It's almost a tradition! At the end of the year the members of the British prog band Mostly Autumn (MA) cross the North Sea in order to give some Christmas shows in the Netherlands. This time three shows were booked: the first one was in Bergen op Zoom, the second one in Heerlen and the last one in venue Estrado in Harderwijk. The last one was a Sunday afternoon show and also the gig closest to my home town. For me this was the perfect place to witness the 2013 Xmas show by MA.

Mrs Josh (Olivia Sparnenn)

Soon after the band had started I found out that surprises couldn't be expected this time. Maybe the only surprise was the fact that Anne-Marie Helder had returned in the band to sing the backing vocals and to play the additional keyboard and occasional flute parts. I missed her presence during the band's performance earlier this year at the DRU Cultuurfabriek in Ulft (see review), although her replacement Hannah Hird did a rather good job! Drummer Alex Cromerty replaced Gavin John Griffiths again, which he did very well. He shared the rhythm section with veteran Andy Smith on bass guitar, who played from time to time some very groovy parts. He even played groovier than during the usual MA gigs, which could be clearly heard whilst playing the classic opening tune Winter Mountain. Other classic tunes that were performed on

Andy Smith

this Christmas show were Evergreen, The Last Climb, Never The Rainbow, Nowhere To Hide, Passengers and the first encore Heroes Never Die. Most of those songs included amazing guitar solos by Bryan Josh.

This time Slow Down, a track from Josh's solo album Through These Eyes (2008, see review) was performed, although I had preferred another album track of MA. Slow Down isn't a typical song from the band's repertoire since it sounds more in the direction of blues rock. Of course the performance of Bryan's spouse Olivia Sparnenn - who was introduced by her husband as Olivia Sparnenn Josh - was again outstanding, but that's no surprise, I think. She already shone brightly on MA's latest album The Ghost Moon Orchestra (2012, see review). Live on stage she really is a superb singer, which she insistently proved during songs like Unquiet Tears, Questioning Eyes and the second encore Tonight.

The two invited girls

MA ended their final Dutch show with three Christmas songs. The first one was a beautiful version of Holy Night only performed by Olivia on vocals and Iain Jennings on keyboards. After this song the other musicians joined them on stage wearing Christmas caps and hats. First they played my all-time favourite Christmas tune being I Believe In Father Christmas, a composition by Greg Lake (ELP). This piece was followed by Merry Xmas Everybody, the usual cover by Slade sung by guitarist Liam Davison. Just as in previous years they picked out two girls from the audience to do some extra backing vocals and to play the tambourines. This time they chose two sisters who wonderfully sang the lyrics of this Slade song.

After this final number of this Christmas concert the musicians left the stage again with a big smile on their faces, knowing that they had entertained their fans with a great live show. Maybe they could have entertained them even more if they had adjusted the set list with tracks that couldn't be enjoyed that often in recent years. However, I guess that they just wanted to do an excellent show by playing songs which are familiar by all of the musicians. Mostly Autumn have become a well-oiled machine that is able to perform a great live show with wonderful songs!

Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)