This was the first time that I'd ever seen the band Novatia perform live. I'd never heard their music before so I didn't know what to expect this evening. I've seen the band Silhouette perform at the ProgFrog Festival in October 2015. This was the first time that the band would perform their latest album Beyond The Seventh Wave (2014, see review) in its entirety, so this was something to look forward to! Silhouette's performance was going to be filmed during the whole evening as well. The venue was pretty crowded, as a lot of people came to see both bands perform.
 

Novatia

Joep Selen

Sadly the band Novatia had a bit of a rough start. When the band wanted to start, they found out that the microphones didn't work. Some people on the technical staff of the venue went on the stage to solve the problem. In the meantime, guitarist Rindert Bul and drummer Joost Lobbes did a small improvisation to kill the time and all band members made small jokes about the technical problems. The problems took more time than expected so the complete band had to leave the stage for a while. Luckily after ten minutes the problem was finally solved and the band

Ingmar Kops

could finally start the show. When the band came back on stage they got a nice welcome from a clapping audience.
The band plays versatile music and they don't stick to one genre playing a real mixture of progressive rock, metal, jazz and even reggae. Joep Selen is a fantastic singer who can put both emotion and power into his voice. Joost stood up from time to time behind his drum kit to do some special percussion on his cymbals, and sometimes uses his bare hands instead of drum sticks. It was clearly visible that the band enjoyed performing on the stage. Joep announced that the band was busy releasing a new EP, and they also played some tracks from it during the show. Joep told the audience that they weren't sure if they should play their new track Flowing Thoughts, which they still have to record. Luckily they did play it, and they did it wonderful! Only Rindert and Joep remained on the stage for the last track, a very beautiful acoustic song. The audience really loved their performance, and so did I! I really liked what I heard, but I wouldn't be surprised that some people would prefer music that sticks to a certain type of genre. This band is a Jack-of-all-trades and a very good live band to watch. I do hope that I will see this band live again very soon!
 

Silhouette

Erik Laan and Brian de Graeve (r)

Silhouette has a very dedicated audience that claps and sings along with the songs they play. The screen projection showed beautiful movies and pictures during the band's performance. A real boost! The band members had to do very little when they wanted to have the crowd clap along with Web Of Lies. Guitarist Daniël van der Weijde gave a brilliant guitar solo during that track. Sadly, after the song he was struggling with his in-ear system right before the start of In Solitary. Lead vocalist Brian de Graeve saw that and told the audience that this was the first time the band played with an in-ear system. While Daniël was still busy fixing his problem, keyboardist Erik Laan played some seconds of the intro of Genesis' Firth Of Fifth. The audience was surprised and wanted more, but the band decided to stick to the setlist and finally started to play In Solitary. Brian and Erik are well attuned when they sing the vocal parts together.
Just like Novatia the band really enjoyed being on stage. As the evening progressed, the band members became more confident' and behaved more loosely. All members made some flaws here and there, but most of the time they were doing a fantastic job. They really pay attention to each other when they play and also interacted a lot. The instrumental and heavier parts of the music were very nicely and neatly done. When Brian didn't sing or play guitar, he grabbed

Rob van Nieuwenhuijzen and Jurjen Bergsma (r)

a tambourine or went to the side of the stage. He was also the storyteller that evening, telling small stories in between the tracks about the concept behind their album Beyond The Seventh Wave. There was also time for some jokes in between the songs to make the atmosphere more festive that evening. After the last track from the album Brian thanked the audience, the sound engineer and the staff of the Parktheater venue.
After they played their complete album, the band came back for an encore. The audience loudly sang along with the song When Snow Is Falling Down. When the song was finished, the band left the stage. One of the show announcers that evening came on stage and asked the audience if they wanted the band to come back to play one more song, and of course the audience was responding with a big 'yes' and applause. The band did come back and played one more track, which was Unreal Meeting. A great performance from one of the best Dutch modern prog bands! I hope this band will tour more often and gains more international fame!

Iris Hidding (edited by Robert James Pashman)