Review page of some remarkable live gigs.  

Spock's Beard - Live in Holland (Utrecht, january 18 1998) 

DOUBLE CONCERT CHANDELIER AND SPOCK'S BEARD: 
Starting at 20:45 hours with a 45 minutes performance of the German Chandelier the Tivoli in Utrecht (Holland) is getting crowdier and crowdier. Lot's of prog-fans came to see The Beard's first gig in Holland. To be short about Chandelier. They really did their best but the sound was very poor. You could hardly recognize any guitarparts and the singer was out of tune sometimes by the cause of the monitoring. They played songs from Timecode but also from their earlier albums Pure and Facingravity. 
Let's talk about Spock's Beard. Starting at 22:00 hours, right on time, we could be witmess of a superb show from the most promising band nowadays. Including the 30 minutes encores, this show lasted almost two and half hours. Among the songs they played were also some new ones from their latest album 'The kindness of strangers'. They open with 'Beware of darkness' the title track of their former album. From the beginning the audience was convinced that they had to deal with a perfect bunch of musicians. Absolutely real tight rhythm breaks and dynamics that you never hear nowadays. During 'Thoughts' we were confronted with the excellent timing of the three singers (Neal, Alan and Nick). This Gentle Giant like song really stood. Musically all was very good.  Keyboardplayer Ryo Okumoto was performing like a real Keith Emerson and Alan (no plectum) Morse played only with his fingers. His technique fits in the very diverse styles they put in their songs. Styles that refer to Beatles, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, and so on. It's so melodic and original. Time for some new ones. First they took two short songs from the new album called 'In the mouth of madness' and 'Cakewalk on Easy Street'. Difficult to describe, but very Beard-like, you know. 'Go the way you go' is allready a classic one and gives you a real sympho thrill when you listen to it live. The magnificent acoustic 'June' followed with Nick and Alan Morse together with Nick D'Virgilio as front singers. Nick just had to get back to his drumkit for the climax of the song. The next song was written by Neal when he was only sixteen years old (that was yesterday, Ryo said). The very dynamic and awesome 'Flow' is a real long one with more than fifteen minutes lasting. It has everything that a prog band should have. If those four songs stands for the quality of the rest of the new material then you will have an amazing album that could easily grow out as best album of 1998. It was time for keyboard virtuoso Ryo Okumoto for some stunning solo escapades. After a noisy intro he gets into a groovy jazz-rock riff and jumps from back to front and even between the audience. Someone in a wheelchair got a privat show right in front of him. He's got the night of his life. Absolute brilliant. The instrumental was a complete blowing-out-of-your-mind intermezzo with tunes in it like 'Peter Gunn'. What an energy this man has. The next songs from 'Beware of darkness' were performed as fine as in the beginning. There was an outstanding performance of 'The doorway' and a touching 'Walking on the wind' after it. Time to breathe now. The first encore was the epic 'The light' from the same album. They even came back for another encore. Starting with a something-completely-different-kick-ass-rock-thing they seemlessly went over in 'Waste away' just ending with that rock-thing in the final part. Third and last encore was 'On the edge' that completed a marvelous show that no-one ever should forget. Afterwards you must admit that this band really moves the prog scene as well. What a cracker!  

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