In 2012 the Dutch band Kayak celebrated their fortieth anniversary with a concert tour in the Netherlands called Journey Through Time. I witnessed one of these shows at De Pul in Uden (see review). During these concerts Kayak played many songs from their back catalogue, songs that were hardly performed in recent years. This anniversary tour was rather successful and therefore Kayak decided to arrange another club tour in the autumn of 2013. It started where last year's tour successfully ended only this time with a renewed set list that once again contained an overview of the band's huge output from 1973 until now. Compared to the line-up of last year's tour a minor change took place. Due to the fact that drummer Hans Eijkenaar wasn't able to play

Cindy and Edward

during all concerts they asked Sjoerd Rutten to replace him for seven shows. For some Kayak members he wasn't a total stranger because they play together in Zeno, a Dutch Toto tribute band. Obviously I wouldn't miss this second flashback tour and so I decided to watch them play at the same venue as last year.

Just like during the previous tour Kayak played two sets and some encores, but this time they didn't play the songs in chronological order. At the beginning of the gig vocalist Edward Reekers called the set list 'a time machine that doesn't work properly', which means that the songs were played in random order. So they started with Back To The Front from their fourth album The Last Encore (1976) and ended up with the final encore Ruthless Queen from their sixth album Phantom Of The Night (1979). Kayak performed an awesome show, although the sound engineers couldn't get the sound right during

Joost, Jan and Sjoerd

the first minutes. It didn't seem to bother the musicians because they played all their great songs like a well-oiled machine! They knew that things would turn out right after a while and they were right, because the sound of all the other performed songs was great.

I won't mention all performed tracks, but I'll pick out some highlights. I greatly enjoyed the fantastic guitar solos of Joost Vergoossen during songs as Spetters, Frozen Flame and They Get To Know Me, the fabulous keyboard parts of Ton Scherpenzeel during Merlin and Reason For It All, the amazing vocal performances of the two lead singers Cindy Oudshoorn and Edward Reekers during Nobody Wins, When Hearts Grow Cold and Act Of Despair. The host of the evening mostly was second guitarist Rob Vunderink. Wearing some rather weird sun glasses he told the audience some facts - sometimes with humorous remarks − about the history of the band related to historical world

Rob (with weird sun glasses)

events. I would like to give a special compliment to the rhythm section consisting of bass player Jan van Olffen and drummer Sjoerd Rutten. Together they played very tight as if they had been the rhythmic base of the band for many years. The beautiful fretless bass parts of Van Olffen just made the difference; they impressed me many times.

Sure, a number of songs that were performed last year could be enjoyed again during this year's Journey Through Time tour. Most fans still like to hear the classic Kayak tunes and hits like Chance For A Lifetime, Starlight Dancer, Ruthless Queen and Merlin. However, I would have liked it if they once again had given a short preview of their upcoming rock opera because the short part of Cleopatra- The Crown Of Isis which they performed in 2012 sounded superb! Anyway, with or without that song Kayak and their fans may look back at a well-performed concert. It was as always very entertaining thanks to the excellent musicianship and the pleasant interaction of the lead singers with the audience.

Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)