Seventeen years ago
two progressive rock bands from the UK decided to do a double headliner tour.
They called it the “Lurv Ambassadors Tour”. Unfortunately I never did see any
of those shows. Those two bands
Jadis and
Shadowland wanted to
relive the past so announced the LURV AMBASSADORS TOUR 2010 which would bring
them to countries such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The only Dutch
show was held at the Boerderij in Zoetermeer. Last year Shadowland also visited
this venue for their comeback tour. Too bad that I could not attend this
concert because the flu was at that time my worst enemy.
So it was again with
some elements of illness entering my body a couple of days before this special
event, but this time I beat it! The band that had the task to warm up the crowd
had not done any concerts in the last three years. So I was very curious to see
how Jadis would perform after their long absence. With
Martin Orford (keys) and
John Jowitt
(bass) in their line up the band had done some excellent
concerts in the past. But both had left the band several years ago and others
musicians had the difficult task to pick where Orford and Jowitt had left off,
and to forget about those brilliant musicians.
One of them even came originally from Rome in Italy. But I have to admit that
Giulio Risi
made a strong impression behind his keyboards. Better as the silent
one on the bass guitar.
Andy Marlow
just did his thing and nothing more.
After some Dutch words (Goeden avond/Good evening) lead singer and guitarist
Gary Chandler promised
the crowd that they were going to do hear bits of all the albums released, yet
I had the impression that most of the songs came from their latest album,
Photoplay.
Certainly not one of their best albums ever. The song that was written before
anybody knew anything about mobile phones was certainly one of the first
highlights.
Follow Me To Salzburg
dates from the bands very early days
and is still a very strong piece that should have been on their best album
ever,
More Than Meets The Eye.
The tracks taken from that album should
also be mentioned as the other highlights of the bands live performance. Songs
such as
Sleepwalk,
G.13 and
The Beginning And The End were
welcomed with a lot of cheering, and certainly made a lot of hearts beat
faster. The whole concert lasted 80 minutes and was not bad at all, but I
certainly believe I could have seen a better band when this show was done at
the end of the new Lurv Amabassadors Tour instead of at the start.
The other band, Shadowland, sounded very strong right
from the start when they opened with
The Hunger.
It certainly makes a
difference if a band had been on the road before in the same line up one year
earlier playing the same kind of songs. People also told me that front man
Clive Nolan
was less shy as on the other tour in which he sometimes stood with
his back to the crowd. I did not see him doing that during the Boerderij gig.
His vocals were also very strong and very confident as he confided with us by
sharing little anecdotes and short stories in between the songs. Such as the
impressive story about a girl who he felt in love with during his time at
school. She told him that thinking costs a 1000 pounds! A kiss on the cheek was
all that he got before she jumped and killed herself a few days later. This
girl got the name Alice and that’s what the track
Trough The Looking Glass is all about. Another track
(
Dreams Of The Ferryman) deals about a
nightmare that has returned to him over the last 20 years. But sometimes he did
not even remember what a song is all about when he wrote it. This happened to
him with the track
The Seventh Year.
Mr Nolan almost forgot to play a
certain song from the setlist that was not even written on a piece of paper at
all! After
Jigsaw
he remembered that they had forgotten to do
The
Kruhulick Syndrome so they went on and played it.
Also enjoyable were also the stories about
Mark Westwood’s theory of serial killers, and
Shadowland in 3D. The band has right from the start always had cautionary tales
in mind, as Clive explained. Good examples are the tracks
Half Moon Street and the encore
Ring Of Roses.
The last song also had a nice anecdote of the
time when they drove from Germany to a venue in the Netherlands. Sleeping pills
provided by their bass player at the time (
Ian Salmon)
made them
very sleepy. A couple of Jack Daniels bottles were the only cure to stay awake.
But it turned out that they got very drunk on stage and
Ring Of Roses lasted
a bit longer as usual. You might ask yourself how well was the music performed?
Well, they were more than okay, I can tell you. Even under those sorts of
conditions they were still consummate musicians. Most of all the beautiful
guitar solos done by
Karl Groom
on songs such as
The Seventh Year and
Through The Looking Glass
were breathtaking. The keyboards played by
Mike Varty
sounded also brilliant. This man is a very talented musician
and Clive must be very lucky to have him on board. The bass parts done by Mark
Westwood were very sober and never really got a leading role in the music.
Drummer
Nick Harradence
had the opportunity of a sort of solo spot on
Half
Moon Street
and played his parts throughout the set rather strong without
making any mistakes, insofar as I could hear. The 100 minutes of music done by
Shadowland were certainly a real treat for my ears. This performance again
showed that a band led by Clive Nolan only gets on stage when everything is
done in a very professional way. It was obvious that Shadowland impressed me
more than Jadis did, but I was very glad that I could see them once more after
such a long time.
Henri Strik (edited by Paul Watson)