Author Archives: Tim Hall

Albums of the year 2007

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Tim Hall

Everyone else seems to be doing their annual ‘best of’ list, so it would be remiss of me if I didn’t do one as well. I’m not going to try and rank everything in order.

Album of the Year

  • Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet. It feels as if the whole of their 15 year career has been working up to this album. It combines metal influences of their recent work with the soaring atmospheric soundscapes of earlier albums to produce the most consistently good album they’ve ever recorded. Just six songs, the longest clocking in at 17 minutes, with not a weak moment among them.

Runners-up

  • Fish – 13th Star. A major return to form by an artist too many have written off as a has-been who can’t sing any more. This emotionally-charged album seems him singing in a lower register, half-spoken in places, that suits his present-day vocal range, backed by a hard-edged guitar-driven groove-orientated sound. His best album since at least “Sunsets on Empire”.
  • Odin Dragonfly – Offerings. Not a prog album, or even really a rock album, but an acoustic work with guitar, piano, flute and two voices. The result is a stunningly beautiful album that perfectly captures their live sound. Yes, they really do create those harmonies on stage with just two people.
  • The Reasoning – Awakening. Remarkable debut album marking the welcome return of Karnataka’s Rachel Jones. Best described as prog-tinged hard rock, with some remarkable harmonies from their three lead vocalists, and full of melodies that get permanently stuck in your head.

Strong Contenders

  • Breathing Space – Coming Up For Air. Effectively the debut for the lineup of the band that’s been playing live over the past year, it’s a well-crafted mix of 80s pop/rock numbers and the sort of sweeping rock ballads Iain Jennings used to write when he was with Mostly Autumn.
  • Dream Theater – Systematic Chaos. Complex, epic prog metal by the band that really defined the genre, and a rather more consistently strong album that their previous couple.
  • Joe Bonamassa – Sloe Gin. Part acoustic, and part guitar-shredding electric blues. The title track has to be one of my songs of the year.
  • Epica – The Divine Conspiracy. The European rock scene is awash with female-fronted symphonic metal bands, and this album is perhaps the best out of a whole bunch of good ones.
  • Therion – Gothic Kabbalah. Scandinavian choral death metal, totally bonkers but compellingly brilliant. Because a lot of the arrangements are a bit off-the-wall it does take repeated listenings to really get in to.
  • Apocalyptica – Worlds Collide. One of the most metal albums of the year, except it’s all played on cellos rather than guitars. 50/50 mix of manic instrumentals and songs featuring a variety of guest vocalists.
  • Rush – Snakes and Arrows. Return to form after the disappointing “Vapor Trails”. I find my enjoyment of any Rush album is directly proportional to how prominent Alex Lifeson is in the mix. He’s to the fore on this one.
  • Marillion – Somewhere Else. The album that’s really divided the fanbase. While this is no ‘Marbles’, it’s still a good album once you get into it, simpler songs with more straightforward arrangements rather than the multi-layered epic approach some might have expected.

And there were plenty of other great ones, making 2007 such a great year for music. And then there are a few albums people have raved about although I have yet to hear them, such as the new ones by The Pineapple Thief and Riverside.

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Yet Another Meme

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Tim Hall

This meme comes via The Ministry of Information. Judging by one or two of the questions, I think it originates from somewhere in MySpace. I’ve omitted a couple of questions for which I couldn’t think up sufficiently witty replies.

1. Where were you for New Year 2007?
Slough, where my parents live, a much-maligned town.

2. How did you get the idea for your MySpace name?
Combination of my first name and the username I use on a lot of music-related forums, which also happens to be my domain name.

3. What are you listening to right now?
“Standing In My Shadow” by Breathing Space, not coincidentally the song I’ve currently got on the MySpace profile.

4. Has the death of a celebrity ever made you cry?
Who are these ‘celebrities’ of whom you speak, and why should they mean more to me than real friends and relatives?

5. Do you live in a zoo?
Er, no.  These questions are starting to get silly.

6. What did you do this morning?
Got up, had breakfast, and returned to Slough from Colchester

7. What does your mother do for a living?
Retired.

8. Where do you work?
Alderley Edge, in the heart of Footballer’s Wives land

9. What are your favourite smells?
Bacon. Vegetarianism cured, instantly!

10. What are the last two digits of your phone number?
The same as the class number of the North British built electric locomotive preserved as part of the National Collection.  If you keep on asking silly questions, I will give sillier and sillier answers.  So there!

11. What was the last concert you attended?
Mostly Autumn at Crewe Limelight on the 19th December.

12. Who was with you?
I went on my own, but met up with a lot of the usual suspects once I got there.

13. What was the last movie you watched?
It was so long ago I’m not even 100% what it was; it may well have been Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I told you it was a long time ago.

14. What do you dislike at the moment?
That the bad guys seem to be actuve in Pakistan, and this is going to have repercussions on the rest of the world. And I found a friend of mine died on boxing day.

15. What do you crave right now?
Coffee. I knew I’d turned the kettle on for a reason.

16. Did you dream last night?
Yes, but it was pretty surreal, and I can’t remember what it was about.

17. What was the last TV show you watched?
May well have been the last one of “Later with Jools Holland” on Friday, which I watch in the increasingly vain hope that there will be someone decent on there.

18. What is your favourite piece of jewellery?
I’m a non-goth bloke. I don’t do jewellery.

19. Name someone on your Top 8 who is just like you?
I think this refers to my MySpace Top 8 friends, most of which are bands. Those that are not bands would probably sue if anyone suggested I resembled them.

20. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex?
My sister.  Do relatives count?

21. Who last IM’d you?
I haven’t used IM for ages, and I can’t remember who it was.

22. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
Left.

23. What colour shirt are you wearing?
Dark blue.

24. What colour is your razor?
I have a beard, so I don’t own one.

25. What is your favourite frozen treat?
Swedish glace; a dairy-free ice cream that actually surprisingly palatable.

26. How many tattoos/piercings do you have?
I’m not a Goth. Please pay attention.

27. What are your favourite stores?
Waltons of Altrincham.  Until 30 seconds ago, I didn’t realise they actually had a website.

28. Are you thirsty right now?
No. I’ve now made that coffee from question 15 now.

29. Can you imagine yourself ever getting married?
Maybe.

30. Who’s someone you haven’t seen in a while and miss?
I can think of quite a few friends I haven’t seen for ages and really ought to catch up with.

31. What did you do last night?
Been very traditional and place charades. Have you ever tried to act out “Windows 98 user guide”?

32. Do you care what people think about you?
Only people that matter.

33. Have you ever done something to instigate trouble?
Does wearing an Odin Dragonfly T shirt to a Fish gig count?

34. Do you like your nose?
Well, it’s the only nose I’ve got.

35. What colour is your room?
The room I’m in right now is white.

36. When was the last time you worked out?
Not sure if walking to and from the railway station every day counts.

38. Where do you live?
Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire

39. Are you an aggressive driver?
I don’t drive.

40. Who is your cell phone carrier?
T-Mobile

41. What is the thing you’d most want to change about yourself?
I’d like to be able to think of the right words to say to someone at the time, rather than 20 minutes after the event.

42. What colour is your car?
I don’t have a car.

43. What is your favourite colour?
Banger Blue.

44. Do you like mustard?
In moderation.

45. What do you tell yourself when times get hard?
“Bollocks!”

46. Would you ever sky dive?
No. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

47. What do you sleep on?
A bed? I agree with NRT here; this is a silly question. I am a human being, not a cat…

48. Have you ever bid for something on eBay?
A few times. I’ve won two N gauge locomotives, an Arnold BLS Re4/4, and a Roco SBB Re4/4iv

49. Do you enjoy giving hugs?
Yes

50. Would you consider yourself to be fashionable?
Fashion is an evil conspiracy to dupe the gullible and insecure.

51. Do you own a digital camera?
Yes, although getting into gig photography is starting to expose the limitations of my present one.

52. What celebrities have you been compared to?
See my answer to question 4

53. What does your 19th text message say?
My primeval mobile phone doesn’t let me archive more than a dozen or so, so I have no idea.

54. How ’bout your 30th?
See previous answer.

55. Who did you hang out with last night?
Parents, brother, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece. It is Christmas, after all…

56. What are you doing this Saturday?
Don’t know yet. Got any suggestions?

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Mostly Autumn, London and Crewe

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Tim Hall

Sunday 16th December at the Astoria Theater in London was my 14 year old nephew’s very first gig. I can’t think of a better band for anyone’s first experience of live music, but then as readers of this blog ought to have realised by now, I’m biased. To his credit, my nephew managed to persuade his dad not to wear a t-shirt older than the youngest member of the band, and that a Marillion “Script” shirt from 1983 was singularly inappropriate :)

I’m more used to seeing Mostly Autumn in clubs and small provincial theatres, often with seven people and piles of equipment crammed into tiny stages. It’s quite different seeing them perform in a big venue with an impressive lightshow, and an equally impressive major venue style PA and good acoustics, proving that despite being off the mainstream’s radar screen they are more than equals to many major headline acts. They were pretty loud, but with a good mix; everything was clear with decent separation.

Heather Findlay
Heather Findlay

And the band put on a great show; a lot tighter than when I last I saw them in York a month ago. Although it’s strange to see them perform without Angie Gordon, who’s on maternity leave, I challenge anyone to say that Anne Marie Helder isn’t an acceptable understudy; her performances on flute and keyboards were flawless and enthusiastic. Heather’s singing and Bryan’s guitar playing were as great as ever.

Anne Marie Helder @ Astoria
Anne Marie Helder

This one was billed as an ‘audio-visual show’, with back projection on a screen. But quite frankly they don’t need it; they’re visually exciting enough not to need it; a decent lightshow is quite enough.

Although the setlist was very similar that of York, there were a few changes. It was lovely to hear ‘Shrinking Violet’ again in a concert venue setting, and they played a great version. The version of the traditional carol ‘Silent Night’ was beautiful too, and the epic ‘Mother Nature’ was far stronger than the rather rusty version they played a month ago. There was even a guest appearance from Liam Davidson for one of the Christmas covers they played during the encores.

Crewe Limelight on the 19th was a very different kind of gig; in a small club with a capacity of about 400, with high proportion of hardcore fans, it’s always about atmosphere rather than technical perfection. And if you get their early enough and can make the front row you’re just feet away from the band; it’s like having them play in your living room.

Unfortunately the early part of the gig was spoiled by one of the worst sound mixes I’ve ever heard at any MA show. Now I know you shouldn’t expect a perfect sound from the front row, where you’re basically getting stage sound rather than the PA, but I’ve been at the front in this venue before, and previous ones have been far better than this. Andy Jennings’ drumming overpowered everything else, with Bryan’s lead guitar and Anne Marie Helder’s flute barely audible on the first few numbers. It did get a lot better in the second set, after they turned the backline up a bit.

The setlist for the main set was identical to The Astoria, although the encores were completely different; playing ‘Spirit of Christmas Past’, ‘Shindig’ and a full band version of ‘White Christmas’.

As is usual for the Christmas gigs, the band let their hair down during the encores. Heather wore reindeer antlers borrowed from an audience member for at least one song, and things ended with the front rows being sprayed with snow.

So ends my gigging for 2007, the year when live music ate my life. 31 gigs in places as widely separated as Swansea, London, Edinburgh and Bournemouth, with several artists I first saw a quarter of a century ago, and others that weren’t even born that long in the past. Who knows what 2008 has in store? It will probably start with The Reasoning and Breathing Space in January

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Quote of the Day

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Tim Hall

Y’know, Dick, I know time is running out, but if you run those industrial-sized shredders too long, they can overload the circuits and start a fire. A word to the wise.

***Dave on that fire in Dick Cheney’s office.

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Frank Usher suffers heart attack

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Tim Hall

Bad news from Fish

I received a phone call last night from Frank Usher’s partner Sue who informed me that Frank had suffered a heart attack and that he was in Borders General hospital. Thankfully it is only a mild attack but he is being kept in for observation until the end of the week. He is under heavy sedation and unable to take visitors but Sue told me he is smiling although totally exhausted.

Despite Frank’s insistence, in his typically stubborn fashion, that he wanted to play the forthcoming shows the doctors have said it is impossible and highly dangerous. With all three gigs nearly sold out and also sweat boxes it would have been foolhardy of him to even consider performing.

At only 48 hours notice it is impossible to bring in a replacement guitarist and I am left with no other option but to postpone the three shows.

I apologise once again for the inconvenience caused and I am sure a lot of you will be as frustrated as we are at losing what were going to be celebratory shows in the run up to the holidays. As you can possibly imagine we are all shocked and concerned for Frank and wish him a speedy recovery.

I’d been planning to go to the third and final of Fish’s three gigs, in Crewe on Saturday night, which would have been a fitting conclusion to an incredible year of live music. Sadly it’s not to going to be.

Frank Usher at Manchester Academy 2

I wish Frank Usher a full and speedy recovery, and hope to see him back in action in the spring.

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Mostly Autumn Tomorrow!

Posted on December 15, 2007 by Tim Hall

At the Astoria Theatre in London. Although I’ve already seen them seven times this year (and two of the band I’ve seen no less than ten times!), I’m really looking forward to this one. I’m going with my brother-in-law and nephew, and it will be the latter’s first ever gig.

It will be a little bit strange without Angie Gordon, who’s on maternity leave at the moment, but reports of previous shows on this tour suggest that her understudy Anne Marie Helder is a more than acceptable substitute on flute and keys.

Doors open at 6pm. If you’re going, or thinking of going, see you there. I’m sure it’s going to be a good one.

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Porcupine Tree, Manchester Academy One, 7th December 2007

Posted on December 15, 2007 by Tim Hall

My third gig in nine days at the half-finished building site of a venue known as Manchester Academy 1. This time I noticed the lack of a cloakroom all the more because it had been tipping down with rain all day, so I had to spend the gig clutching a wet coat. Oh well.

Support was an great 45 minute set from Liverpudlian rockers Anathema. They hit the stage so soon after the doors opened that I missed the very start of their set; they were in full flow with ‘Fragile Dreams’ by the time I’d got into the venue. A lot better than they were the last time they supported PT in 2005. The quite atmospheric new material from the forthcoming album “Angels Walk Amongst Us” sounded interesting, and the older material rocked hard.

On paper, Porcupine Tree don’t seem to have the ingredients for a great live band. They don’t interact with the audience much, Steve Wilson is hardly the worlds greatest frontman, and their songs don’t turn into singalongs. But if they weren’t any good I would not have been seeing them for the fifth time in three years. PT gigs are all about the music rather than the band; they’re all great musicians. Steve Wilson has claimed in interviews he’s not a virtuoso guitarist, but with the fluid solos he reels off, who does he think he’s kidding? Colin Edwin and Gavin Harrison have to be one of the tightest rhythm sections I’ve heard this year; in the best tradition of prog-rock a lot of their music is in complex time signatures, which they play flawlessly. Richard Barbieri on keys and John Wesley on second guitar and backing vocals might not take much of the limelight, but they make a big contribution to the rich multi-layered sound.

The sound mix was an order of magnitude better than it had been for Within Temptation nine days before; it was very loud, possibly one of my loudest gigs of the year, but this time there was no muddy bottom end; we had good separation with every instrument heard clearly, especially the drums. The set still drew heavily from this year’s superb “Fear of a Blank Planet”, with much of the rest from “Deadwing” and “In Absentia”. But they also found space for a couple of real oldies, “Dark Matter” and “The Sky Moves Sideways”, and some material from their new EP, “Nil Recurring”. Highlights were many; the epic “Anaethetise”, a brutally heavy version of “Sleep Together”, the Zeppelinesque riffing of “Blackest Eyes”, and a great version of “Trains”.

They promised to be back next year with more brand new material. I’ll be there!

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Stupid List of the Week

Posted on December 9, 2007 by Tim Hall

I think Chadders is taking the piss :)

Firstly, I’d like to answer a little bit of criticism about one of my previous posts on top 10s. Basically, my mate Tim Hall decided to have a little pop at me about it being quite sad that I posted my top-10 software apps, which is rich really considering some of his posts have been about his top 30 lyrics from songs that noone (apart from 23 people in Crewe Limelight) have ever heard of! ;-)

Chadders, have you ever been to the Limemight and counted the size of the audience there? There will be more that 23 people there on December 19th.

So I will come up with an ever more silly list of amusing gig moments the past 12 months:

Best broken guitar string: That has to be Odin Dragonfly’s set at the Mostly Autumn convention in March. They played a cover of Jethro Tull’s “Witches Promise” as the encore. If you know the song, it starts with a spectacular flute solo as the intro. Immediately after Angie played that intro, Heather broke a guitar string striking the first chord. Gave Angie a chance to play that intro again, though.

Best on stage incident involving alchohol: We have a tie here. First Bryan Josh trying to drink beer and sing at the same time, and discovering that he couldn’t. And the song was a cover of “Fairytale in New York” on the line “It was midnight in the drunk tank”. Second comes from Breathing Space at The Roman Baths in York, where in mid set the band ordered drinks with the order being passed back through the crowd to Livvy’s mum who was standing at the bar. Try doing that at the MEN Arena!

Best spontanious action by the audience: The entire crowd at The Forum breaking out into “Happy Birthday To You” to celebrate the fifty-splodgth birthday of Marillion’s Ian Mosely.

Best Heckler: The guy at Crewe Limelight that asked Bryan Josh when his baby was due.

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They can’t even write their own lazy cliches

Posted on December 6, 2007 by Tim Hall

Spot the difference between this review:

Prog rock is hip again, apparently, although “hip” is not how you would describe the masses of white, middle-aged men gathered here tonight. But who’s to say they aren’t? Balding pates and comfort-fit jeans could have become the very pinnacle of fashion and then fallen from favour in the time it took for this concert to run its course, and we would have been none the wiser. Rush play for a very, very long time. This is due in no small part to the fact that the ageing Canadian trio are essentially their own support act. They play two full concert-length sets, with an intermission, presumably to give you the chance to phone relatives and loved ones worried about your extended absence

And this one:

The progressive rock genre is gradually becoming hip again, although “hip” is not how you would describe the hordes of white, middle-aged men gathered here tonight. But who’s to say they aren’t hip? Balding pates, comfort-fit jeans and beer bellies could become the very pinnacle of fashion in 2008.

Aylesbury’s finest prog-rockers, Marillion play for a very long time. This is due in no small part to the fact that the group are essentially their own support act. They play two sets, with an intermission, presumably to give you the chance to phone relatives and loved ones worried about your extended absence.

Yep, two completely different gigs by two completely different bands, same word-for-word hack clichés. And you still wonder why I hold music journalists in contempt?

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Marillion, Manchester Academy One, 30th Nov 2007

Posted on December 4, 2007 by Tim Hall

It was back to the half-finished Academy One for the second night running, this time to see one of my all-time favourite bands, Marillion.

Unlike previous tours, there was no support, so Marillion played an extended show with two and a half hours of music split by an interval. The sound was an awful lot better than it had been for Within Temptation the night before. It wasn’t anything like as loud, but there was pretty good separation, with none of that muddy bottom end that marred the previous evening. And an enthusiastic crowd made for a great atmosphere.

One thing I love about this band is you never know what they’re going to play, but you still know it’s going to be good. Over the past twenty years or so they’ve steadfastly refused to paint themselves into a corner by trotting out the same ‘standards’ tour after tour, so there are no songs that audiences have come to expect, and might go away disappointed if they don’t hear.

This time round, the opened the first set with the first four songs from “Brave”. I wondered if they were going to play the entire album until the outtro of ‘Mad’ lead into ‘Fruit of the Wild Rose’ from “Anoraknophobia”. After that they ran through the many of the highlights of the past 19 years that they didn’t play on the last tour, described by Steve Hogarth as ‘songs about death and water’. ‘Out of This World’, the one about Donald Campbell, was fantastic. So was the oldie ‘Seasons End’, partly sung by the crowd. If the first set emphasised the darker, more intense side of the band’s music, the second set focussed on the bouncy rockier numbers, including a great version of ‘Cannibal Surf Babe’ continuing the death-and-water theme, ‘Most Toys’ (which actually works live) and another real oldie, ‘Hooks in You’. They also played a new number ‘Real Tears For Sale’. It’s difficult to judge a Marillion song on listen, but this one made a good first impression.

Encores were the firm favourites ‘Quartz’ and ‘Neverwhere’, with the band and crowd really on fire. The latter was the only number common to the last set I saw them play six months ago. How many other bands that have been going 25 years can you say that of?

If this didn’t quite top the fantastic gig at The Forum back in June, it came pretty close. Definitely one of those where the audience came out on a high.

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