October 10, 2009. De Pul, Uden (NL)
Damian Wilson
called his spectacular live performance at De
Pul in Uden ‘a perfect celebration’. The concert took place just a day before
his birthday. The concert that Damian and his backing band gave had such an
impact on me that I almost forgot Dutch band
FeedForward, the support act that performed a few hours earlier.
When they started their set with
a great instrumental intro, I thought the band had changed their musical style
to progressive rock. The intro differed a lot from the moderate music on their
debut album Barefoot & Naked.
However, I will make an exception for the strong instrumental piece
Moving. They performed this
Dream Theater-like
piece at the end of the set, but the new song
Confused sounded as most
of the material from their debut album: a mixture between prog rock and melodic
metal. Guitarist Mario van de Bogaard
is capable enough to play fantastic solos just like keyboardist
Job,
but in general, the compositions are too mediocre. New female singer
Patrice replaced
Bienjanka who went back to
Finland. She performed the best way she could, but she
couldn’t change my final judgement: an average band with a moderate repertoire.
The Damian Wilson Band started exactly half
past ten. For me, Damian had his most successful musical period being a member
of Landmarq. I still listen to
outstanding albums as Solitary Witness and
Infinity Parade on a regular basis.
Therefore, it gave me a lot of pleasure when the band started with
Forever Young. The show
became rather special when Damian stepped into the audience and had a quick
chat with some people including myself. It was a special event for him too,
because back in 1993, Landmarq did their first gig outside the UK in the same venue.
After this great
start, the audience could enjoy music from Damian’s back catalogue. The band
performed a remarkably strong medley from
Rick Wakeman’s
King Arthur.
Chris Mars did a great job by accurately
playing Rick’s fabulous keyboard solos. After a fine rendition of
Ayreon’s
Into The Black Hole and
a rather moderate version of Starship Trooper
(Yes)
everybody
left stage. I had expected a better ending for this classic Yes piece.
Next, an acoustic set followed
that showed a quiet and subdued side of Damian Wilson. First, he sang a couple
of songs accompanied by himself on acoustic guitar. During the set, more
musicians entered the stage to join him. Keyboardist
Nic Slack made everybody laugh by playing a short piece taken from
Monty Python. Damian’s younger brother Paul Wilson
did some fine harmony vocals with his
brother. Most songs of the acoustic set were taken from Damian’s first solo
album Cosmas.
This is a mellow album, which also features the audience’s favourite
Homegrown.
This fine song brought all the other musicians back on stage.
Towards the end of the
show, Damian played another Landmarq-song. I got almost tears in my eyes during
the performance of Solitary Witness.
The keyboard parts by Chris Mars were not the same as on the
original recording, but it didn’t matter at the time. However,
Ruud Jolie turned
out to be a guitarist who plays very strong guitar solos. That is something he
almost never does in his own band Within Temptation.
When I said so after
the show, he told me that people often make this remark. After Ayreon’s
The Castle Hall,
with a strong guest performance of singer
Marjan Welman, Chris Mars had a
surprise in store for Damian. The band and the audience sang
Happy Birthday Dear Damian together. “If
I had enough money to spend I would have given everybody something to drink”,
he joked. Instead, he got a beer from the manager of Dutch prog rock band
Casual Silence and then someone
from the audience gave him a very big glass of Leffe, a first class Belgian beer.
The regular set ended with Threshold’s
Sanity’s End.
Afterwards there was
another birthday surprise when a nice lady entered the stage and gave Damian a slice
of a birthday cake. Now the party really started and Damian asked the audience
which songs they would like to hear. I asked for
Pilot In The Sky Of Dreams
from the latest Threshold-album. Although he heard my request, many more titles
were mentioned. One of them was Johnny B. Goode,
an old rock-and-roll song written by Chuck Berry
in 1958. Ruud Jolie picked up the tune and soon the band joined. Damian had to
sing the lyrics whether he liked it or not. This somewhat weird, but funny
performance of The Damian Wilson Band
ended with another piece of rock. If You Want Blood
from AC/DC got
a short, but rather good guest performance from a real talent in the audience.
This gig by The Damian
Wilson Band was a night to remember. Luckily, the whole show was filmed with
several cameras. I sincerely hope that the images will capture the spirit of
the evening, so that we can enjoy this concert repeatedly on DVD.
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)