During the final edition of the Dutch annual Progfarm Festival (see
review) in November 2011,
Flamborough Head and
Moon Safari shared the same stage for
the first time. Within a year they did it for the second time at Lakei in
Helmond. So you could say this was a meeting of old friends. Both bands had a
good reason to perform a live show. Flamborough Head could try out some new
material for their forthcoming studio album, while Moon Safari had the chance to promote their EP
Lover's End Pt. III: Skellefteå Serenade,
which was released recently (see
review).
Flamborough Head
|
Margriet Boomsma |
This Dutch progressive rock band from the northern part of The Netherlands got one
hour to show why they were asked to open for their Swedish friends. Well, they seized
at the opportunity with both hands and performed an outstanding set that included
three new songs and two old live favourites. They kicked off with
The Trapper,
one of the 'new' pieces. It was easy to hear that they had played this song already many times before. However,
it hasn't been recorded yet. During
The Trapper
some musicians of Moon Safari watched the band in front of the stage.
It seemed they liked the music a lot just like the people in the audience who had
especially come to see Moon Safari. I guess they must have been impressed after
they heard the title track of the band's latest album
Looking For John Maddock
(2009) since this is an outstanding epic piece
that contains various musical parts; sometimes mellow; at other times more up-tempo.
This epic was followed by two new tracks
. I'll Take The Blame and
Lost In Time showed
that the musicians had been busy since their latest album. Again they
|
Edo Spanninga
|
had added
a some new influences in their music as I noticed while listening to these
songs like the slapping on the bass guitar by
Marcel Derix;
the piano playing in the vein of
Rick Davies
(
Supertramp)
by
Edo Spanninga and the flute playing by lead singer
Margriet Boomsma that sounded quite similar to that of
Ian
Anderson (
Jethro Tull)
and
Thijs van Leer (
Focus). I
loved it all just like their final song
Garden Of Dreams
which is a real blast from the past. This rather long piece is a track from their second album
Defining The Legacy (2000). At the time lead singer and keyboard player
Siebe-Rein Schaaf still joined the band.
Unfortunately this was the last piece they could perform because their time was
up. The audience could be satisfied for they had witnessed a high-level performance.
Moon Safari
The show that the six musicians from Moon Safari presented was of an even higher
level. They already have recorded three albums, so they have a lot of songs to choose
from. I guess they wouldn't play the same songs as they did during their latest
|
Petter Sandström and Pontus Åkesson (R) |
visit to our country in November 2011. Therefore fantastic pieces like
Yasgur's Farm,
The World's Best Dreamers,
Moonwalk and
Other Half Of The Sky weren't
performed. Instead they played more material from their debut
A Doorway To Summer
(2005) like
Dance Across The Ocean and
A Sun Of Your Own.
Fortunately they also played
Heartland, my all-time favourite
Moon Safari song that above all showed how influential bands like
Yes and
The Flower Kings must have been. The band also provided some comic
relief when bass player
Johan Westerlund
introduced his fellow band members in a rather strange but funny way. He
got all kinds of nicknames for them. He introduced keyboard player
Simon Äkesson
as 'Slim Snakes' and he called drummer
Tobias Lundgrun 'Carl
L. Landmine'. He renamed singer and acoustic guitar player
Petter Sandström
'Mick Frisbee', who immediately used his hat as a frisbee caught by guitarist 'Piff Williams', whose real name is
Pontus Åkesson.
This gimmick was a nice introduction to
New York City Summergirl.
After this song it was time for the
Lover's End Suite, a 22-minute piece of
music that features the songs
Lover's End, part I and
|
Moon Safari singing 'Constant Bloom' |
A Kid Called Panic. I had expected that the third and new part of
Lover's End
would have been included as well, but they chose to play this new epic track with a short break after the
Lover's End Suite.
It was the last song of the regular set. Although I never heard this
third part before, it impressed me all the way through; a real 25-minute
musical roller coaster holding several different moods. After this piece nobody
expected the band to return for an encore. However, they intended to do only a vocal version of
Constant Bloom, but after somebody had shouted
Doorway,
this song was done as well. Petter Sandström
said that they had 'no other choice than to perform the long version' of this
brilliant track from their debut. It was played in the best possible way with
all the excellent instrumental parts and the difficult harmony vocals. Just
like the rest of the performed material it was sometimes as if they were miming
along with the original album track. Everything was done so brilliantly that it
was hard to believe that the music was played live on stage. So I can only give
a big compliment to this band that again showed to belong to the best live bands in the progressive rock scene!
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)