, otherwise I can't explain that to happen. Well there, whoever you are, thanks for the recognition, LOL!

Photobucket urges me to upgrade to a 'pro' status - but honestly, some 40$ a year??? I find that a rather high amount for such a limited amount of time and service. NO WAY. I'll just wait until the collection becomes visible again - and of course, I've chosen an alternative place to upload my pictures elsewhere in the mean time - PicturePush. Bye, Photobucket!

Party.San, Bad Berka, Germany - August 6th-8th 2009

2009-08-10T16:45:18Z

Just arrived home from visiting my second Outdoor Metal Festival this year - Party.San Open Air!
Those of you who follow my Whereabouts-In-Music-Land may remember that I've been there last year as well (report over here). As we then enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of this 'smaller' festival so much, we needn't much time to agree on a Second Visit this year.
So off we went again, the three of us (Maarten, Remco & me), to the lovely hills & forests of Thüringen - the HEART of Germany, folks!

As was the case last year, once again, friendliness all around in Bad Berka. We got ourselves a great spot on the camping ground, big enough to put up our 'party tent' to shelter us from either rain or sun, with plenty of space around to be able to lie down in the grass as well. Which turned out be very welcome indeed.

Okay, first impression? The festival had obviously become a little bit bigger than last year, I estimated around 8000 attendants this year. Still 'small' enough to keep its intimate atmosphere, fortunately. And one very pleasant and MAJOR difference from last year - the weather - NO MUD-FEST this year!
Also, there seemed just a bit more diversity in music styles offered by the contracted bands this year. Not just Death, Grind & Black Metal this year, but also a fair offering of Doom, Viking, and even Folk Metal-influenced bands. Which of course I don't mind at all, as I'm first-and-foremost a Prog-fan. With the Doomsters & Folkies adding up to the Blackies around, there appeared to be plenty of at least prog-related/influenced bands around for me to enjoy. YAYYY!!!

View on Party.San's festival ground. As you can see, a genuine Party for ALL generations.

With some near to 30 bands on the Order Of Play, I must first admit I didn't have the energy to check out ALL of them, but I will certainly comment on those who struck me in a pleasant way - and of course BASH some of those who did the contrary. :wink:
One of the first things to be said is that nearly ALL the bands had a loud, but very good sound. Kudo's to the festival's Sound People for that!

Thursday, August 6th
The day of arrival at festivals is always a difficult one to fully enjoy the bands, after the six-seven hours drive, putting up your tents, getting yourself to settle down, score the festival ribbon & drinks, etc.
In contrary to last year, picking up the ribbon was a quick job, so we got in well in time to check out a couple of the bands anyways. The first couple of them didn't make much of an impression to me - we were in fact more busy with making sure of getting an adequate amount of alcohol down our throats - so at a certain moment I decided to take care of my tiredness rather than check out Marduk.
Which turned out to be a mistake!

Swedish Black Metalists Marduk on stage. Pic by Remco.
I've seen Marduk play a couple of times already - after all they've been around for at least 10 years or so - and usually, they were CRAP, most obviously due to their former singer, who obviously completely destroyed his vocal cords in due course of time. Fortunately, that guy has been replaced by now, and the Quality Injection apparently did wonders for the band - from my tent I could well hear a very tight and convincing set from the Swedes. Great job indeed!

Friday, August 7th
The Friday OOP had a lot more to offer, at least for Proggie-Doomy-Folky!Me.
After having given Summers Dying, Glorior Belli & Inhume a miss due to the very hot weather (we all agreed on rather having a cold drink on a Bad Berka terrasse - in the shade!), the first band which caught our attention was Solstafir.

Solstafir, doomy psychedelics from Iceland. You can see it was very sunny out there. Pic by Remco.
Hailing from the Icelandian Black Metal-scene (apparently a thing like that exists over there), Solstafir very obviously also draws their influences from classical British Doom Metal (quite a few classical Anathema-lines kissed my ears), as well as from Good-Old Monster Magnet, as not only the guys' appearance resembled MM, but the music in times as well. Very nice gig. Psychedica under the Sun - who could ask for more?

We stayed on the festival ground, as Den Saakaldte from Norway made a good impression as well - and just as we were discussing about leaving the place for a bite as Evocation didn't really seemed to be of much interest to us ("90'-ies Swedish Death Metal..." hmmmm), I noticed something strange... those fellows soundchecking, didn't I recognize them as the band I looked out for most of all?

Yep. Apparently it wasn't the 'Morning' that 'never came', but Evocation not having shown up, as on stage indeed there appeared... Swallow The Sun!

Swallow the Sun on stage! I reached the front line, as you can see. Lovely show!
"Melodic Doom Metal" - aaaahhhh. I've been doing a lot of downloading of their stuff lately, as reports from the net as well as from my friends told me these Finnish Folks' stuff highly resembles the classic material from the Good Old British Classical Doom Trio (Anathema, My Dying Bride & Paradise Lost). Sad, doomy, heavy distorted guitars, embedded in a melancholic, atmospherical keyboard carpet, and a sympathetic, emotional presentation to match.
Enough said. I am in LOVE. Picked up the guys' entire back-catalogue, the least you can do if you thoroughly enjoy a band, as I know all too well how these so-called 'minor bands' can seriously do well with any penny they manage to get for their music!

After skipping Hate Eternal (sigh... Death Metal, again - so booooooring!), I returned for Sweden's Thyrfing. I used to follow this band quite intensively, as their 1999 'Valdr Galga' was one of the true HIGHLIGHTS within the sub-genre of Viking Metal. Unfortunately, at least in my humble opinion, they have never again matched the level of that album thereafter, but they are still a very convincing live-act, as they showed at Party.San once again.

And well, after skipping yet another couple of exchangeable Death Metal bands, it was time for the festival's Headlining Act - acclaimed Norwegian Black Metallists Satyricon.

Satyricon on stage! Excellent, entertaining show. Pic by Remco.
Satyricon have always been a unique entity within the Black Metal-scene, not caring at all for fashion or trendiness, but just going their own way. And it's been paying off for Satyr and Frost! Armed with a new album 'Now Diabolical', on the verge of an extensive US tour, headliners on various festivals - very nice to see musical ability and, even more, being ORIGINAL, paying off well.
Charismatic frontman Satyr, drummer Frost and their bunch of rather nameless live musicians (on the albums, Satyr plays ALL instruments except the drums) put up a great show, that - how dare I say it? - even made plenty of folks in the crowd sing along with "K.I.N.G.", "Mother North" and "Now Diabolical", and dance. DANCING on a Black Metal-show. WOW.

We were in such a good mood after this concert that we didn't at all want to head for our tents yet. Well such isn't at all necessary at Party.San - there's a Metal Disco for you to enjoy until 04:00 AM each day, and well let's just say some of us indeed managed to hang around until the final beers were given out for FREE.

Silly MetalHeadz enjoying their drinks at the Metal Disco. Pic by Remco.
Saturday, August 8th
Let's just say that after the day before I wasn't very much in the mood to get up early and catch all of the bands. Or should I admit... I had a hangover? LOL

Breakfast at the camping site. At least the weather had become less hot, very welcome this morning...
I listened to a couple of the bands from our spot at the camping place, most notable of them being the completely unknown Austrian Black Metal-outfit HellSaw. Thereafter, time for Shining, yet another Scandinavian band (can I have some of what they put in the water over there???)

Shining on stage. Unfortunately they did not manage to meet my expectations...
Depressive, doomy Black Metal. That should sound GOOD to me, unfortunately, these guys' set got spoilt completely by a very bad, unbalanced sound. 'LOUDER' doesn't always equal 'BETTER', folks, rather the contrary! A bit of a disappointment, therefore.

Next highlight appeared to be Moonsorrow, once again a Scandinavian outfit, from Finland this time.

Moonsorrow, Pagan/Folkie Black Metal from Finland.
After Shining's disappointing sound, herewith an example of it being very possible to get a well-defined sound, even when playing a form of Black Metal. Not at all hard to allow yourself get enchanted by Moonsorrow's Nordic-Celtic-Viking Myths, here. Very pleasant showing, thanks lads!

Well, where there any bands - on my 'Liked It Very Much, Thanks'-list - appearing NOT hailing from Scandinavia/Iceland??? Eluveitie, self-proclaimed Helvetians, surely know the Dark Forests & Snowcovered Mountains, which are so inspirational to Folks-Practicing-Folk-Metal indeed.
Very enjoyable gig from this eight men/women-strong Swiss orchestra, especially as the folk instruments - yep, Eluveitie bring the bagpipes, uilleann pipes, flutes, hurdy-gurdy, fiddle, gaita & mandolins with them LIVE on stage! - came through very well. Kudo's to the Sound People, once again. Might this be indeed the perfect festival band? I surely think so.

After Eluveitie it was time for 'Fun With Dark Funeral - or Dark Fun For All, as Remco so rightly dubbed this Swedish Black Metal-outfit. Always enjoyable, and this occasion would be no exception to the rule.
And Thus Endeth Party.San 2009 with a continued party at the Metal Disco rather than further torturing our ears with Six Feet Under...

Next morning, the usual slightly headached job of collecting our stuff and getting outselves ready for the long road home - lots of coffee attached here. Alas, the way home would take us some two hours more than expected, as along the Autobahn several nutcases thought it a good idea to park their cars against each other, causing hours of delay...
Who cares, we felt happy.

Here we go! As I said, all very minor points in comparison to experiences elsewhere, but well... it never hurts to give out some hints for improvement now does it?

- Very nice idea, offering entrance to real WATER toilets and showers for only 6 euros extra during the entire weekend, but apparently the organization didn't yet get it that about 90% of the festival attendants indeed wanted to make use of those. In other words: however nice already, please enlarge the capacity of the WC and shower-area. Standing in-line in the burning sun for over an hour to get your shower is NO FUN AT ALL.
(additional remark: still, a lot better than the possibilities offered for this on a lot of other festivals, most notably Graspop, where there were TEN showers available for a crowd of 40,000!!! Ridiculous if I may say so, enough reason to never ever show up over there again.)

- Alas, the water supply ran out as early as 01:00 PM on Friday - a day on which the temperature rose till above 32 degrees celcius. Meh. We all kind-of ran off to the supermarket in Bad Berka just to BUY water, if only to ensure ourselves no risk of *fainting* half-way the festival.

- Death Metal Bands. Okay, I fully admit it, Death Metal is NOT my favourite genre (despite knowing quite a few bands which I am able to enjoy nevertheless). But why-oh-why all those silly childish speeches to the audience, especially by a lot of the US-bands and Unleashed? *SHUT UP* and PLAY YOUR GUITAR, YOU STOOPIDS!!!

- Brujeria. I know, they should belong under the above mentioned category. Still I think they really deserve a separate entry under the RANT-section of this report, as I barely ever before witnessed such a dumb-arsed show in my life (okay, after Manowar, perhaps) - a continuous display of stupid sexism and idiotic worshipping of drugs abuse (which these 'gentlemen' had obviously done themselves all the time before they were set to play). Shouting 'Marihuana' on the 'melody' of Macarena... very funny. NOT. Rather, how-low-can-you-go...
I guess I was lucky the guys express themselves in Spanish most of the time so I might have even missed a few of their highlights. In all: TERRIBLE.

Well so much for the so very cherished Outdoor Season 2009.
Next concerts & festivals (wow, so MANY of them to come!!!) will all be indoors again, and as such I fully sense this year's Summer already coming to an end. A reoccuring melancholic moment each and every year...

MetalCamp, Tolmin, Slovenia - July 3rd-7th 2009 - Part II, the "SILLY Bit".

2009-07-19T23:17:41Z

Major Warning, Major Picspam coming up... and it's SILLY. Like I said... :-D

And so, Here we go!

FLTR: Me, Frank, Arno, Remco, ~~making a fool of ourselves~~ partying.

MetalHeadz partying along the Tolminka River

Godawfull weather at Tolmin, just some one, two hours later. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Beautiful lady, headbanging. How nice it is to see the ladies fully joining in on this particular pleasure the past couple of years.

Beer Cans of any thinkable heritage (Dutch, German, Austrian, Slovenian). Aka Pivo in Slovenian. ALL HAILZ PIVO!!!

The same bunch of Beer Cans, after Ms. OCD, aka ME, took care of it.

"Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral!"

Jesus Christ Himself was around, and He pretty much enjoyed Himself, finally being allowed to have a day off from that Utterly Boring Place that is *Heaven*.
He came out to enjoy Himself for a bit, so much is sure. I guess He did indeed. :-D
Here's to you, Jesus! YAYYYYY!!!

MUD. Did I say MUD already???

Mud Trolling. SPLASH!!!!

"Who-Will-Stop-The-The-Rain???" Repeat After Me...

Maybe a good BITE from my Pink Slippers HELPS to stop the rain?

No... It didn't... it kept on raining, RAINING, and RAINING...

As my friends can back me up about. Poor WET sods!

Here we are, 'Death-defying, Mutilating', the... eh... RAIN.

Sorry for the silliness. Couldn't help myself, here. Please forgive me...

Well, now, for my truly LOVELY Slovenia pictures. Hang on in there, dear folks.
It's worth the wait. :-D

MetalCamp, Tolmin, Slovenia - July 3rd-7th 2009 - Part I, the "Serious Bit".

2009-07-19T21:54:12Z

Well well. First trip to Slovenia for me. And what a beautiful little country it indeed is! Little? You might say TINY, and this coming from a Dutchie...

Most wonderful about this very young state - officially separated in 1991 from Yugoslavia and the latest full-fledged member of the European Union - as the only 'Balkan' state so far - is all of the variations of European cultures and natural environments/climate it shows on such a very small area. Genuinely Alpine in the North-Western part of the country, where it borders Austria and Italy, very Meditearrenian on the South West coast line, where you shouldn't be surprised feeling like you're in Venice. Actually, the whole Trieste-Umag (Istria-Croatia)-area once indeed was a part of the Venician Empire, and you can actually see Venice from the coasts of Koper/Izola/Piran/Portoroz. :-)
Can you say I'm in love? I guess so!

NOTE TO YOU AMERICANS reading this: Don't bother with travelling all around Europe in two weeks or so - just spend those two weeks in ~~Miniature Europe~~ Slovenia, and enjoy!!

More about that, laters - this entry is, after all, about MetalCamp, the heavy-rock (read: METAL!!!) festival held in Tolmin, just over the Austrian/Italian border, where we spent the first five days of our Slovenian Adventure.

The first thing Frank, Metal Rookie, did, was buy this tee. He got the hang of it real fast.

Leaving The Netherlands while like all of North-West Europe stuck in a heatwave, we hoped for the best in Slovenia as well. The very pleasant journey took us (Maarten, Arno, Remco, Frank & me) along Arnhem-Köln-Frankfurt-Nürnberg-Würzburg-München-Salzburg-Villach-Kransjka Gora -> TOLMIN. Yayyy. Weather still fine. Eh... HOT!!!

As I already know very well how beautiful Austria is (when it's not raining, that is), I wasn't very surprised to see the Slovenian Tolmin area, the Soca valley, which is said to be the most beautiful region of Slovenia - a statement one Ernest Hemmingway will surely approve of, despite of him having experienced it as its ugliest, considering his terrible experiences in 1918 as an ambulance driver in WW-I which inspired him to write his lauded A Farewell To Arms - fully meet my expectations.
What a fantastic environment for a music festival! All lovely green mountains surrounding the campsite, the gorgeous turquoise Tolminka river running through...

Oh, oops. MetalCamp, it is!
The five of us found a very nice spot to put up our tents - close to the what eventually proved to be an excellent 'emergency exit'. We had *no idea* of that at that time, but well we truly ended up being very lucky indeed. More about that to follow!

As is usual with heavy metal-festivals, MetalCamp once again proved to be a very International affair. Apart from the expected Slovenians, Austrians, Germans & Italians, I noticed plenty of folks from Switzerland, Czechs, Hungarians, Polska People, various Scandinavians (after all, Scandinavia RULEZZZ when it comes to Death/Black/Doom Metal), and indeed the Belgian and fellow Dutchies who just like us scaled those 1200 kms to Tolmin - fortunatelly, not too many of those around. LOL.

And once again, the striking universal friendliness of MetalHeadz all around the globe immediately showed. We, dummies, struggling with putting up our party tent, immediately got help from the Austrian neighbours. Offered them quite some cans of beer for the their help, and no surprise, got quite a few of them back. At that particular moment, we had no idea of how well-spent those 25 euro's for that tent would be. I'm not exaggerating when I say, perhaps the best ever 25 euro's spent in my life so far. As... okay, laters.
We got ourselves settled in, plopped a few cans of beer (well, not me, as I am a Wine Person), and concluded All Was Very Well indeed.

Our Spot at the MetalCamp Camping. Very pleasant indeed! Notice the Party Tent. :worship:
Well then, on to the Order Of Play!
I'll just mention the bands I have good memories off over here, not all of them - partly because I can't remember (sorry), partly because I missed quite a few because of the dreadful weather, and partly because I didn't give a damn (sorry again).

July 3rd -
The OOP didn't show much bands we were particularly interested in, and as we took quite some time to get ourselves settled in, we missed quite a few. The guys and me split ways, as I wanted to at least check out Canadian Death Metalists Kataklysm -

- who put up a very solid display of Death Metal. I enjoyed it a lot.

Next on the OOP were Nightwish, 'Once' a band I happened to like a lot, but I have to admit... not that much anymore, the cause of that not as much being the departure of opera singer Tarja Turunen - I lost my interest before, as I happen to think that the quality of their material already went downhill ever since "Wishmaster". The band just got a little too 'big' for me, and I still well remember their fantastic "Oceanborn" all too well. And well the band themselves might well be very happy with their new singer Annette Olson, I just think she's no match to Tarja. AT ALL. Starting off their concert with a terrible out-of-tune scream from Annette, I decided it was time to get back to my tent and CRASH.

July 4rth -
Second on the OOP were Austria's Pride, Hollenthon.
I've seen the band perform live quite a few times before, and it's always been a very pleasant experience, even if all of the keyboards, choral singing, etc. admittedly come from the laptop. Their truly fantastic soundtrack-like tunes, full of excentric and exotic influences, most notably from "Domus Mundi" and "With Vilest of Worms to Dwell" are among my favourites from the genre of 'Symphonic Death Metal', and this concert once again proved these fellows' abilities just fine.

Us, enjoying Hollenthon.
After that, I just hang around at the festival terrain, until *Pluvius* once again decided to open the Floodgates... which forced me back to camping quite a bit earlier than I initially intended to, as such me missing both Satyricon and Belphegor, both fine Black Metal-bands that I regret not to have seen playing this time...

July 5th -
Uhm. Yeah. Weather was SO BAD that I kind-of missed ALL of the bands. I kid you not. :help:

And as it kept on raining Cats, Rats, Guinea Pigs, Gerbils & Dogs, we - of course - joined in in a bit of Card Play.
Eventually, we went out to see Graveworm and Lamb of God, though, but I just did a bit of shopping and roaming around in stead. Maarten and me were disgusted to hear that Dimmu Borgir had been postponed to play after 02:00 AM!!!

We (Maarten & me) decided not to stay around waiting in the mud & rain but set off to our tents in stead, where we put up our alarm clocks at 01:30 AM - only to sleep right through them, bah. Well, not entirely true - I was awake, and through the terrible rain and thunder, I could clearly hear Dimmu Borgir put up a GREAT show once again. I even kind of enjoyed listening to them once again. But well it's no secret that I LOVE them Norwegians.

Shagrat, Silenoz, Simen, Galder, & Co. - I raise a cup of Black-Hearted Angels' Blood to You! - and hope to see you performing elsewhere asap!

July 6th -
After a very harsh wake-up ~~(as the guys got themselves totally pissed during some vague After Party on the beach at the Tolminka river)~~, we headed for the stage once again, to see the Oldie Brits from Birmingham, aka Napalm Death put up their show.

Pleasant as always. The guys might have have toned down their politically correct-speeches for a bit, but well, the Slovenians *Ate It Like cake*, not surprising regarding their country's history I guess - and why not? Friendliness never hurts imho. I kinda liked it as well, to be honest. Solid, convincing performance from these sympathetic oldies.

Thereafter, it was Dragonforce's turn. Which means - HEAD FOR THE EXIT ASAP in our most humble opinions. ~~Remco asked me why I didn't show up in That Specific Notorious PINK T-SHIRT, as he thought it would really be appropriate. Thanks, nice, Remco.~~
Not going into that any further, as you might understand. *HELP*

July 7th -
Well after yet another night of heavy rainfall & thunderbolts, we crept out of our tents in a truly deplorable state. What Else to expect when attending a Metal Festival, eh?

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter
As usual, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter were very amusing, though I can't help but think they are a weaker spin-off of Rammstein. Nevertheless, a very entertaining show indeed. I enjoyed their show, if only because it didn't RAIN for once during their performance. :wink:

And then, the band ALL of us love, for over 15 years already - My Dying Bride!!!
One of the Big Three of Romantic Death/Doom Metal of the early 1990's, along with Paradise Lost and my most beloved Anathema, MDB has always been the band that stayed most true to their original roots, whereas Paradise Lost went astray ~~into oblivion~~ with their attempts of making Electro Pop, whereas Anathema succesfully embraced ProgRock and PostRock and got all the deserved accolades for that. :-D

My Dying Bride, however, continued to do what they are BEST at - and that's making atmospheric, romantic, *doom*. Unmatched in the genre, especially on albums like "Turn Loose the Swans" and my personal favourite, "Like Gods of the Sun".
Always a genuine stallwarth at any a festival where they play, MetalCamp was no exception to that rule.

My Dying Bride's singer Aaron Stainthorpe & bassist Lena, picture courtesy of Remco.
A lovely performance once again - all along the concert, the rain was pouring down on our heads, but somehow, whenever MDB performs, it seems to be rather *fitting*. MDB sings about *loss*, *LOSS*, *LOSS*, *sadness*, *SADNESS*, and *SADNESS* all the time, and it's a rather catharthic experience indeed. Making you feel happy from their being sad, if you get my meaning. Quite nice indeed. Romantic Doom the way it's intended to be.

Aaron 'Jesus Christ' Stainthorpe 'dies' about twenty times a concert every time, and so he did here again. :worship:
Love them fellows!

Okay, like I said, this is the 'Serious' part of my MetalCamp Report. Stay tuned for the Silly Bit, I trust you will enjoy it. :-D

Ah, the MUSIC!!!

2009-06-23T22:21:13Z

I haven't posted about one of my most beloved subjects for a while, but the love is still there. And it's not like there isn't anything happening in the Wonderful World of Contemporary Prog!

As you know I love a couple of bands that I've been following intensely for over fifteen years now (TWO, to be exact for this particular matter), and who still manage to astonish me with everything they come up with, be it their concerts or their recordings.

As such I was THRILLED with the news that Porcupine Tree will not merely embark on yet another major tour - this time including ALL of Europe, as well as the USA! - but, even more, doing so to promote their upcoming new album The Incident.

I count myself among the lucky ones who were as wise to immediately order tickets to their upcoming show at Amsterdam's Heineken Music Hall, October 12, a couple of months ago, as the place was sold-out in no time. And I have no doubts that that will be the case for the rest of the tour as well, as the band keeps on announcing additional shows...

But what astonishes me most is that Porcupine Tree's Head Honcho, the unmatchable Mr. Steven Wilson, has released his solo-album Insurgentes only a couple of months ago... and, now, again, a new PT Masterpiece in the Making, already?

It reminds me once again of that lovely evening I had meeting Anathema's Danny Cavanagh for the first time, in the corridors of Amsterdam's Paradiso quite a few years ago. He stood there, listening to the band he and his mates had just opened for, and all he could comment was...
"This is just TOO perfect! TALENT LIKE THAT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED!"
And that while the lovely fellow happens to be pretty talented himself...

Personally, I was very happy with the goods Mr. S.W. delivered on his Insurgentes-album. But, being a FAN of the guy, can you be really objective?

I'll just give it a try.
Besides a lot of very positive (perhaps even 'fanboy') reviews on ProgArchives.com, there was also a bit of grumbling to be read here-and-there, one of the reviewers openly questioning himself whether "Mr. Wilson's Star was already beginning to fade" (LOL at the 'already', btw).
The reviewer of major Dutch Metal Magazine Aardschok even went as far as to right-out say that he didn't like the album at all. Too much 'humbug' going on...

And in hindsight, I can well see where these opinions from the Men of Wood as Mr. S.W. calls them, came from.
Insurgentes lacks an overall defined musical direction, in other words, CONSISTENCY.

It's not like all the tracks aren't of very high quality - they are, especially the truly gorgeous tracks 'Harmony Korine' and 'Significant Other', showing off The Master's excellent capability of matching the Beach Boys, when it comes to properly using your vocal cords...

I think the major mistake that Steven made is that he just couldn't choose *what to do*, as the bloke happens to be able to cover ALL the extreme grounds in progrock just the same - on one bloddy album?
No wonder if you realize that he's responsible for 'Floyd-like heavy atmospheric prog with Tool-influences' with Porcupine Tree, 'melancholic romanticism' with Blackfield and No-Man, 'ambient Krautrock' with The Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, and 'heavy drones' with The Bass Communion. Yep, that about covers *all the extremes* there are to enjoy in Proggie Paradise.

And in stead of just chosing one or two of these abilities of his, he chose to showcase them ALL on Insurgentes. Which renders the listener being thrown back-to-front between all the genres I just mentioned within the time course of just a minute or five. As if he'd wanted to prove, "Hey, I just got this new fantastic idea as well, let me show it to you right now!" all the time, without *concluding* the initial idea properly. Steering it all into a dead alley at times, to be honest.

In all, 50 minutes time is just NOT ENOUGH to showcase all of his possibilities, yet he tried.
And failed in that, I have to say so.

But well, there's quite a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, as...

That message alone is enough to warm the hearts of all who genuinely love progrock already.
But I think there's more to it. The Master might well have realized himself that ONE album to show all of his abilities is just not enough.

As Porcupine Tree themselves comment on their website,
"The centre-piece is the title track, which takes up the whole of the first disc. The 55-minute work is described as “a slightly surreal song cycle about beginnings and endings and the sense that ‘after this, things will never be the same again’.”

Sounds like Prog Heaven!!!
My only question now is, what direction will they take on this?

Back to the old Floydian soundscapes of Up the Downstair and The Sky Moves Sideways? The poppy-but-very-dark-and-melancholic moves of both Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun? The Tool-approach, showcased on Deadwing and Fear of Black Planet? Or the majestic combination of ALL of that, like the band managed on their ultimate masterpiece so far, In Absentia?
I'm hoping on the latter.

Can you tell I'm rather exited? I guess you can.

And I'm not even yet done. I already mentioned Mr. Daniel Cavanagh... looking up on the heads-up on that Undisputed Other Main Love in Music of mine right now... Anathema, of course.

Oops. Didn't update for over three weeks. Well that will end RIGHT NOW. Bear with me!

2009-06-22T23:02:54Z

In the past three weeks I've been pretty busy with all kind of stuff.

I played a lot of Bridge on-line, and even returned on-the-scene in person, and even more, it seems there's a partnership in the making with the my Dearest Main Rival. Haha.
Now DMR has quite a reputation on the scene, most significantly for trying to beat his own bloody partner rather than his opponents, so this means quite something. Also our styles are completely different so many a misunderstanding comes around, either at the bidding stage or at defence.

At times, some things look pretty horrible between the two of us, but things also miraculously turn out for the better in some strange cases.
Past Thursday, I saw him open his hand with a Weak Two in Spades, vulnerable-against-not, and after a bit of thinking I decided to bid the Slam - 12 tricks. Quite a scary thing to do if you happen to know the sometimes really dreadful hands DMR opens on weak-two's, but I gathered him being vulnerable, his hand should have SOME kind of quality. Besides that, my own hand appeared such a power-house that I suspected the whole field to bid the game, so just doing that wouldn't score (Bridge is a POINTS-game after all - all you do the whole bloody evening is counting and doing-the-MATHS). As such, I decided to push him into the Spades Slam, counting on DMR to make just a little more of it than the rest of the field, as while my strength lies in bidding-technique, his surely is game-play.

Initial reaction?
"Nice you are, dumbhead, putting me in a Slam after a weak opening!"
Friendly eh. I, dummy (in the Bridge sense of the word first, but maybe in that other sense as well), made my way to the bar to fetch the so-much needed 'doping' (aka Beer & Red Wine), and when I returned to the table, he happily claimed the slam. But not without a hearty "Thanks, you idiot", of course.

I just had to laugh. Yes, it was BAD - but well, doesn't it say that Fortune Honours The Brave? Apparently his Weak Two was once again one of the 'tram tickets'-variation. Slam made with 4 points in his hand, and 16 in mine. Not bad. LOL.
Later on, we had a post-mortem (or rather a post-vivum) on this case. Said it was not such a bad decision from me at all. And well, eventually, who dares argue with success? (LOL)

This partnership could well bloom into something.

Talking about BLOOMING, here are a few pretty pictures of the lovely plants of which dear Chantal handed me over the seeds a couple of years ago:

That ANIMAL just reached a friggin' three meters of height!

On the other side of my hobbit home as well...

All shades of PINK. Chantal's Spirit LIVES!!!

Okay more to follow folks. I have yet some updates on La Palma to post as well. And on the MUSIC of course. And oh, by the way, I also visited a Tennis Tournament the past week.
Yay.

The BAD News...

2009-06-04T00:35:25Z

Well it took me quite a while to get over this news... might well be the Main Reason why I didn't manage to update lately, as well... this is so sad...

Chantal..., lovely lady, she's left us for good. Poor, lovely, lady!!!

Totally Absolutely Lovely! aka Tal (Enig Ding), we will all remember YOU.
Here's Chantal's Truly Dreadful Story.

I remember the LOVELY, and truly COLOURFUL LADY, that indeed she was...

She handed me over some seeds of this particular flowers last year:

and guess what... they are blooming right out there right now. Right there, in front of my own home.
In HER honour, no doubt about that! CHANTAL!!!

La Palma - Part I, El Caldera de Taburiente

2009-05-21T00:53:11Z

Good heavens, I haven't updated for nearly a month's time!!!

So sorry about that. Lots of things have happened in the mean time, some good, some (very) bad. Let's start off with the GOOD stuff...

As some of you may know, I am a fanatical long-distance hiker. Preferably through areas containing an abundancy of natural beauty. As such, Spanish island La Palma, so rightfully dubbed La Isla Bonita by both its inhabitants and the plenty nature-lovers that come visit the island alike, is indeed Hiker's Paradise!
"Spanish" might bring you in the wrong direction for a bit, btw. La Palma is one of the Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic, wayyyyy closer to Africa (Morrocan/Western Sahara-coast, to be exact) than to Spain - the Conquistadores did a good job of claiming it as their own back in the 15th/16th century...)

And hiking, we did! Our (Maarten & me) first job was, just like back in January 2008, to scale the illustrous Caldera de Taburiente, a giant 'crater'-like alpine environment which summits go up to some 2400 meters. With La Palma being actually a very small island - some 40 x 30 km at its broadest parts - you will understand why it is in fact the steepest island on planet Earth. And as such, it's quite a challenge for hikers, as more often than not, you'll have to climb ~~your ass off~~.

This is one of the pictures of last year's trip, as, silly bint as I am, I forgot to upload my camera's batteries, aaarrrccchhh!!!

"If you haven't been in the Caldera, you haven't seen La Palma."
Well that's a truth if ever I read one.

The funny thing about this hike, is that the 'official' route actually begins at the height of 1130 meters, to descend to 300 meters. You 'should' take a taxi via a very wobbly path to bring you up there.
Of course... hahah. "That's for PUSSIES," we happened to think, and decided immediately to climb the long way up. As a matter of fact, I think that the climbing part of the route - through a lovely agricultural area, all of it being in bloom - is not only the most demanding part of the route, but also the most beautiful. With every 50 meters or so that you climb, you'll get a new, breathtaking view of the Barranco de las Angustias, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.

It IS a bit of a challenge though... took us some two-and-a-half hours to make it to the top point, Los Brecitos, where the 'official' descent through the Caldera starts.
And well, let's just say - I made a mistake there. There was an official notice that a part of the trail was closed down due to some reconstruction work as a result of breakdown because of fallen rocks and the like. And I thought, "well what the Hell, I have quite a bit of experience in hiking in alpine surroundings, can't be all that bad..."

So we continued.
We passed through a lot of barrancos (canyons) formed by the little streams that carry the rainfall downwards. As one moves on, the majesty of the Caldera gets more visible by the minute, culminating in the Mirador del Lomo del Tagasaste at 830 meters - very impressive indeed!

At a certain point we reached the Barranco Bombas de Agua, and indeed, lots of 'Water Bombs' (Spanish is really quite easy to read - understanding it when Los Palmeros speak to you is 'quite' a different matter!) to be found there - lose, rounded rocks that fell off the rocky sides of the Caldera and which eventually grouped at the bottom of the valleys/canyons.

Well on-and-on-and-on from here, till suddenly, we bumped into the Big River - the Río de Taburiente. You'll have to cross the river a couple of times - not that easy, jumping from stone to stone, and hope you don't slip as the water runs very fast indeed, forming rapids all along the way. Needless to explain, our feet ended up being soaking wet. I wish I'd have bought Army Boots in stead of those floppy hiking shoes at that time, but more about that to follow...

Some time thereafter we reached the official camping site of the National Park - the Playa de Taburiente. Very nice to be able to give our water bottles a good refill and to relax for a moment, until the horror became very clear to us: The rest of the trail had been closed down! Oh, Shit. That would mean going all the way back, climbing back some 600 meters up, and of course, I started to think about an alternative route.

Wouldn't it be possible to just follow the river further downwards?
One would think so, eh? Or... wot???

************

I noticed there was another path, heading towards the Baranco de las Angustias.
Okay. That rather sounds like "ANGST" doesn't it? The 'Valley of FEAR'???
We should have realized we were making a mistake, there.

The path appeared to be manageable in the beginning, clearly indicated by the traditional 'Stony Men' - but it became harder and harder all along the way. I started to notice very steep, slippery parts of the route - and yes, fell on my ass a couple of times, only to just be able to grab some tree branches just in time to prevent me falling into -
a RAVINE. Off a cliff, onto the rocks! Well now I really understood that canyon's name...

At a certain point it became clear to us that we could go no further. The route was a dead end. Not in any way possible to follow the river downwards - ravines and rapids all along. So after some two hours of us trying to find ourselves a way down there, we concluded we should really get back *up* again. And that wasn't as easy as it sounds.

Here's a bit of a problem - as I am as small as I am, I have really small feet as well. A children's size as a matter of fact. And though I asked for really GOOD hiking shoes at the shop, I soon found out that I didn't have a percentage of the grip that Maarten had with his. So in fact I kept on slipping on the surface of erosion dust and fern needles, to a certain point where I had to grab a tree branch to in fact to prevent myself from falling off the cliff!

I have never ever before felt so freaking SCARED as at that moment!
I think I've been hugging that tree branch for at least half an hour. All the time, Maarten tried to help me get back on my feet, and moreover, to help me deal with my apparent fear of heights. I've noticed it before, whereas I never ever seemed to suffer that before - I've scaled the Alps, the levadas on Madeira, etc. without any problems - but on both my earlier hiking trip to La Palma, as well as my recent skiing journey in the Swiss Alps, it became clear that I DO have developped a certain fear of heights by now. Damn. Anyone know a good psychologist to help me get rid of it???
It's a rather strange feeling, suddenly not being able to stand on your feet anymore, feeling nauseous, etc... YUCK.

Some way or another, Maarten managed to get me out of there. Thanks Heavens Almighty for ROPE.
But I well remember sitting on the grass at the Playa de Taburiente-campsite for a quite a while, shivering, feeling... well, SICK. This is NOT something I'm gonna try again, that's for sure.

************

The ordeal wasn't over yet.
We had lost some three hours with our 'little detour', and it was already 17:30 PM, knowing we had the choice between either hiking BACK some 20 kms, involving some 600 meters of climbing, or walking on - for at least 20 kms as well, following a closed-down route!

Sounds like a classical choice between Scylla & Charibdis.
I made the decision of taking the officially closed-down route there. Yes it was barricaded, but I felt that after what I had been through already, it couldn't be as bad as what I had already experienced the few hours before. With good reasoning - as La Palma is located as much south as it is, I knew there wouldn't be much of a dusk-period - it would turn stark dark within a couple of hours, in a very short time-span. Climbing back would cost us three hours alone, and then another 20 km distance? Rather choose for the 20 km-descent route, would be much faster...

There were a couple of campers watching us when we in fact climbed over the fence, but nobody called us back - the 'Park Officials' - the Guardia Civil, in fact - had already left the place at that time of the day. And on we went! At high speed indeed, we calculated we should at least reach the Rio Taburiente within one hour, while it was still light.

Well we managed THAT, we actually *ran down* as fast as the stony mule-path permitted us to do. It was more a matter of running-and-jumping than hiking, really. The reason why the trail was closed down became clear - it wasn't at all dangerous, it was more a matter of the Working Men not wanted to get disturbed by the hikers while carrying out their job, which was quite a relief to find out. At least no risk of having to avoid rubble falling onto our heads or anything the like.

Down, down, and down we went, until we finally reached the stony bedding of the river. It must have been somewhere around 19:00 PM, and it was already getting dark.

Hiking through the river bed sounds easier than it if fact was. We were forced to cross the rapids unnumerous times - I well remember crossing the river by clining onto a water-pipe at a certain occasion - and it was getting DARK fast, with still some 15 kms to go. It became very clear to me that the workers still had a great job to do, as it was one big bunch of rocks, rapids and rubble to scale.

It started to get really dark around 20:00 PM, with still some 10 kms ahead of us.
Fortunately, I am an experienced hiker, which means the following stuff should ALWAYS be somewhere in your back-pack:
- some 4 litres of water;
- bananas, chocolate, in other words: plenty of high-calory food;
- a Swiss army knife (well in my occasion, I prefer the French variety, an Opinel;
- ROPE! Meters of ROPE! (don't know how I'd have survived hanging from that tree-branch otherwise);

and, besides a couple of cans of cerveza ...

- a TORCH!

Might I just say that thingie came in pretty handy, when jumping over rocks, crossing a rabid river in Pitch Dark??? Even Maarten was very happy I took that thing along, even wondered why I did so at the start of the hike.
Well eventually - it's always better to be safe than sorry...

We made it back to the mouth of the Barranco de las Angustias where we had parked the car some eleven hours before, at 22:30 PM. 38 kms, 800 meters of climbing/descending, not bad, if it weren't for that Scary Bit.

The first thing we did when we finally arrived at Puerto Naos again? Pop some of those cans of cerveza. And of course, emptied a bottle of Spanish Brandy (5 euro's the litre, there - LOL).

More to follow. This was in fact the Scary Part of the Hiking Adventure. Rest of it will be the LOVELY part... vulcano's, flowers, the beaches, the culture.

LOVE THAT ISLAND. I'll be back next year.

Spring... and Out Comez Teh Irresistibly Cute!

2009-04-21T22:44:16Z

Fantastic weather over here, and it's been going on for two weeks already. So, we're all enjoying the outdoors right now, as you have to take your chances when you get them. I've done lot of hiking the past few days, and one of the joys of hiking in Spring - Baby Birds everywhere! Geese, ducks, all kinds of grassland birds - the only problem is that you can't get them on film, as most often, they are too far away.

But not when you catch a complete family of Mummy Duck with her eight babies in the canal right behind the corner of your own home. :-)

Actually, I spotted the family a week ago already - they were with nine at that time. But still a survival rate of eight out of nine in two weeks time is very good - I'm sure the wonderful weather has something to do with that. As the weather forecast says it will remain that way for at least another three, four days, I guess chances are good for all of the remaining to survive.

When I die, please play this song -

2009-04-21T00:30:50Z

Loveliest song ever written. I think.

A Little Insight in "Life On The Road" - Part II

2009-04-20T21:04:01Z

Well just a little bit more from Das Bunk.

Apparently, Daniel Cavanagh's beloved Gibson Les Paul Studio-guitar disappeared Somewhere Along The Bus Station in Tunesia. I'd say it was indeed *nicked*. YUCK!!!

According to Mr. Darryl Anthony's blog, the thingie was retrieved from near the surroundings of the Tunis' Acropolium-venue a couple of days later - he received an anonymous tip-off pointing him towards an area of woodland close to the Acropolium where one of the fellows indeed found the damned thing, just sitting there - in the Woodlands???

So an IDIOT thought it a good idea to just *nick* a dedicated guitarist's instrument.
What an ASSHOLE that must have been.

Musicians have a true dedication towards their instruments, and Danny is no exception to that rule. I read his comments on his forum, and he was devastated. What a nasty thing to do!
Ignorant folks might think, well, "...get me another one of those guitars from the local pawn shop!..." - but that's just not the way it works with professionals like Danny. Profs like *that* truly HEART their instruments, and feel gutted when one of them has disappeared... not even to tell how much those instruments are in deed *customized*. Yep, I know, as even as I haven't touched mine for quite a while, I know how much we musicians indeed heart our beloved apparatus.

I was so glad to read that that guitar has been recovered. In the Woodlands!

Another True Case of LUCK to happen to The Cursed that are Anathema. NOT.

So happy to read that that guitar has indeed been found and retrieved to its legitimate owner, Danny...

A Little Insight in "Life On The Road" - Part I

2009-04-20T18:26:54Z

And harsh it is at times. To some more than to others.
Darryl Anthony, "...a guitar technician with acclaimed rock band Anathema and others, reporting from the tourbus...." has recently written a report on the band's touring experience in Carthage, Tunesia, on his blog, Das Bunk.
It's a good read - on a horrible story.

Apparently, the band's first ever-gig in Tunesia was first postponed and a few days later, cancelled, "... as somebody had informed the Tunisian interior ministry that Anathema are Satan worshippers who eat black cats and drink their blood."

Dixit Danny Cavanagh: "If you read any of our lyrics, you'll see nothing could be further from the truth than what's been said. We don't even swear in our songs, a lot of lyrics are about healing, and light, and are very positive. We're just normal lads - the last band you could accuse of Satanism.

I think all it was was a rival promoter using any means he could to get the show cancelled and using the magic words 'heavy metal' worked. But there's been a lot of misinformation. It could have been our promoter at that end didn't have the papers in order." (from The Liverpool Echo. Well, you've finally made it into the local press, laddies...)

Splendid. ~sigh~

A lot of misinformation, indeed.
Yes, Anathema did start off as a doom/death metal band (and a bloody good one at that!) - but that was 15 years ago! Since then, they've managed to develop into the loveliest of a prog/post-rock band imaginable - with lyrics constantly dealing with "Loss and Love" in all its forms - from experiencing disaster & despair to finding back hope & coping with one's losses and disappointments - in all, about finding redemption in the beauty and love that still surrounds us all, however down-and-out we are at times - if only we force ourselves to open our eyes and see it. Or rather, in this particular case, to open our EARS and hear it!
As Danny has corrected me quite a couple of times already: "Our songs aren't sad, they are... uplifting". Word on that, Danny!

Their music has been a true comfort to 10,000's of people all across 'our shitty little planet'.
What a dreadful mistake of that Tunesian ministry to not let their over 1000 Tunesian fans be allowed to feel that comfort for themselves in a live setting - after all, still by far the best way to experience Anathema's beautiful music. As a Tunesian fan stated it on their forum - "They should be ashamed of themselves!"

You can say that again. And why-oh-why do these horror stories always happen to Anathema?
Oh, of course. What can you expect if your band name actually means 'Curse'...

More to follow, more to tell -