The Italian Barock Project already made a first appearance in the Netherlands one year ago at Cultuurpodium Boerderij in Zoetermeer. It was during Progdreams VI, when the performance seemed somewhat incoherent. The reason for that was that the line up had not been together for such a long time. They had to practise more often to become an real strong live unit. With two new concerts in our country it was easy for me to choose the venue which was the closest my home town. I had good memories of the Willem Twee Poppodium in Den Bosch so that was the place to see if the band had improved their live presentation.
 

Alex Mari

The band chose to do two separate sets and some final encores. This way it was for both the band and audience a good way to have a drink and a chat with each other while the band was not on stage.

The band started off energetically and it soon became clear that the musicians were much better prepared and anticipated than last year. Especially lead singer and front man Alex Mari made a very convincing impression now. He had to do the vocal honours last year after a relatively short preparation, with the necessary nerves. Now there was a great singer who had mastered the complex repertoire very well. He also proved to be a gifted stage personality who knew how to whip up the audience and inspires his fellow musicians. But also the other guys on stage blew me away with their musicianship. Wow this was a really well oiled machine on stage who knew how to entertain a crowd and at the same time play their music perfectly. With a good sound on and off stage it was a must to see the band play songs from their released albums. It was obvious that most of the performed material came from their most recent offerings. For those fans mentioning Detachment (2017, see review) and Skyline (2015, see review) as their favourite Barock Project albums, they certainly had a wonderful concert evening. Many compositions from those releases could be heard and were done in a excellent way. I am not going to name any favourites because each song I enjoyed the best possible way.

Luca Zabbini

I already mentioned Alex Mari as the bands lead vocalist but in a way the band had, on certain moments during the performance two lead singers. Because band leader and keyboard player Luca Zabbini also during a number of songs, such as My Silent Sea, sings very well the solo vocal parts. He also played well on his acoustic guitar, but leaves the guitar solo parts to Giacomo Anselmi. Unfortunately he has since left the band, not long after the Dutch performances. Luca was many times on the spotlight during his Keith Emerson kind of keyboard playing. Doing many terrific synthesizer solo parts or playing like a classic piano player or even moving towards a more jazzy approach of playing the keys. Sometimes he even made his keyboards sound like Jethro Tull by playing beautiful flute parts on them. Raving on about these wonderful musicians means that I also have to mention the rhythm section as well, because they did an outstanding job. Drummer Eric Ombelli was for me a younger version of Carl Palmer. Hitting his instruments gently or sometimes in an aggressive way. But always the right way. Bass player Francesco Caliendo was not often in the spotlight but that doesn't mean his contributions are not worth mentioning. I just loved his playing all the way.

The audience in Den Bosch also loved the bands concert. Because they greeted the bands beautiful performance with great enthusiasm. That's why the band rewarded them with an extra song during the encore. Not only did they play a fine version of The Longest Sigh but when they returned the second time on stage they did an even better performance of Roadkill. A song which was already played during the first set. I guess the band had not practiced enough songs and therefore decided to do this title one more time. After that the lights went on and everybody left the venue with a big smile on their faces. Because they had witnessed one of the best concerts of 2018 so far without any doubt!

Henri Strik (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen)