Pallas March 1, 2012 - W2, Den Bosch (NL)
I think people, who saw Pallas perform
on the first day of the iO Pages Festival in 2011 (see review), will agree that
they gave an amazing concert then. That night I was speechless by their
excellent performance, so I was delighted that the band announced more concert dates
later that year. However, they had a run of bad luck.
Pallas was forced to cancel two European shows, because the new vocalist
Paul Mackie had to be urgently operated
upon the sinus. This also meant that
they had to cancel the only Dutch show in Den Bosch on Sunday, October 15.
Instead a new show was planned on the first of March at W2 in Den Bosch.
The band started overwhelming with Fragments Of The Sun before they presented the first piece of XXV. Due to the slide show at the back of the stage I slipped into another world. Those images of a future world bring the story of XXV much closer to the audience. It looked like being on another planet and also the music could have come from outer space, although Falling Down, Crash And Burn, Monster and The Alien Messiah didn't sound like space rock at all. On the contrary! This is pure progressive rock of the highest possible level. Some older fans consider the new material as being too heavy and straight-forward, but I guess it's all part of the musical concept. Those fans liked the songs they performed before continuing with XXV part 2, much better. Great songs like Ghostdancers, Rat Racing and Midas Touch felt more comfortable to them. What surprised me most during these tracks was the fact that Paul Mackie succeeded a lot better in singing the vocal lines of former singer Alan Reed. Maybe the surgery has made his voice become stronger!
This Pallas-concert was again breathtaking. For the encores there was a special request for someone who recently had passed away. Therefore they started this section with Sanctuary that again featured an excellent guitar solo to dream away on. Cut And Run was the last encore ending another superb Pallas concert. The band proved again that they belong to the best progressive rock bands both on stage and on CD. Unfortunately only few people witnessed this fine event. Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen) |
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