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iOPages Festival (Day 2)
Knight Area, iOEarth, Iona & Credo
April 16, 2011 - De Boerderij, Zoetermeer (NL)
For many people the program
of the second day of the iO Pages Festival was a good reason to make the trip
to De Boerderij anew. Unfortunately the festival wasn't sold out, though I
think that many people had expected it to be with a line-up consisting of
Knight Area,
IO Earth, Iona and Credo.
In the past a single concert
of Iona could produce a full house, but they already gave two other
well-received gigs in The Netherlands. That might have been the reason that the
venue wasn't packed. However, fact is that Iona attracted the most visitors on
the second day of the festival.
Knight Area
Just like the first
day (see review iO Pages Festival, Day One) a Dutch band kicked off. Knight
Area are busy recording their fourth studio album, so they liked to show the
audience that they currently belong to the best prog rock bands in the country.
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| Gijs Koopman & Mark Vermeule |
The set was mainly dominated by songs taken from the latest studio album
Realm Of Shadows: the strong opening tune
A Million Lives,
the fine instrumental piece Momentum,
but the audience could also enjoy Ethereal,
Dark Souls and the epic
piece Occlusion.
Summerland, a song with different moods,
was the only taster from the upcoming new album. It
contains rather mellow parts, but also music played in a higher gear. Toward
the end the audience could enjoy a splendid guitar solo by
Mark Vermeule
that he repeated at the end of Mortal Brow.
He currently plays the solo
much better than he did when he had to take over from
Rinie Huigen, who left
the band a couple of years ago. I would like to give a special mention for the
short statement bassist Gijs Koopman made
before starting Mastermind.
He told the audience that
he lives in the same place where a week earlier a young man had killed six
innocent people at a shopping mall. He dedicated the song to the victims of the
shooting. Fortunately Knight Area brought the audience in a happier mood with
their fine progressive rock music.
IOEarth
For me, the next band to
perform was one of the reasons to visit the second day. In my opinion IO Earth
made one of the most impressive albums of 2009 (see review). I wondered if they could perform
this melting pot of musical styles on a live stage. While listening to the
album you'll sometimes hear complex passages that seem hard to perform on stage.
However, I had to wait until the third song before I got a serious answer,
because IO Earth started with two new tracks.
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| Linda Odinsen |
Moments had some Arabian
and Spanish influences. Apart from the keyboards, founding member
Adam Couch played the rhythm guitar
as well, but he left the lead guitar solos in the capable hands of
Dave Cureton, the
other founding member. The audience could also witness the brand-new female
singer Linda Odinsen
from Norway. She replaced Claire Malin
who got
pregnant lately. Unfortunately Linda's voice got a bad mix, so you could hardly
hear how good she actually was. After this strong piece,
Finest Hour
the second new song was next featuring Dave Cureton on
lead vocals and Winston Churchill on tape. This song also proved the new album to
be something to look out for. The next songs performed were all taken from the eponymous
debut album. Storyteller
included some fantastic guitar parts by Dave Cureton. His brother
Richard Cureton, who looked a bit like
Alan Morse
(Spock's Beard),
proved to be an excellent musician as well. His drum parts are
very important on the album giving the songs the right grooves that I also heard
during the live versions. After this track Dave Cureton showed that he had
learned some Dutch from a Dutch friend. The sentence 'mag ik een biertje,
alstublieft?' which means 'can I have a beer, please' was followed by 'alleen
als jij betaalt'. This made a lot of people laugh since it means 'only if you
pay'. During Smokey Wood
Luke Shingles got
a leading role on the saxophone. This time Linda
Odinsen sounded loud and crystal clear. The band ended the regular set with
Light And Shade, but it got another
rendition compared to the original album track. This time they included the guitar
melody of Popcorn, a
famous early synthy pop instrumental originally composed by
Gershon Kingsley
in 1969. It became a big hit in 1972 by Hot Butter.
It once
more showed what an excellent guitar player Dave Cureton is. He can play
delicately like Andy Latimer,
but also forcefully and rapidly like Steve Vai.
IO Earth was the first band that was asked for
an encore by the audience. It was well-deserved, because all songs performed
from their debut album sounded excellent. After the encore
Harmonix the
musicians got a resounding ovation showing that the Dutch audience loved their
music a lot. After their impressive debut album, it's fair to say that IO Earth
are also an impressive live unit.
Iona
In October 2009 I witnessed
a concert by Iona in the city of Zwolle (see review). Then the band already gave
a 'sneak preview' of the upcoming studio album. With songs as
Let Your Glory Fall and
The Ancient Wells
they proved to be on the right track. At this moment the new album
Another Realm is nearly completed. The band
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| Joanne Hogg & Dave Bainbridge (background) |
members wrote so many songs from which they had to make a choice that eventually
they decided to release it as a double-CD in September 2011. I guess the fans
of the band will have no problem at all with such a release comprising only new
material. Their short tour in The Netherlands included three concerts that served
as a try-out for the new songs. Therefore six songs from
Another Realm were
performed at the festival. They started with
The Ancient Wells a piece we could already enjoy in Zwolle. This is
a typical Iona-piece with a leading role for
Martin Nolan on the Uillean pipes, followed by a strong version of
Flight Of The Wild Goose,
one of my favourite tracks from their
eponymous debut album (1990). The title track of the new album sounded a bit
mediocre, but I guess you have to listen more often to it. Two classic Iona-pieces
were performed before we could enjoy four new tracks in a row.
Encircling and
Edge Of The World
sounded perfect and appealed very much to the audience. The new tracks
An Atmosphere Of Miracles and
Let Your Glory Fall contained
excellent guitar solos by Dave Bainbridge,
although
the latter song got a false start. Joanne Hogg
started to sing
prematurely after the drum intro by Frank van Essen.
After the gig I
asked her why they restarted the song since hardly anybody was familiar with it.
She explained that the keyboard sequencers had already started. The band had to
follow them otherwise the whole song would have gone wrong. For me, the saddest
song of the new material was Ruach,
a Hebrew word meaning 'moving air in the form of a breeze, breath or
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Left to right: Martin Nolan, Phil Barker, Joanne
Hogg & Frank van Essen |
wind'. The way Van Essen played the violin was breathtaking and together with Bainbridge's
keyboards this piece sounded like a classical piece. Memories of the Holocaust
came to mind during the performance of this beautiful song. The last new track
was introduced as a sort of Encircling, part 2.
White Horse
certainly moved in the same direction with a stunning guitar solo. Without
doubt White Horse belongs to one of the
best tracks on Another Realm.
Before the final song Joanne told the audience
that the Dutch and Irish people have much in common. Therefore she finds it
strange that no-one starts to dance when the band performs a reel or a jig. In
Ireland people can hardly stand still when they perform
Castlerigg/Reels.
For some people this remark was a sign to dance when the band started to play
this track, but it was easy to tell that they had no experience at all. Just listening
and enjoying this classic piece was just enough for them. I had expected the
band to return for a final encore. I had Irish Day
in mind, but it seemed that the time
they had spent to get the sound right had lasted too long. After the final
notes they left the stage to make room for the final band. Bad luck since the
two encores Irish Day and
Be-Se I Mo Shuil, part 2 that were written
on the set list, would have been nice extra's. However, even without the encores
the band did a strong performance. Maybe they could have played some older
material, instead of playing a lot of new music, but that's the only remark I
got.
Credo
Seemingly, British band
Credo have gained a strong following in The Netherlands. I expected many people
to leave after the concert of Iona because they too have a strong following in
our country, but I was wrong. A rather large audience stayed to witness a
concert that turned out to be one of the highlights of day two. It certainly
helped the band a lot playing in front of many people. Right from the start Credo
demonstrated that they are top-notch in the neo-prog genre.
Round And Round was
a strong opener wherein all instruments sounded perfectly; the band appeared to
be in great shape. Lead singer Mark Colton
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| Mark Colton |
said that it was great to be back in The Netherlands. This comment
marked the start for him to tell jokes and funny stories. After
Skintrade it
was time to perform a song from their upcoming album
Against Reason. During the introduction of
Insane a microphone had some technical
problems. For Colton, who was dressed in a shirt with skulls on it again, that
incident was the right moment to tell some jokes. He probably would have become
a stand-up comedian were it not that fate decided otherwise. Next was
Intimate Stranger, a second strongly
performed new piece. Then the band returned to their latest studio album
Rhetoric (2005). With
The Game the
audience got another fine and recognizable tune before
Ghosts Of Yesterday,
another new piece filled the
concert hall. You could easily conclude that this song had been practiced a lot
for it sounded perfect. With
Too Late...To Say Goodbye the band returned
to the more epic tracks. The last song of the regular set was the one which
could be heard on the band's website as a teaser for the new album. Therefore
it sounded already familiar to me. At the start of the band's performance Mr.
Colton already told the audience that if they would make enough noise they
would leave the stage and come back for an encore. However, at the end of the
regular set he probably was too exhausted to leave the stage, so he only asked the
people whether they wanted another song. Well, who wouldn't say yes to such a request?
I even asked if they could do two more and in a way I was right for the song
they had planned to perform is a combination of two separate tracks. It starts
with From The Cradle... and ends with
...To The Grave, a
perfect ending for a live show. This track has an unbelievable climax wherein all
band members can give everything they got...left. Indeed, when the song was over it
looked as if Mark Colton had blown away his final breath; he could hardly stand
on his feet. With a satisfying look in his eyes he just sat there knowing that Credo
had conquered the hearts of the Dutch again with their astonishing prog rock.
It not only sounds as a cliché it is, but Credo's strong live performance formed
a perfect ending of the second day of the iO Pages Festival, a day with four
outstanding bands on stage. A big hand for the organizers!
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)
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