Live Reviews Blog

Concert reviews, with a very strong emphasis on the UK progressive rock scene.

Panic Room, The Borderline, London

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Tim Hall

Photo by Tom Connell

Swansea’s Panic Room began their short UK tour in the capital, with a Saturday night show at The Borderline in Central London. As is typical for London gigs by bands in the extended progressive scene, there were an awful lot of familiar faces in the crowd; the regulars had turned out in force.

York’s Morpheus Rising opened the show with their old-school mix of hard rock and metal. Their set drew entirely from the début album “Let The Sleeper Awake”, with twin guitar harmonies that owe a lot to Iron Maiden. They proceeded to play one of the best sets I’ve seen them do. Damien James Sweeting was on particularly strong form with some spectacular shredding guitar.

Howard Sinclair was up next. He described himself as “the filling in the sandwich” and told us he’d been expecting to go on first. I find acoustic singer-songwriters need strong material and delivery to make much of an impression. That counts double if they have to come on straight after a high energy rock band. But Howard Sinclair had both the songs and the stage presence to carry it off, with a short but entertaining set, drawn from his new album “The Delicious Company of Freaks”.

As regular readers of this blog ought to have noticed by now, there’s no point in trying to pretend I’m not a total Panic Room fanboy, and there’s no point repeating eveything I’ve said in previous reviews. But even by their standards, this was a astonishing performance. The setlist drew very heavily from their most recent album “S K I N”, with just a couple of numbers from each of the first two albums, including a superb “Apocalypstick”. One surprise was the return of “Blood Red Skies” from Anne-Marie’s 2004 solo EP “The Contact”. But as with the handful of shows in the spring, it’s the new material that really shines on stage. “Chances”, played live for the first time was a highlight, as was an intense take on the album’s wonderful title track.

Anne-Marie Helder’s incredible voice and stage presence, the wonderful restrained virtuosity of the band, and the way they’re both amazingly tight yet play with an incredible amount of energy makes them a phenomenal live band. They ended with a barnstorming “Hiding the World”, by which time the band were already past curfew, so there was no time for an encore.

On Monday night I went to see Nightwish play to 4000 people at Brixton Academy. That was a great gig, as I said in my review. But this gig topped it. People still say there’s no great music any more. They say there are no great bands around today to compare with the great acts of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Those of us present at the packed Borderline know that’s nonsense.

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Mostly Autumn, Islington O2 Academy, 1st Sep 2012

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Tim Hall

Photo © Howard Rankin

Mostly Autumn came to the O2 Academy in Islington for the second night of the tour promoting the album “The Ghost Moon Orchestra”. It’s their first headline appearance in the capital since 2009, three years ago, previous appearances having been restricted to co-headlining with It Bites last year, and a support for Wishbone Ash back in 2010.

While by no means full, the show still attracted a respectable crowd, and there was a buzz of anticipation before the band came on stage with the instrumental “Distant Train”. After that familiar opener from last year’s greatest hits set, they launched into “Unquiet Tears” from the new album. It began with a goth-clad Olivia Sparnenn accompanied by just the two keyboard players for the ominous and brooding opening section before exploding into a symphonic metal monster demonstrating just what she can do as a vocalist. From then on, set was a mix of old and new, drawing heavily from the new album combined with old favourites and a few more recent highlights. The sound early on was somewhat muddy, although it improved as the show went on; to be fair a seven-piece band with two guitars and two keyboard players is never going to be easy to mix.

The early part of the first set had a very strong hard rock feel. The revived “Never the Rainbow” sandwiched between two new songs gave a Deep Purple vibe, with a lot of Hammond organ from Iain Jennings. Parts of second set had more of the atmospheric celtic-prog mood of old, older epics such as “The Last Climb” alongside new album standout “Tennyson Mansions”. They threw in a few surprises, including songs from “A Weather For Poets”, the bonus disc from the now sold-out special edition of the new album. The new material comes over very strongly, and even the couple of songs which weren’t entirely convincing on record come to life on stage.

Olivia Sparnenn was on fantastic form. Unlike the last couple of tours she’s singing a far greater proportion of the lead vocals, and remained centre stage throughout the set. She’s really in her element now the band have a setlist filled with songs written for her voice. She’s taken a while to grow into the role of fronting the band, but after two years there can be few doubts that she was exactly the right person for the job. Her take on “Evergreen”, for so long one of Heather Findlay’s signature tunes, was flawless, and she really lets rip on the newer material. The former Breathing Space number “Questioning Eyes” never fails to raise the hairs on the back of the neck, and new songs such as “Unquiet Tears” and “Wild Eyed Skies” give a hint of how Nightwish might have sounded had she got the gig with them a few years back.

Anne-Marie Helder deserves a mention. While her own band Panic Room have achieved a significantly higher profile of late, her role in Mostly Autumn is more a supporting one, on keys, flute and backing vocals. But she still plays an important part in the sound. Her harmony lines, often a counterpoint to Olivia’s lead line added a lot to many songs. She’s not playing as quite much flute on this this tour, although she did get her moment in the spotlight during “The Last Climb”. Bryan’s lengthy guitar solo on the same song was mesmerising too; his playing has been getting better and better over the last couple of years.

By the final encore of “Tonight” bringing a very lengthy set to close with another of Olivia’s magnificent soaring vocals, it was clear that this was the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in the Mostly Autumn story. They packed a very powerful punch despite a few sound problems early on. It’s still the early stages of the tour, and the new songs have yet to fully bed in, so they are sure to raise their performances to still greater heights as the tour progresses.

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Panic Room, Bilston Robin 2, 24th June 2012

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Tim Hall

Panic Room returned to the famous Bilston Robin 2 for the second date of their short album launch tour. They’d got off to a slightly wobbly start at Fibbers in York the previous night, with a show plagued by technical and sound problems. Anne-Marie Helder’s superb voice certainly didn’t need to be swamped in reverb like that; she really doesn’t need it. The fact that it was still a very good gig demonstrated the band’s ability to triumph over adversity. The Robin, scene of many of their most memorable gigs in the past, promised to be a far better experience, and it didn’t disappoint.

Anne-Marie Helder of Panic Room, Bilston Robin 2

The show began with a moody post-rock sounding intro featuring Anne-Marie Helder playing guitar with a violin bow, before the band exploded into the twin-guitar prog-metal of “Song for Tomorrow”, the opening number of the newly-released third album “SKIN”. They followed with a couple of older numbers, “Freedom to Breathe” and “5th Amendment”, both dynamic guitar-driven rockers, getting the show off to a very powerful start. The very enthusiastic crowd made for an electric atmosphere.

From then on the set drew heavily from the new album interspersed with a very well-chosen selection of earlier songs, and it soon became apparent just how well the new material comes over live, whether it’s the jazzy “Chameleon”, the semi-acoustic “Freefalling” or the multi-layered “Promises”, the last of which has changed significantly from the early live versions premièred last year. The emotionally powerful performance of the title track was a particular highlight. My sole quibble was the occasional use of backing tapes for some of the string quartet parts on the record. I’d love to see them perform live with a string section, even if it’s only a one-off.

Panic Room at Bilston Robin 2

Older songs included a welcome return of the environmentalist epic “Yasuni“, which the band only played once or twice last year, and a monstrous version of “Apocalypstick”, a song from their first album not played live for more than two years. They’ve kept their swamp-blues cover of “Bitches Crystal”, which in my biased opinion is vastly superior to ELP’s original.

An intense performance of the slow-burning “Tightrope Walker” with Anne-Marie playing additional eastern-style percussion bought the main set to a close, before encoring with two more new songs, the hard rock of “Hiding the World”, and the epic album closer “Nocturnal”. And if that wasn’t enough, they returned again for a final encore of “Sandstorms”.

Anne-Marie Helder of Panic Room, Bilston Robin 2

It’s nights like this that underline what live music is all about, a band who have been getting better and better over the past four years, feeding off the energy from the audience. They’ve gone up a gear, yet again. They’ve got that rare combination of tightness and high energy you get from the very best, and now they’ve got a far greater emotional depth too, perhaps a consequence of the more personal nature of many of the new songs.

People tell me there was an important football match on that night. But when you have the opportunity to see a band this good, who really cares about football?

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Tinyfish/DeeExpus, The Peel, 27th April 2012

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Tim Hall

It was a bit of a last-minute decision to go to this gig, following the cancellation of the Cambridge Rock Festival’s Springfest due to the weather. I may not have been the only one. With the huge crowd milling around outside when I arrived, it was one of the best-attended gigs I’ve seen at The Peel. A lot of the south-east’s prog glitterati were there; several of Touchstone and Crimson Sky, guitar-loop maestro Matt Stevens, and even the drummer from Praying Mantis. As well as what seemed like half of Twitter.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Tinyfish live. Last time was the now-infamous CRS Octoberfest way back in 2009. They proceeded to play an enthusiastic set of highly melodic song-orientated progressive rock interspersed with their distinctive spoken-word interludes from poet and “audience-frightener” Rob Ramsay. The latter reminded me a lot of “Fact and Fiction” era Twelfth Night. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it is something that makes them distinctive, and Rob Ramsey has the dramatic presence to make it work. They drew heavily from their most recent album “The Big Red Spark”, from which the title track was a particular highlight.

I loved the band’s laid-back unpretentious style, exemplified by Leon Camfield’s line about his drumming being “like a clown ambling through a minefield”. Unusually for a prog band Tinyfish don’t have a keyboard player, relying on a mixture of programming and strange guitar effects whenever unguitarlike sounds are required. The folk-style fiddle sound coming from Jim Sanders’ guitar at the end was particularly effective. A nice set, and I’d have liked to have heard them play for longer.

DeeExpus are another band I haven’t encountered for some time; the last time I saw them live was again in 2009, supporting Touchstone at The Wesley Centre in Maltby. The band started out as a studio-based project from multi-instrumentalist Andy Ditchfield and singer Tony Wright. Now they’re a six-piece, who in the manner typical of the prog scene at this level includes people who are also members of numerous other bands.

They played heavy neo-prog that reminded me a lot of Grey Lady Down a few weeks before. Unfortunately they suffered from a rather muddy sound, with the vocals in particular not coming through clearly. I was told afterwards that the sound was actually better in the bar. There was much shredding from new guitarist Michael McCrystal, who sported an impressive 1980s-style perm and gave the impression he’d escaped from Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records. Credo/Landmarq keyboard player Mike Varty, standing in on a temporary basis for Marillion’s Mark Kelly, indulged in some very 80s-Marillion style solos. Henry Rogers, now also in Touchstone contributed some very powerful drumming. The downside was that all the undoubted instrumental prowess didn’t quite compensate for material that was a bit ordinary in places, and I found my attention wandering at times. To be fair the poor sound didn’t help them in that regard. Still, the set picked up towards the end, and did come to a strong finish with the last couple of numbers.

The whole evening felt close to a double headliner rather than traditional band-with-support. The number of Tinyfish t-shirts in evidence and way the crowd had thinned out noticeably by the time DeeExpus came on stage suggested that a lot of the audience had really come to see to see the support. While the headliners had their moments, for my money Tinyfish were the band of the night.

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More Reviews

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Tim Hall

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There haven’t been as many reviews on this site lately, because I’ve been writing instead for Trebuchet Magazine, which has a much higher profile that this blog.

My most recent live reviews over there have been The Esoteric Antenna showcase at The Borderline featuring The Reasoning, Sanguine Hum, Panic Room and headliners Tin Spirits, and before that, Touchstone supported by Heather Findlay & Chris Johnson at The Duchess in York.

I’m also reviewing albums that Trebuchet have received for review from record labels; the last of mine is of “Oro: Opus Primum” by doom-sludge merchants Ufomammut.

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Crimson Sky, Reading, 31st March 2012

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Tim Hall

Saturday 31st of March saw Reading’s Prog event of the year; a showcase gig featuring Crimson Sky marking the début of their new vocalist Jane Setter, co-headlining with Grey Lady Down, with support from John Mitchell of It Bites/Arena/*Frost fame. It took place in South Street Arts Centre, a lovely little venue five minutes from the centre of Reading.

Despite the competition the same night from Touchstone at the Peel and (because prog fans travel) Magenta up in Wath in South Yorkshire, there was still an appreciable-sized crowd. To emphasise that this was an event, not just a regular gig, we had a Master of Ceremonies in the form of Tinyfish’s Rob Ramsey, who certainly dressed for the occasion.

John Mitchell was originally billed to appear solo, but a couple of days before the gig it turned into a duo of him and keyboard player John Beck, making it half of It Bites. The pair of them put in an impressive performance combining recent It Bites tunes with some well-chosen covers; their take on Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes The Flood” was spine-tingling.

Grey Lady Down were a 1990s band, one of the acts on the independent Cyclops label. Recently reformed after a ten year hiatus, and expanded to a six-piece with twin guitars, they played a tight, powerful and quite heavy set. Highlights were the hard-rocking opener “And Finally”, and the intense “Paper Chains (the Crime Part 3)”, both from their 1997 album “Fear”. Even if their brand of 80s-style neo-prog wasn’t stunning original, they did deliver a passionate performance with some strong material. It’s nice to see them back.

Crimson Sky’s appearance was their first since a very poorly-attended gig in Swindon more than a year ago. That was the one and only live appearance of the short-lived lineup with Janey Summer on vocals, replacement for Holly Thody who’d appeared on their one album to date, “Misunderstood”. Tonight was the first live appearance by an all-new incarnation of the band, with Jane Setter taking up the microphone as their third lead singer.

Crimson Sky fall within the broad spectrum of progressive rock, but while they have the traditional 5-piece prog lineup of vocals-guitar-keys-bass-drums they’re not a generic neo-prog band. They’re not averse to the occasional classically-derived flourish or widdly keyboard solo but there’s also something of a spiky 80s new-wave edge on quite a few songs, and their sound has a lot more space in the mix compared with GLD’s wall-of-sound approach. The dominant instrumental sound is Martin Leamon’s guitar playing, whether it’s indie-style jangle, metallic riffage or fluid jazz-flavoured solos. Much of the time he’s soloing throughout the song behind the vocal rather than playing straightforward chord progressions.

I’d seen Jane Setter fronting a local prog covers band (yes, there are such things!) a few times in the Reading area, and this gig is clearly a significant step up to a bigger stage. She not only has a great voice, but combines it with a strong stage presence. With much of the set taken from “Misunderstood” she rose to the challenge of taking another singer’s material and making it hers without changing the songs out of all recognition, something that’s easier said that done. Her style is a little more classic rock than Holly’s somewhat punky approach, which suits some songs better than others. But if one or two songs didn’t quite come off, there were many more that she completely owned.

They ended their enthusiastic performance with an encore of the epic “Misunderstood III”. It’s clear that Crimson Sky are back. The smiles of the faces of all the band throughout the gig really said it all.

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Also Eden/Leatherat, The 12 Bar, Swindon

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Tim Hall

Double-headline gigs tend to divide options. The common criticism I hear is that you get less than a full set’s worth from whichever of the two bands you’d come to see, and with an ill-matched pair of bands there is always the risk that whole thing doesn’t quite come off. But when it does work you can end up with a great evening’s worth of music. The gig at Swindon’s 12 Bar Club saw Also Eden, a band I’d seen at the Cambridge Rock Festival sharing the bill with Leatherat, a band unknown to me, both bands playing 75 minute sets.

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Also Eden represents a triumph over adversity. Shortly after joining the band as replacement for their original singer Huw Lloyd-Jones in 2010, frontman Rich Harding was involved in a serious motorbike accident, and there were doubts whether he’d live, let alone be able to sing or walk again. By 2011 he was back on stage while still on crutches, and the band recorded and released “Think of the Children”, his first full-length album with the band.

Also Eden’s sound has many of the trappings of a typical neo-prog band with lengthy multi-part songs and that overdriven chorused lead guitar sound that’s as much a signature of prog as jangle is to 80s indie. But what sets them apart from many of their more derivative competitors is the passion and intensity of the delivery. With Rich Harding having fronted Marillion tribute bands there’s more than a hint of Fish-era Marillion, but I could also hear strong echoes of that band’s contemporaries Twelfth Night. This was very apparent in some of Harding’s politically-charged lyrics from their most recent album, from which the band drew the majority of the set. While perhaps not the most polished performance I’ve seen them do, it was nevertheless a good show. This is a band who I think ought to be destined for bigger and better things in the coming years.

Leatherat turned out to be a very different sort of band. With a mandolin-wielding frontman bearing more than a passing resemblance to Gilmi the Dwarf from “Lord of the Rings”, the five-piece played high energy electric folk rock, with electric violin as the principle lead instrument. Like Also Eden before them, the combination of a charismatic frontman and an intense performance made for a great live band. Although I had to miss the last couple of songs due to having to catch the last train home, what I did see was highly entertaining, and I’d certainly like to catch this band again.

As double-headline gigs go, this was one of the good ones, with the two contrasting but complementary bands that made a great combination. The two bands play together again at The Fleece and Firkin in Bristol on 12th April. Be there!

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Karnataka, Colston Hall, Bristol

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Tim Hall

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New review of mine on Trebuchet Magazine of Karnataka at Colston Hall in Bristol. Photos in the review are mine, but the embedded videos of an earlier lineup of the band were not my choice – I’m blaming the editor for that one!

I’ve uploaded a few more photos from the gig. They’re not my best, since the lighting could be described as “challenging”. Was using my f1.4 50mm virtually the whole time.

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Magenta – Bilston Robin 2, 20th November 2011

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Tim Hall

Welsh progressive rock band Magenta have established a strong reputation over past decade, with five studio albums to their name. They don’t play live often, but they’re well worth catching on the rare occasions when they do. The Sunday night show at Bilston Robin 2 was only their fourth full-band appearance of the year, following on from a successful appearance at the Summers End festival back in October.

The Robin 2 in Bilston is one of Britain’s premier classic rock, progressive rock and blues venues outside the capital. Tucked away in the heart of the Black Country they always put a lot of work into promoting their gigs, so even for a Sunday night there was a good-sized crowd.

Support came from former Pallas vocalist Alan Reed, fronting a semi-acoustic four-piece band. They managed to sound very proggy at times for a band without electric guitars, although their bassist doubled up on electric cello on a couple of songs. Their set mixed songs from Alan’s recent EP “Dancing with Ghosts” with a couple of Pallas oldies, and he warned us they might have to eat one of the band if they didn’t sell enough CDs. His spirited and impassioned performance made me wonder quite what Pallas were thinking when they sacked him. Especially when compared with their own somewhat lacklustre set without him at High Voltage in August.

Magenta are now officially a trio, consisting of composer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Reed, vocalist Christina Booth, and lead guitarist Chris Fry. For live work, Rob plays keys, and they’ve borrowed Godsticks’ excellent rhythm section to expand to a five-piece.

They were incredibly tight for a band who perform live so infrequently, such that it was hard to believe they’d played together live so few times this year. This was full-blown symphonic prog, with swirling keyboards, complex multi-part song structures and dense arrangements. But it was also all-out rock at the same time, a huge level of energy and intensity throughout their lengthy set.

The set spanned their entire career, going from the dark and intense 20 minute epic title track of “Metamorphosis” to selections from their more streamlined and accessible new album “Chameleon”, to older material such as the lengthy medley from their first album “Revolutions”. Magenta may be one of those bands who wear their influences on their sleeves, but unlike some lesser bands they put enough ideas of their own to become far more than a derivative pastiche. Occasionally they will throw in a few bars of something recognisable from 70s Yes or Genesis, but all of these are, as the band once stated, quite deliberate.

The diminutive Christina Booth showed just why she frequently wins awards for best female vocalist, singing with a lot of power and precision and making full use of her impressive vocal range. Chris Fry reeled off some amazing solos. At times his sound is reminiscent of Yes’ Steve Howe, but much of the time his sound is all his own; avoiding the sometimes clichéd Steve Hackett-meets-Dave Gilmour of too many neo-prog guitarists. And you’d never know that the rhythm section were just hired hands given the rhythmic complexity of the music.

Despite the infrequency of their live appearances, they’re every bit as great a live band as any of their peers in the female-fronted progressive rock scene. Quite when they’ll hit the road again is anyone’s guess, but on the strength of this show, they’re definitely not a band to miss.

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Heather Findlay Band – Fibbers, York, 18th November 2011

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Tim Hall

Heather Findlay made début as a solo artist with a full band with a couple of festival appearances back in August. After an acoustic support slot for Touchstone in October, she came to Fibbers in her home town of York as the second date of her much-anticipated first tour as a headline act.

The venue was packed. Her former band Mostly Autumn were playing their annual home town showcase at The Grand Opera House the following night, which encouraged many fans to make a weekend of it and take in both shows. And it was nice to see her former Mostly Autumn band-mates Bryan Josh, Olivia Sparnenn, Anne-Marie Helder and Angela Gordon in the audience.

Support came from Shadow of the Sun, the new project featuring Dylan Thompson, formerly of The Reasoning, on lead guitar. They played a tight high-energy hard rock set which showed a lot of promise for the future. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more of these guys in the coming months.

The atmosphere was electric with anticipation by the time Heather and her band hit the stage and launched into the title track of “The Phoenix Suite”. This was Heather in full-on rock mode. The full band shows delivered a very different experience to the acoustic sets with Chris Johnson supporting Touchstone, even though a lot of songs were common to both.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, the lengthy and varied set proved Heather still has all that magic from her time in Mostly Autumn. She’s assembled a very talented band. Alongside multi-instrumentalist Chris Johnson, Dave Kilminster’s guitar playing is a great example of restrained virtuosity, acting as a foil for Heather’s lead vocal without overplaying, and Steve Vantsis and Alex Cromarty make for a powerful rhythm section. The end result felt far more like a band than a solo artist backed by anonymous session musicians. Having the best sound mix I’d heard at any gig at Fibbers since refurbishment didn’t hurt either.

On the songs from The Phoenix Suite the band kept close to the original arrangements, although all the songs benefited greatly from a thicker guitar sound, with “Seven” particularly memorable. The only significant change was Dave Kilminster’s playing the sort of melodic and expressive solo on “Mona Lisa” that I’d loved to have heard on the original record.

The rest of the set consisted of Heather’s older songs, many of them radically reworked. Rather than play all of the obvious standards like “Evergreen”, they took us on a tour of less well-known highlights from her songbook, drawing heavily from Mostly Autumn’s “Heart Full of Sky” and “Glass Shadows”, including many songs seldom, or in some cases never before played live.

Without the walls of keys, there was a lot more space in the arrangements, with Dave Kilminster’s guitar taking flute and clarinet lines in songs like “Caught in a Fold” and “Blue Light”. An acoustic interlude with upright bass, mandolin and ukelele(!) featured a surprisingly funky take on Odin Dragonfly’s “This Game” and a great version of Mostly Autumn’s “Unoriginal Sin”. In contrast, Odin Dragonfly’s “Magpie” turned into a full-on rock number complete with a shredding solo at the end.

The encores began just Heather accompanied by Chris on piano, with a medley of “Broken”, a few bars of “Carpe Diem” leading into “Bitterness Burnt” and a deeply moving “Paper Angels”, which saw the band return for the closing section. They left us with what had become one of Heather’s signature songs, a mesmerising “Shrinking Violet”.

Playing a full-length headline set with only a five song EP’s worth of new material was always going to be a bit of a risk, but the completely fresh takes on the older songs made for a great gig. Significantly, they played a set made up largely from Mostly Autumn songs without sounding much like Mostly Autumn at all. It’s a show unlikely to be repeated once Heather has written and recorded more new songs, so catch it while you can at the last two dates on the tour, at The Borderline on the 26th, and The Robin in Bilston the following night.

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