Review page of some remarkable live gigs.  

DPRS - Live festival (Bussum, march 21st 1998) 

Working hard on the job now, please come back later. Meanwhile here are some pictures: 

Lizard was opening before a small crowd of sympho fans that wanted to see and hear all the bands on this day. There were some people who had come to Bussum especially to see Lizard performing live. So the excitement was complete. This first Polish company started with a King Crimson cover '21st Century scizoid man', what was very surprising. Though this was not an original Lizard song, you could easily watch the souplesse from this young and able band. Playing songs from their only album 'W galerii czasu' with all the favorites among them, the group did present some of their new material, which was quit good. The new stuff was not very different from the songs on the debut. In spite of the bad sound and some technical problems the show didn't evolve to a real higher quality. Plus they were unfortunate to be the opening act. Lizard showed their best and I think that they're still one of Polish best prog-groups.
 

These guys from Italy just know to play tight. You just have to love this kind of powerprog or you don't. But Helreidh knows their job very well. They combine masterpiece in metal with some wide atmospheric symphonic parts. The interface between these two musical types is singer Franco Violo. With his strong, monotonous and (off course) Asgard-like voice he binds the parts together. Not to forget the strong guitar parts from Marco Tortato and the thrilling keys from Daniele Soravia. They played a lot of their album 'Memoires', that is still not good available. A new revelation for the progressive metal fans.
 

 

After two shows from two good progressive rock bands it was time to see Abraxas for the very first time. They filled the room with enthusiasm from the beginning to the end. The performance was very good and the songs were displayed in a fine way. Combining songs from their debut album as well from the newborn 'Centurie', Abraxas knows to entertain the crowd. They did all the (classic) songs that we already know from them, but there were highlights among the new ones such as 'Michel de Nostredame', 'Pokuszenie' and 'Excalibur'. All together this is a very adult group and they could easily grow to a very well-known and exciting prog-band. Let's have them back soon!


        

Martin Orford 

It was nice to see the keyborad wizard from IQ performing solo. The setlist was not realy surprising, but it was refreshing to hear some well-known IQ tracks in a pure version. One of the classical solopieces could be found in one of the John Wetton gigs from a year ago. Martin played songs from all of the bands that he had played in and still playing in. It was a calm before the (polish) storm.


   
 

 

Yes, we have them again. Quidam did their sixth or maybe seventh show in Holland. But there was some difference with the shows from last year. Fluteplayer Ewa quit the band and was replaced by a male collegue. His performance was good indeed, but added nothing new to the band. Playing some new songs was the strongest weapon that Quidam had this evening. Allthough they did some of the best ones from the first album, the audience was awaiting some new material. These songs sound very good. I'm curious about the upcoming album. It was again a nice evening (and afternoon) with some very good bands that you won't see often on one day together.


    

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