Prog Adventures 2014

I thought it was about time that I reported back on some of the live shows I’ve had the pleasure to experience this year.  First up was The Crimson ProjecKt at Shepherd’s Bush Empire (March 12^th) – and it was a doozy! Essentially, the band is two separate groups stuck together – Stick Men (King Crimson’s Tony Levin and Pat Mastelloto with Markus Reuter on stick) and the Adrian Belew Power Trio (Crimson’s Belew, with Julie Slick on bass and Tobias Ralph on drums). For any given song (not that ‘song’ is always the right way to describe what these folk do), the line-up on stage changes as required, either playing as their parent trios or coming together in various combinations to perform a kind of uber-tribute to the mighty Crim. I’d seen the Double Trio version of Crimson performing at the same venue many years ago and I always rate that as one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. I’d been worried it all might somehow come across as Crimson-lite, but the whole band were great and the sound was crystal clear (although Julie Slick often seemed completely lost in the mix) which made the interplay between drummers Pat Mastelloto and Tobias Ralph a particular treat. It was actually my second time seeing Stick Men, as Mrs B and I had seen them supporting Porcupine Tree in Madrid a few years back.

On to April, and Goldfrapp at the Hexagon in Reading. I’ve been a big fan of Goldfrapp since their groundbreaking debut, and caught Alison and the band promoting their latest album (Tales of Us) at Hammersmith in November last year. A few months on and they were back in the provinces, albeit without the string section that had provided such a lush backdrop to their dreamy sound back then. Not that it mattered as the fragile songs from Tales of Us remained just as haunting and beautiful. The second half of the gig showcased more of their older material, the grooves underpinning songs from Black Cherry and Supernature taking no prisoners and demanding that we all take to our feet and shake some wobbly bits.

Two days later, and I was in London to see ace Polish proggers Riverside. It was a bit of a nightmare drive (2 hours of hell) and I only got to the venue a few minutes before the band hit the stage. They were great, but it was one of those nights when things conspire to undermine your enjoyment. Being late, I couldn’t get as close to the action as I would’ve liked, and I also found myself on the side of the venue next to the bar – never good, as (a) the bar flies are generally less interested in the music and more interested in conversation, and (b) people are constantly pushing past you in their quest for alcohol, often precariously balancing 3 or 4 plastic pint glasses in their hands. Just before the band did hit the stage, a whole family (mum and dad and two teenage kids) pushed past and promptly set themselves up a couple of rows in front of me. They then proceeded to talk through the whole gig (admittedly I couldn’t hear them but it’s just very distracting) while mum constantly raised her mobile high up above her head – right in my line of vision, of course – so she could video parts of the songs. To top it all, the family then had a session of taking selfies in various combinations with the band playing in the background. Tossers! If that wasn’t bad enough, I was also standing next to a guy who wanted to be an opera singer – he had an amazingly powerful voice, but hearing him bellowing out his own accompaniment (not just singing along, but creating whole new melodies) was a tad annoying to say the least.

Thankfully, I had a second chance at enjoying Riverside as Mrs B and I saw them a few days later down in Bristol. The whole thing was much more civilised – nice meal beforehand on the river and then getting right to the front, meaning (a) you could see everything, (b) no one could push past you and (c) there were no idiots in front of you taking pictures on their bloody mobile phones. Excellent! And the gig really was – I enjoyed it soooo much more than the London show. As a bonus, we were there early enough to catch the support band, Votum, and they were highly entertaining too. In fact, I bought their latest album after the show and I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop in the next year or so.

The following week I was in Leamington Spa to catch Gazpacho, from Norway. The Assembly is a lovely, spacious venue and I got right to the front again – not difficult as there were only a handful of people there, which was a real shame. Having endured the terrible support band, Se Delan, I was intrigued to see what Gazpacho would be like. They were promoting their new album Demon – I’d heard it streaming on the internet just a few weeks before and had immediately been hooked. It is a truly stunning piece of work. I had no expectations of what the band would be like live, but they didn’t disappoint. In fact, it really was one of the best live concerts I’ve ever seen, which is even more impressive when you consider I didn’t know the majority of the songs they played. The three tracks they did play from Demon were breathtakingly good and I only hope they play some more gigs soon, as I can’t wait to experience them live again – particularly now that I'm more familiar with their excellent back catalogue and albums like March of Ghosts, Tick Tock and Night.

The beginning of May saw me in Islington to catch IQ at the launch show for their new album, The Road of Bones. I first saw IQ at their debut headline at the Marquee club in Sept 83, and I’ve been to well over 100 shows since then, including shows in Germany, Holland and Belgium. Over the years I’ve been to some absolutely brilliant gigs, which actually makes it quite hard for the band - through no fault of anything that they do (or don’t do) - to live up to my personal expectations. I must admit, I prefer their earlier material but it was still nice to see them performing some new songs with such enthusiasm. You never get a bad IQ gig and this was an enjoyable evening (at least once Matt Stevens had finished executing his crimes against guitar playing during his warm up slot) even if it didn’t reach the heady peaks of some of the shows of my youth.

Two days after IQ and Mrs B and I headed to Heathrow to fly out to Prague for a few days. We had a wonderful time in the city and caught the ever-magnificent Steve Hackett and band performing their Genesis Revisited set. The gig was (of course) great and it was lovely to see some tracks in the set that hadn’t been played on the previous legs of the tour – Lilywhite Lilith has always been a particular favourite (a small but perfectly formed slice of prog) although I was disappointed it didn’t segue into some sort of Waiting Room-esque jam. The venue had great character even if the crowd appeared eerily unmoved throughout the music (some might say A Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging??), only to spring to life with enthusiastic applause between songs. Who knows what they thought of the crazy English couple air-drumming in unison in Row 4?? Steve had invited us backstage afterwards but as always we were too shy to go and say hello. As it happened, we were sharing the same hotel as the band and bumped into the legendary Nick Beggs at breakfast!

We were back from Prague on the Thursday and, that night, I was due to go and see Yes at the Royal Albert Hall. Unfortunately, by the time we got back home I felt terrible and never made it to the show. I’m gutted about that, particularly as I was seriously tempted to see them in Oxford earlier in the tour but decided against it. They were playing all of The Yes Album, Going for the One and Close to the Edge, so some seriously good music would’ve been guaranteed. I was really excited to see how Geoff Downes (one of my boyhood musical heroes, having seen him with the original Asia at Wembley back in 1982 for my second ever gig) handled some of Rick Wakeman’s parts. I’ve not seen the band since they split with Jon Anderson so it would’ve also been interesting to see new singer Jon Davison. Hopefully they’ll come back soon and play some gigs in support of their new album, Heaven and Earth. Here’s hoping it’s better than the last one!

That leave the most recent gig this year, when I headed back to Islington for Katatonia at the Union Chapel. I’ve not seen the band live before and this was a special acoustic show following their acoustic reinterpretation of the Dead End Kings album (Dethroned and Uncrowned). I enjoyed the gig a lot, even though I didn’t know quite a few of the older songs, and the setting was very atmospheric. I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed that they used so many backing tracks - is it just me, or does that not seem completely against the whole point of the acoustic theme of the night? Okay, so having a string quartet on stage might have been prohibitively expensive, but why not just get a proper keyboard player in? Why not get the guy on percussion to play some rhythms rather than have him sat shaking a shaker while a drum machine plays in the background? I suppose in some ways I felt a bit cheated. That said, I bet the DVD of the show will look and sound great when it comes out.

So, that’s it for the year so far. Next up – the Celebr8.3 festival in (obviously) Islington.

Prog on!