Mangrove May 28, 2011 - W2, 's Hertogenbosch (NL) Exactly two years ago, Dutch progressive rock outfit Mangrove released their critical acclaimed album Beyond Reality (see review). As always, the band played an entire version of this album during a very successful release party (see review). The whole show was at the time recorded on film, including a special set of the bands live favourites. It was not always clear if those recordings would appear on a DVD. The good quality of the material made them decide to release it as Live Beyond Reality (see review), especially for their dedicated fans.
But it never did have any influence on the musicians as it turned out. The five musicians gave a very professional live performance just like the audience are used to hear. They did not play the whole performance from the DVD one more time but did play a selection from the bands repertoire. A song that the fans hadn't heard for a long time was chosen to open the show. Hidden Dreams (taken from Facing The Sunset) once again proved that the band is more a live band than a studio band. The live version of this track sounded much better than its studio
The 'flow' of Zone III and its transition into Fatal Sign was next, just like you can enjoy on the DVD. It was followed by another classic Mangrove piece. After City Of Darkness, another song with a beautiful climax ended the regular set. Voyager was not a real goodbye for the band because two more great progressive rock tunes were done during the encore. However the audience had to wait a couple of minutes before they could hear the first encore There Must Be Another Way. Bass player Pieter Drost used the short break to visit the toilet before he was ready to give the spectators some more enjoyments! The title track from their latest release finished off a concert that hardly contained any mistakes. The only time that Chris Jonker's synthesizer was out of tune was something beyond his control. I am not sure if I mentioned the free candy bars that were thrown into the audience. Anyway, it was something which I hadn't seen before during a rock concert. Again I watched Mangrove giving a superb performance. Henri Strik (edited by Robert James Pashman) |
All Rights Reserved Background Magazine 2013 |