While the weather wasn't very good with tons of rain coming from the sky and most
people were watching the 2014 Eurovision Contest on TV, I made my way to a, to
me, rather unknown Dutch progressive rock band. The band calls themselves
Rule! and comes from the Eastern part
of the Netherlands. Some of their members already played in bands such as
Chelson Wells,
Zenith and
Shadowplay. The location the band would perform wasn't the usual place for a band to do
their musical tricks. Instead of a real venue with the usual attributes - such
as a real stage and a bar - this time the place was a kind of factory hall
located in an industrial area, however a real stage was made and a small bar
had been erected as well. All-in-all, everything was prepared very well to give
the invited guests a real pleasant evening with music and drinks. Before the
headliners would climb the stage, a support act from Germany kicked off the evening.
N
Under the moniker of
N performs the in Dortmund based German musician
Helmut Neidhardt
not the usual kind of music which I listen to on a regular basis. With only one
electric guitar and a rack of electronic devices N played soundscapes and
|
Helmutt Neidhardt |
psychedelic guitar bites. The music he played in front of his audience could be compared to the music which
Tangerine Dream made in the seventies when they were one of the early pioneers in the
history of electronic music. The same kind of drones could be heard. Just like
Tangerine Dream in those days the music didn't have much variety and sounded
for me the same all the time. Furthermore the volume was way too loud and the
interaction with his audience was very little while he sat on the stage with
his face to the floor. This made most of guests decide to escape outside the
building to take a cigarette or to have a chat with some of the other guests.
Frankly speaking I was glad he finished his instrumental music after a while because I lost interest as well!
Rule!
After an introductory film - which included footage taken from several well know
Pink Floyd
animations - projected at the back of the stage, the five members of
Rule! entered the stage
one by one to get ready to perform the music of their hopefully soon to be released debut
album. An album which will be - like in the tradition of many other bands in
the progressive rock scene - a true concept album. The story is based around a
male person who gets lost in himself and the outside world. In the end, to get out of this mess, the only solution is
his decision to commit suicide. To visualize the whole concept several
|
Karel Kerssies (left) and Wijnand Oppedijk |
umbrellas were hung around the stage. The music of this concept album - being
recorded at the moment - from time to time was very impressive. Lead singer
Wijnand Oppedijk
used his emotions to play the role of the suicidal protagonist very well. Apart his strong expression and charismatic
performance on stage he, above all, was as a fantastic singer. In a way you
could compare his vocal capacities with those of
Geddy Lee (
Rush),
Steve Perry (ex-
Journey),
Rich Harding (
Also Eden) and
Les Dougan (
Aragon).
However, without his fellow musicians on stage, he probably wouldn't be as
confident in playing his role as he was now, because each and every one of them
managed to play their parts the best possible way, even though the sound on
stage wasn't always very good. Some of the band members couldn't even hear
their own parts on several occasions. Keyboard player
Leon de Vries sounded as a kind of
Mark Kelly
in the early days of
Marillion, when former lead singer
Fish
was still in the band. Therefore the sound came close to the
music you can hear on the early albums released by Marillion many times. In a way guitarist
Ruud de Graaf
reminded me of Marillion's
Steve Rothery. Although Ruud's main inspiration, namely
Mike Oldfield,
could be heard in the bands compositions as well. Thanks to the
strong rhythm section, both instrumentalists - who had eye contact several
times - could shine on stage throughout the band's entire performance. Strangely enough, you couldn't hear that
Karel Kerssies used to be a bass player in several blues bands. He even let his
feet speak by playing the bass pedals several times.
Alco de Heer has a musical background that goes beyond the
progressive rock genre too, when he started playing the drums, so 'bravo' to
the rhythm blokes! After performing the music of their, hopefully soon to be
released, concept album, they ended their strong first set with a Pink Floyd
medley. A medley which featured a short part of
The Wall (1979) and included the tracks
Hey You,
|
Ruud de Graaf |
Is There Anybody Out There! and
Nobody Home. It was
too bad the audience sometimes forgot the musicians on stage and felt it
necessary to talk to each other very loudly during this strongly performed medley!
Rule! opened their hour and a half hours long second
set with two original songs, before they moved on to play two well known covers.
Regression and
Sincere,
again, were two compositions that could be labelled as the finest
neo-progressive rock possible. Once again the early albums made by Marillion
came to mind whilst I enjoyed them. The first cover tune was a track taken from
Dream Theater's masterpiece
Images And Words (1992), namely
Surrounded. Right from the start it
became clear to me that Wijnand could easily sing the high notes that
James LaBrie fails to reach live most
of the time. After the fine rendition of this great track, another amazing song
was up next; this time the best track taken from
Toto's
The Seventh One (1988).
Home Of The Brave
is a true progressive rock piece which also includes, besides amazing vocal performances,
excellent instrumental parts performed on guitars and keyboards. The Dutch
musicians succeeded perfectly to bring a version that came close to the level
the American musicians in Toto bring out on stage during their concerts.
Finally two compositions of their own followed.
Dark and
It continued
where they left off, before they played the two covers, meaning the same kind
of music came out of the speakers. The final forty five minutes were almost entirely
reserved for more covers. Maybe it was a bit strange to hear the band do a
|
Leon de Vries |
cover of a band who's music they resemble a lot, but from a later period. They
did a song that came from an album which was the first release, without their
charismatic Scottish lead singer. However, Marillion's
Easter
was probably still written when Fish was in the band, so before
Steve Hogarth took over the
vocal department. The song can still be regarded as one of the best progressive
rock tunes ever written. It has to be said that Rule! managed to bring a very
good version in front of the not always focused audience very well. The same
can be said about the way they brought on the intro of
The Wall
album. Even without the missing backing vocals,
In The Flesh sounded amazingly good.
After this performance, it was time to give the band's rhythm section and
keyboard player some rest. In an acoustic setting Ruud and Wijnand brilliantly performed
The Beatles'
Blackbird (taken from their White album released in 1968) and
Queen's
Love Of My Life (taken from
their
album
A Night At The Opera album released in 1975). After this it was
time for the final Rule! composition.
Logic
could be described as a mix between the music of Pink Floyd and early
Marillion. For the last song of the evening, they decided to bring the biggest hit Pink Floyd ever had.
Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 was a perfect vehicle to introduce the members of the band
and to give them a short solo spot. Furthermore, towards the end of the song it
was participation time for the crowd. They could all clap and sing along, while the band spent their last minutes
on stage, because after a request for an encore, the musicians called it a day.
Not so strange considering the fact that most of the time the same audience
didn't pay any attention to the band while they were on stage, therefore I
can't blame them at all for not returning to the stage to do a final encore.
Despite the fact conditions were not perfect to give a progressive rock concert - the venue wasn't really suitable and
therefore the sound not always great - the band managed to give an amazing
performance. I guess they got a new fan, who really is looking forward to hear
their debut album! So well done to the musicians and their crew, who made it
possible to show some fine video projections as well!
Henri Strik (edited by Esther Ladiges)
website "N"
website "Rule!"