Photo courtesy by:The Classic Rock Society
I have been a fan of and involved in this type of music " progressive rock" since the early 70s.
There are literally hundreds of bands out there at the moment resurrecting this type of quint-
essentially white European 1970s LP music.
Now a very large underground scene held together by the internet and the technology to cheaply produce, distribute and publicize " home recorded " CDs. However, when it comes to quality control and originality I feel that there are only two bands currently out there that can call themselves truly world class and thats Spocks Beard and The Flower Kings. These also only seem to be the two bands that are pushing the envelope of "prog rock" to truly progress the genre further. Spocks Beard by bringing back beautiful sing a long melodies, superb musicianship without trying to be techno flash and The Flower Kings by again beautiful melodies and also introducing jazz fusion, room to improvise and even dance within their performance.As a friend of mine said The Flower Kings are Prog with added Phish and or Zappa…….
This concert was the first time the band had played the UK since May 1997 and the concert was held in the same location as then, The Herringthorpe Leisure Centre Rotherham England. As last time, this was their only U.K. concert. The band was brought over by The C.R.S ( Classic Rock Society ) for which I will be eternally grateful for providing a regular venue for this music.
The venue itself is in usual use as a sports hall / gym, in which it is quite small and acoustically poor.
Being the only UK date people, including friends and myself, had traveled from all parts of the U.K. to the event. (we did a 400 mile round trip). However, was initially disappointed that there were still only about 200 people in the audience. In addition to this we also seemed to be representative of the average age of the audience (late 30s early 40s). Is this the real state of this genre of music ?
After an introduction from the man from CRS- " This band are as good as Yes or Genesis at their peak". I could not agree more! At 9:30 dead The Flower Kings took the stage. After a little tuning of instruments gently began then blasted their way into the gig with "There Is More To This World" followed by a very inspiring "Retropolis" which just carried me away to that lovely situation where you feel your whole mind and soul is riding on the back of each guitar note and it carried on that way. There were a few technical difficulties with keyboards,feedback and tuning along the way but none spoild the gig.
The gig lasted a total of two and a half wonderful hours with The Flower Kings giving us at least two tracks from each of their many CDs including, I think for the first time live, almost the whole of "Garden of Dreams". For people that only know the CDs The Flower Kings live sound is a lot loser live with jams of and between numbers and a lot heavier feel than indicated by the CDs. All the musicians are individually of world class quality and compliment each other perfectly.
The only complaint I would have was that the house PA and the mix was not up to the high standard and quality of the playing. By the end of the concert the mix and volume had reached that " wall of sound state " where all instruments were at equal volume where as at least CD wise. Roine Stolt's guitar should be the main leading presence as that is what I came for. Ok the PA system was not very good but I would have appreciated less total volume and more thought given to the mix, with the total volume set so high there was no where left to go to bring the guitar to the forefront. However, as the gig was done on a shoestring budget it is understandable The Flower Kings could
not afford to bring their own sound engineer over who would have provided a more sympathetic
mix.
However, I am very loath to complain too much as the whole gig seemed to have been done on a very tight budget. I know that a member of the audience had actually lent his melotron to the band.Still I don't know how the C.R.S. did it on the money made from ticket sales. I am just so
appreciative that the C.R.S. brought the band over in the first place!
I look forward to Spocks Beard on 1st of October at the C.R.S.
Total set time – 2.5 hours
Comments of this review should be addressed to the author at:
feersum.endjinn@pipemedia.co.uk