In 2011 the English musician
Sean Filkins recorded an excellent album called
War And Peace & Other Short Stories (see
review). Our reviewer judged this
album with the highest rating of five stars; it appealed to our readers as
well, since it reached a third place in our album top-10 of 2011. After listening
to the album myself I could only conclude that Sean Filkins really deserved this
attention. When I noticed that the Progmotion team had booked him for a concert
in The Netherlands, I decided that I didn't want to miss that gig. It was combined with the presentation of the album
of the Dutch Exposure Project realized by FREIA Music. A nice support act was booked as well, bud sadly the Dutch band
Day Six had to withdraw due to an elbow bursitis of their drummer.
Cartographer were invited to replace them. It's a shame that the W2-venue in
Den Bosch wasn't packed with lovers of progressive rock!
Dutch Exposure Project
|
Peter Freia |
The evening opened with the presentation of the bands that had reached the second round of The Dutch
Exposure Project. This is a competition for new and talented Dutch prog rock bands. Almost all bands that are
represented on the album
Dutch Exposure
were present. They could introduce themselves with a short video clip which was done by
Armed Cloud,
Trip Trigger,
Thirteen,
Incidence and
Summer Breeze Project
(not present), or with a spoken introduction like
Loek/Luke Darceno van
Gallico did. However,
in my opinion the band that presented themselves the best was
Profuna Ocean.
Their professional presentation of a video of
Waiting For The Fall
with two girls dancing in front of the video screen was much appreciated by the audience. Early
2013 the public get the chance to vote for the best four bands in order to obtain a place in the finale which is held
on Saturday, March 23, 2013. The winner gets a record deal with FREIA Music.
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Armed Cloud |
Thirteen |
Incidense |
Profuna Ocean |
Cartographer
|
Milan Roerdink |
Cartographer is a noisy, minimalist rock trio from the American bay area. However, that
wasn't the band that replaced Day Six, but their Dutch namesakes
based in the city of Tilburg. The musicians are mostly inspired by bands as
Oceansize,
Muse and
Karnivool. They
call their music 'post progressive rock'. With no less than three guitar
players, a drummer and a bass player they make instrumental music varying from
intense and raging explosions, to sparkling clean and dreamy harmonies. The
members of Cartographer have made it their goal to inspire listeners with their
music and so caught on the audience with their energy. They warned people to bring along earplugs if you're
going to watch them live on stage. Indeed, they sounded very loud sometimes...
The songs they performed mainly came from their recently released eponymous EP inspired by
a psychiatrist, who developed a theory how to cope with grief. The EP consists
of five songs according to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining,
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Cartographer |
depression and acceptance. The band only played
Denial,
Bargaining and
Depression, but
Acceptance Disaster and
17:04,
two non-EP tracks, were performed as well. To me the latter track was the
highlight of their performance. It featured a strong electric guitar crescendo,
but I have to admit that I didn't enjoy all songs Cartographer played. Especially
the very heavy guitar parts had very little to do with my definition of
how progressive rock should sound. Nevertheless I must give them a compliment for
the way they were able to play several musical moods with three electric guitarists
and no keyboards at all. Somehow their style reminded me of the German band
Long Distance Calling that I saw at the
Symforce III Festival (2009, see
review). This band also started a song with a
guitar riff and a second guitar player who joined to play a tuneful solo
accompanied by a rhythm section playing a fast or a slow beat. They also kept
playing these grooves just like Cartographer did. Most people in the audience
loved their music and that's just what matters!
Sean Filkins & Band
|
Sean Filkins |
Sean Filkins had crossed the Channel with a complete backing band to perform his
first Dutch gig. His band mainly consisted of older musicians except the very talented guitarist
Daniel Maher,
the son of
Richard Maher, who most of the time played the rhythm guitar.
Obviously Sean Filkins and his fellow-musicians performed a large part of his first solo album
War And Peace & Other Short Stories.
I was very curious to learn if they could play these strong compositions live on stage as well.
They opened with
Are You Sitting Comfortably?,
the intro to the album including the sound of a radio station for which they played
New Jerusalem and the sound of drinking a cup of tea. This was followed by
The
English Eccentric just as on the album. Two other pieces of this CD could be enjoyed as well:
Prisoner Of Conscience, part 2: The Ordinary Man and
Epitaph For A Mariner. The last one got a special guest appearance of Sean's daughter
Abigail. She perfectly sang the vocal
intro just as she did on the original version. After performing these beautiful
tracks it became clear that they succeeded in copying the original album
versions. The many sound effects used on the album were included as well. Between
the songs Filkins told the audience what they were all about. He also gave a short
overview of what he'd done in the past by playing two songs from
Children's Games
(1994), an album he made with
Lorien. At first we could enjoy
Hold The Key
and later on the more epic sounding
Losing It.
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L to R: John, Richard & Sean |
I think some people in the audience knew that Filkins was also the lead singer of
Big Big Train;
with this band he recorded two albums. For those people it was nice to hear
High Tide, Last
Stand from
Gathering Speed
(2004), a song that was never performed live on stage by his former band. Filkins played a
great version of this piece during which the sound of a World War II airplane could
be heard. He kept some fine cover songs for the encores. First they played a strong version of
Hymn by
Barclay James Harvest, which brought
the audience in a Christmas mood, followed by a short part of
Radar Love
(
Golden Earring) during which Filkins introduced his band. Last but
not least we got an outstanding version of
In The Court Of The Crimson King
(
King Crimson), a perfect ending of an enjoyable live performance. This concert
shines even more if you realize that this line-up did only three gigs in the UK
before they came to our country. Bravo!
I would especially like to thank all the people of Progmotion who made it
possible that Sean Filkins and his band could make an excellent debut on a
Dutch stage. Unfortunately few people had taken the opportunity to witness this
concert, which certainly was most rewarding.
Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)