Tag Archives: Mostly Autumn

Another 2009 Roundup – Live Music

Posted on January 1, 2010 by Tim Hall

Yet another end-of-year roundup, this time live music.

  • Best Gig – Has to be Progressive Nation at Manchester.  A great performance from headliners Dream Theater, a superb one hour set by co-headliner Opeth, and good supports from BigElf and Unexpect, neither of whom I’d seen or heard of before.
  • Worst Gig – Pure Reason Revolution playing in an awful venue that really didn’t do them justice.
  • Strangest Gig – Breathing Space playing a sold-out village hall in Nottinghamshire in snowy February.
  • Biggest Disappointment – Not seeing Karnataka at the Cambridge Rock Festival due to PA company snafu.
  • Band of the Year – Has to be Mostly Autumn, of course.  I saw them no fewer that twelve times over the year, always good, with their Halloween show at Burnley possibly the best of the year.  They recorded the whole of the spring tour, of which I saw several gigs, and the recordings make up the excellent Live 2009 pair of albums. A great band, and a lovely group of people too.

The overall verdict for the year can be summed up with the word “Progtastic”.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Top Albums of 2009 – Yet another subjective list.

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Tim Hall

Yes, another top ten list.  This isn’t intended is a list of what I think are the most ‘important’ or ‘influential’ releases of 2009, and certainly bears no resemblance to those awful lists compiled by committees of groupthinking music journalists you’ll read in major newspapers which seem to be filled with albums of social-commentary lyrics or drug-addled personal angst with some hastily thrown-together music tacked on as an afterthought. Which is not my kind of thing at all.

This is all about my music – my personal soundtrack for 2009.  In the end, I couldn’t cut down my shortlist to just ten, so I chickened out, and went for 15.

  • 15: The Mars Volta – Octohedron
    Although this album doesn’t have the energy level or sheer bonkersosity of their incendiary first album, this is still the best thing they done since Francis the Mute. They’ve gone and done an album full of actual songs, with tunes. Alhough some people might decry this as a dreadful sell-out, the compelling “Twilight is my Guide” is worth the price of admission alone.
  • 14: UFO – The Visitor
    There’s still life in Phil Mogg’s veteran hard rockers yet. The Visitor sees Mogg team up with American guitarist Vinnie Moore.  I’d known Moore’s playing from mid 80s shred-metal albums on Shrapnel Records.  Now an older and wiser Moore has abandoned high-speed shredding in favour of a bluesy style that’s the perfect foil for Mogg’s songwriting and often underrated hard-boiled lyrics.
  • 13: Pure Reason Revolution – Amor Vincit Omnia
    PRR take a major left turn with their second album. Their debut “The Dark Third” came over as a sort of prog Darkness.  Anyone expecing more of the same was in for a very rude shock, as they’ve gone all electro, swapping the Pink Floyd inflence for Depeche Mode.  It’s actually a very good album, especially when the guitars return a couple of songs in, harder-edged and more abrasive than their hypnotic debut, but filled with memorable songs.
  • 12: Parade – The Fabric
    Parade is the brainchild of Fish guitarist and former Mostly Autumn keyboard player Chris Johnson, with the collaboration of Anne-Marie Helder, Gavin Griffiths, Patrick Berry and Simon Snaize. It took me a few listens for this one to click; on the surface it’s an indie-sounding album with it’s sparse chiming guitars and clattering drums; but listen more closely and there’s some real musical depth there.
  • 11: The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
    I bought this album on the basis of a luke-warm review by The Guardian’s Alexis Petredis, where he said “What we have here is a terrible infestation of Jethro Tull”. From the opening organ chords it’s obvious that while marketed as ‘indie’, this is a prog album, with a classic 70s prog appoach to melody.  There’s even a Hammond B3 wig-out at one point that reminds me of Uriah Heep.
  • 10: Mastodon – Crack the Skye
    For some reason, the hipster crowd seem to have picked up on Mastodon despite the fact that this is full-blown no-holds-barred prog-metal. Perhaps it’s the sludgy 70s-style production that makes it more accessible to that demographic than someone like Opeth. Saying that, it’s still a greatly entertaining album, with the 12-minute epic “The Czar” as the high point, with everything from a galloping Sabbath-like riff to an utterly over the top solo.
  • 9: Heaven and Hell – The Devil You Know
    Heaven and Hell is, of course, the reunion of the early 80s incarnation of Black Sabbath with Ronnie Dio on vocals and Vinnie Appice on drums.  Such reunions of veteran artists have a mixed track record, but on this occasion they’ve delivered the goods with great slice of the sort of epic operatic-tinged metal we got in Ronnie Dio’s previous stint with the band. Who’s have thought they’d have such a good album in them this late in their career?
  • 8: Touchstone – Wintercoast
    Jeromy Irons’ spoken word introduction opens Touchstone’s powerful second album, which fuses melodic hard rock with prog to great effect to produce a hugely varied and entertaining album. It marks a major step forward from their debut and makes them a force to be reckoned with in the growing British female-fronted prog scene.
  • 7: Dream Theater – Black Clouds and Silver Linings
    Prog-metal giants Dream Theater were a major band for me in the 1990s, with albums such as the intense Awake or the majestic Metropolis II. Their noughties output has been uneven; some strong individual songs, but sometimes self-indulgent soloing and instrumental virtuosity for it’s own sake seemed to take precidence over composition. Despite some lenghy epic songs, Black Clouds and Silver Linings is a major improvement in that regard, and is probably the best overall album they’ve produced in the decade.
  • 6: Porcupine Tree – The Incident
    Steve Wilson’s band take a step back from the metal-orientated recent albums towards the atmospheric progressive rock that characterised earlier albums. Although made up of separare songs, it’s intended to be listened to as a single continuous piece of music.  High spot is “Time Flies”, with is musical quoting of Pink Floyd’s “Dogs”.
  • 5: IQ – Frequency
    80s veterans IQ may wear their influences on their sleeve, especially Gabriel-era Genesis, but unlike some other neo-prog outfits of the 80s and 90s, they do it well enough to become far more than a simple pastiche of older and better bands.  Frequency sees them as good as they’ve ever been, possibly even topping 2004′s Dark Matter. If you like swirly keyboards, strange time signatures and melodramatic vocals, this one’s for you.
  • 4: Mostly Autumn – Live 2009
    This one’s cheating a little bit, since they released what is effectively a double live album as two single albums; I’m treating it as one album for the purposes of this list.  Previous Mostly Autumn live albums have been very disappointing; some of them have been little better than bootleg-quality recordings that have failed to do a great live band justice. This one, recorded on various dates from the 2009 spring tour, blows every previous MA live album out of the water, and really captures what it’s like to be in the front row at one of their gigs. The 2009 incarnation of the band with Iain Jennings on keys and Gavin Griffiths on drums is the best MA live lineup I’ve seen, and they were on fire this spring.
  • 3: Muse – The Resistance
    It’s not often I buy the number one album in the charts; the last time was, well, the previous Muse album Black Holes and Revelations. Sometimes you just want something bombastically over the top, and Muse deliver that in spades; fans of twee indie hate them with a passion. There’s something great about seeing a band who aren’t ashamed to be influenced by prog selling out major venues. Muse’s best to date?  Possibly.  They’re the band The Darkness would love to have been, if only they had the talent.
  • 2: Panic Room – Satellite
    Panic Room’s debut, Visionary Position was a complex multi-layered affair composed in the studio, and gave the band some headaches when trying to work out how on earth they were going to reproduce it all live. In contrast, many of the songs from their follow-up had been performed live long before the band went into the studio to record them.  The end result is an album of simpler, more direct songs.  The very different musical backgrounds of the five members combine in an alchemical mix which results in far more than the sum of the parts.  Elements of hard rock, prog, pop, folk and jazz contribute to a sound that defies easy pigeonholing, with some very thought provoking lyrics from Anne-Marie Helder.
  • 1: Breathing Space – Below the Radar
    Many people wondered how York’s Breathing Space would be able to follow 2007′s excellent Coming Up for Air, especially after the departure of guitarist Mark Rowen.  But Breathing Space’s third album, recorded with Mostly Autumn’s Liam Davidson standing in on guitar, emerged even stronger that it’s predecessor.  Without Mark Rowen or saxophonist John Hart they’ve lost the jazzier elements of their sound in favour of a harder-edged rock approach, which mixes hard rock numbers with atmospheric and emotionally moving ballads.  Iain Jenning’s production and keyboard playing is superb, and Olivia Sparnenn’s soaring vocals just get better and better. Yes I know I’m probably too close to the band to really be able to judge their music objectively any more, but as I said at the very beginning, this is a personal list.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Top Ten Albums of the Noughties

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Tim Hall

Loads of other people are doing subjective lists of best albums of the past decade – here are mine.  I always think personal lists are much more interesting than the sorts of bland lists of CDs you can get in Tesco’s compiled by committees that you’ll see in the mainstream.media  But I would say that, wouldn’t I?

In order to keep it varied I’ve imposed a rule that no artist may appear more than once in the top 10.

  • 10: Nightwish - Dark Passion Play
    There are so many female-fronted symphonic metal bands coming from various parts of Europe that it’s very difficult to single out just one. Finland’s Nightwish throw choirs, orchestras, Uilleann pipes and kitchen sinks into a gloriously over-the-top album mixing metal and opera with a touch of celtic folk, with new singer Anette Olzon adding a touch of warmth to lead vocals that’s missing from some bands in the genre.
  • 9: The Pineapple Thief – Tightly Unwound
    The Pineapple Thief describle themselves as ‘indie prog’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.  Some sonic similarities with pre-Kid A Radiohead, but with more traditional style rock vocals, and a extremely strong sense of melody, which is what makes this album stand out.
  • 8:  The Mars Volta – Deloused in the Comatorium
    After a string of disappointing albums over the past few years it’s easy to forget just how great their incendiary debut was. What’s been described as a mix of speed-metal and free jazz somehow combines the raw energy of punk with the complexity and technical skill of progressive rock.  It’s all completely bonkers, but in a good way.

  • 7:  Breathing Space – Below the Radar
    The York band really come of age with their third album. They may have dropped the jazzier elements of their sound in favour of a harder rock edge, but they still find room for some atmospheric ballads and big soaring epics which showcase Olivia Sparnenn’s amazing voice.  Iain Jennings production job gives the lie to the idea that you need a major-label budget to come up with a great-sounding album.
  • 6: Porcupine Tree – In Absentia
    It’s difficult to choose a single Porcupine Tree album out of several great ones they’ve recorded over the past decade. Indeed, with the possible exception of 2005′s slight misstep of Deadwing, all their albums in the noughties have been classics. If the 90s charted their progress from ambient Floydian soundscapes to a more song-orientated approach, 2002′s In Absentia saw them add some metal to the mix.  The combination of some Zeppelineque riffing and some darkly ambiguous lyrics may have lost them some older fans, but introduced them to a younger audience of metal fans.
  • 5 Karnataka – Strange Behaviour
    Some may say including a live album in the decade’s top ten may be cheating, but this is my blog, where I make up the rules. Strange Behaviour caught the atmospheric celtic-tinged prog outfit  just when they seemed poised for a major breakthrough, the live dynamics making the songs far more powerful than the studio recordings.  Sadly this double album turned out to their magnificent swansong, and the band were to implode shortly after it’s release.
  • 4 Marillion – Marbles
    Marillion are a rare example of a veteran act who can still make great new  music more than two decades into their career. Their output in the noughties may have been uneven, but this double album shows the Steve Hogarth incarnation of the band at their best; a hugely varied work which goes from experiments with drum loops and dub rhythms to huge soaring epics filled with Steve Rothery’s trademark sustain-drenched guitar. Ignore the single-disk retail edition; you need the double album available only from the band’s website.
  • 3 Fish – 13th Star
    Marillion’s former frontman’s career seemed to be petering out by the middle of the decade after a couple of disappointingly weak albums.  But he bounced back very strongly indeed with this one.  Musically it’s far removed from the ornate neo-prog of 80′s Marillion, a mix of metallic grooves and heart-on-sleeve ballads, lyrically it’s just about the most intense and emotionally charged thing he’s even done.
  • 2 Opeth – Blackwater Park
    Sweden’s Opeth combine death metal with 70′s style pastoral prog-rock to produce the perfect antidote to anyone who thinks heavy metal hasn’t progressed since Toni Iommi started playing tritones through a fuzzbox way back in 1970.  Blackwater Park, produced by Porcupine Tree’s Steve Wilson, marks the point where they established their signature sound, Mikael Ã…kerfeldt switching back and forth between ‘Cookie Monster’ and ‘clean’ vocals, and the music switching back and forth between dense swirling heavyness and reflective acoustic passages. Metal has never quite been the same since.
  • 1 Mostly Autumn – The Last Bright Light
    As I said at the very beginning, this is a personal list. And this is the album which has changed my life more than any of the preceding ones. This was very much the coming-of-age album for York’s finest progressive rock band, and marked the high point of their celtic-prog phase of their career, full of soaring and emotionally powerful epics making use of flutes and even crumhorns alongside traditional rock instruments. Although they subsequently moved to the more polished commercial sound of the follow-up Passengers, even now their live sets still draw heavily from this album.

There are plenty of other great albums just outside the top 10; Therion’s totally bonkers choral metal Gothic Kabbalah, Muse’s recent The Resistance, IQ’s neo-prog masterpiece Frequency, Pure Reason Revolution’s hypnotically captivating The Dark Third, either of The Reasoning’s two albums, and Dream Theater’s recent return to form Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mostly Autumn Halloween Show, Burnley 31-Oct-2009

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Tim Hall

It’s the second year running I’ve been to a gig on Halloween – Last year it was Panic Room in Worcester, this time it was Mostly Autumn in Burnley, the eleventh time I’ve seen the band this year, and the 38th time I’ve seen them altogether.

The website invited people to come in Halloween costumes, although very few people did (I’m sorry to say I chickened out).  The band, on the other hand, really went for it.  For a few moments I didn’t even recognise Olivia Sparnenn and was wondering if they’d got a new backing singer!

EvilFaerie
Heather as The Evil Faerie

They replaced the normal intro tape something much spookier-sounding, before Iain Jennings played the opening bars of  Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in A Minor. Then the full band tore into their traditional set opener “Fading Colours“. Mostly Autumn have been a great live band all year, but tonight’s performance was as strong as I’ve seen them play all year; everyone on superb form. While they’re a very different band to the one I first saw in 2004, I’m of the opinion that the current incarnation of the band, with Iain Jennings on keys and Gavin Griffiths back on drums is the best live lineup of the band I’ve seen; the eight-piece band produce a huge multi-layered sound high on energy, atmosphere and emotional intensity.

Tonight’s two and a half hour show was very much a greatest hits set, seeing the welcome return of old favourites like “Shrinking Violet” and the epic “Mother Nature“, neither of which they’ve played for a while, along with “Winter Mountain” and “The Dark Before the Dawn” which they’d bought back earlier in the year. We were also treated to a rare appearance of “Ghost in Dreamland” from the “Storms Over Still Water” album. Probably the mark of a great setlist is there was nothing I’d really rather have heard at the expense of songs they played.

I’m very grateful to the band for allowing me to use my DSLR – I’ve uploaded many more pictures to my Fotopic.net photo site.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Cambridge Rock Festival 2009

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Tim Hall

I’m back from four days of superb music, amidst a bit of mud, at the Cambridge Rock Festival.

This is one of the many smaller festivals up and down the country, which contrasts with the big corporate festivals like Glastonbury and Reading. It started out as a beer festival with a few bands, but gradually the music side of things grew more important, eventually resulting in a name change from the old name of “Rockinbeerfest”.

The music is very much aimed at an older classic rock audience, with a bill made up of a mix of 70s veterans and younger progressive rock or blues artists. It’s like travelling to an alternative universe where punk never happened, and musical ability never went out of fashion.  This year they’ve moved to a new location. Rather than having the main stage in the converted cowshed in Godmanchester, we’d moved to the Haggis Farm Polo club just outside Cambridge.

Last year I just went on the Sunday, but this year I decided to make a full weekend of it. This was the first time I’ve camped at a festival (or indeed camped anywhere) since the Reading Festival back in 1983.  I camped with group of fellow Mostly Autumn and Breathing Space fans that included Colin and Helen, Chriz (the cider monster), Andy Goodall, Roger Ashworth and Doogie Walsh.

Let’s get the one negative out of the way first. There was nothing anyone could have done about the torrential downpours on the Thursday night, which caused one of the stages to be shut down because the backstage area was flooded, and as the contractor supplying the power have stated, water and electricity don’t mix.  But I have to say the bands, audiences and festival as a whole were badly let down by the contractor providing the PA. We had long delays over the weekend, band after band complaining about lack of monitors, and things finally came to a head on Sunday.

The good points apart from the music were excellent food, some great real ales, and a fantastic vibe. With just a couple of thousand in attendance it felt more like a weekend-long private party than a festival.  It was lovely to see Mostly Autumn stick around for the whole weekend; plenty of opportunities to chat with them, and even watch some of the other acts with members of the band.


Johannes James of Kyrbgrinder

I missed the first act on Friday, so my day kicked off with a great set from Northsydes.  They sounded a bit like Led Zeppelin fronted by Janis Joplin, and what impressed me was the way all four members made an equal contribution; powerful vocals, tight drumming, some great guitar work and wonderful bass grooves.  I was also very impressed with Kyrbgrinder playing on the smaller Radio Caroline stage.  They’re fronted by Threshold’s drummer Johannes James. There are not many people who can sing while playing prog-metal lead drums at the same time. And he’s such a charismatic frontman you barely notice the other two guys on stage.  They were possibly the find of the festival for me.


Heather Findlay of Mostly Autumn

I know I’m biased, but Mostly Autumn were the band of the day for me.  After a considerable delay due to technical problems they delivered a very powerful 90-minute set in adverse circumstances, despite being forced to stop playing in the middle of “Simple Ways” when something broke.  The setlist was pretty close to the one they would have played last year had they had they been able to play a full set, with a very powerful “Unoriginal Sin” and a magnificent “Carpe Diem”, and a lump-in-the throat “Heroes” to finish. With regular drummer Gavin Griffiths have another commitment this weekend, it was hats off to Robbie Baxter, normally part of the road crew, for filling in on drums for such a high-profile gig, and doing an admirable job.

The following headline set from the John Lees Barclay James Harvest was good too – vastly superior to the disappointing Les Holroyd version of the band I saw a couple of years ago.  It may have meandered at the beginning, but as it went on, and the sound mix improved, it built in intensity, and I left the main arena with “Hymn” still playing in my head. While I don’t know that much of their back catalogue, they played a lot of the standards I recognised, like “Poor Man’s Moody Blues” and “Child of the Universe”, and it was great to hear plenty of real live Mellotron.  And who was that girl dancing next to me, and singing along to “Mockingbird”?  Sure I’ve seen her before somewhere…

I spent much of Saturday moving from stage to stage. Since most of the bands were unknown to me, I probably managed to miss some great bands while watching someone else on another stage.  I spent quite a bit of time in the smaller CRS tent, rocking out to the very metal Crimes of Passion, and also saw most of Manning’s set, very very prog, with no fewer than three keyboard players.  On the main stage there were some great sets by Deborah Bonham and Never the Bride. The latter gave us one of the quotes of the weekend, when Nikki Lamborn told the sound crew “Stop playing with their knobs”.  70s Veterans Stray also delivered an entertaining set, featuring some serious Stratocaster abuse. That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!

The delays and technical problems which had affected Mostly Autumn the previous night were worse, when we waited, and waited for the mighty Uriah Heep. Finally they rolled the intro tape, the band came out, and… nothing happened. They stood around looking embarrassed, before shuffling off stage again.  It would be another half an hour before their set finally started, and like Mostly Autumn the night before rewarded the crowd’s patience with a blistering set, mixing 70s classics with selections from their recent album “Wake the Sleeper”.  Their classic Hammond-drenched hard rock sound and remarkable energy levels for a band of their age made them the band of the day without question.  Saying that, the following set by headliners The Quireboys went down well, a great party band to finish off the night. Or rather, morning, because it was gone 3am by the time the music finished.


Bryan, Paul and Olivia of Breathing Space

After some excellent glam-metal from Morph to rock away the hangovers, the first ‘big’ band on Sunday’s bill was Breathing Space. They’d gone down well last year with a ballad-heavy set, but this year’s CRF witnessed a transformed band.  They played a far rockier set, drawing heavily from the new album “Below the Radar”,  Now with Bryan Josh standing in on guitar  they delivered the best live performance I’ve seen them do all year, tight, energetic and highly emotional.  Set closer “Questioning Eyes” really brought a lump to the throat.  The huge crowd round the merch stand as soon as they’d finished said it all.

Touchstone too have come on in leaps and bounds since their appearance a year ago, playing another a really tight and high energy set drawn largely from their recent album “Wintercoast”.  The transformation of this band since I first saw them support The Reasoning in Crewe a couple of years ago is nothing short of phenomenal, especially singer Kim Servoir’s growing confidence as a frontwoman.  This band are going places.

I’d been very much looking forward to seeing Karnataka.  But as soon as I saw Ian Jones near the bar, the expression on his face told me something was wrong. He told me that the band would not be playing due to problems with the PA. It eventually transpired that Asia and Focus had demanded that they use their own PA and crew (and given the problems Mostly Autumn and Uriah Heep had suffered, I can hardly blame them). The changeover meant that the main stage needed to be shut down for two hours, and two bands had to be dropped, one of them being Karnataka. Bluesman Simon McBride moved to the blues tent, but unfortunately Karnataka’s stage gear was more than the smaller stage PA and mixing desk could have coped with.  So I got to meet the band, who were all very disappointed not to be playing, but didn’t get to see them perform.


Asia’s Geoff Downes

The weekend ended with Focus and Asia.  Focus took a long time to get going, with a couple of false starts while Thijs van Leer vainly tried to get his monitor to work, but ended with rousing versions of their hits, “Sylvia” and a manic “Hocus Pocus”, with Thijs conducting the audience for the falsetto parts.  The prog behemoth of Asia closed proceedings, with OTT amounts of drums and keyboards, and a rocking set drawn from “Asia” and “Alpha” plus a version of ELP’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”. Steve Howe doesn’t half look old now, but he can still cut in on the guitar.

A great festival which survived the best attempts of the weather and the PA company to ruin things. There were many great bands, some very familiar to me, others completely new. But ultimately any festival is about more than just the bands; those people who came just to see one band are really missing the point of what festivals are about.  Assuming they fix the problems with the PA, I’ll be back next year for more.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Tim Hall

The downside of having a very busy day is you feel completely shattered on the next. This is what happens when you go to a model railway exhibition and a gig on the same day, and the first of those is two hours travel away.

I missed the Derby show last year for family reasons. This year it’s moved a different date, and moved out of it’s old home at The Assembly Rooms become the latest show to move to a dismal sports hall on the fringes of town. If you’re one of the minority of visitors that travels to shows by train, this is almost always a bad thing; rather than a location within walking distance of the main railway station, you have an extra half-hour’s travel each way by bus to get to the place. It’s why I don’t go to the Nottingham show any more; that one always such a pig to get to I’ve decided it’s not worth the effort.

Saying that, despite the hall lacking the character of the old Assembly Rooms, they still had a good selection of layouts and traders. Derby always emphasises non-British modelling, and there was a selection of French, Swiss, German, American and Canadian layouts as well as British outline. The simple but effective “Glenrothes North Junction” flew the flag for British N, a slice of 1990s central Scotland.

The traders did my credit card too some serious damage, with a lot of continental rolling stock doing it GBH in the first few minutes. The long-awaited Kato Swiss RIC stock is finally out at truly eye-watering prices, and last years modern Minitrix wagons have finally appeared, including the long tarpaulin-roofed flat. This is one of those 1:160 models of a continental loading-gauge prototype that happily scales very close to a 1:148 representation of an equivalent British gauge version. And I also picked up a Dapol InterCity livery DVT. There was also a Dapol 66 in DRS “Compass” livery which lunged at my credit card but missed, because I’d spent enough money by then.

Then it was a three hour journey by bus, two trains, a tram, and a lengthy walk across central Manchester to Bury for the latest date of Mostly Autumn’s spring tour. I’ve seen this band so many times that it’s not just the band, but their siblings, parents and significant others who are greeting me by name!

Mostly Autumn have been on blindingly good form on this tour, and tonight’s gig was no exception. Having Gavin Griffiths back on drums seems to have lifted the energy of the live performance to a new level  And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Heather as enthusiastic or as animated before this tour; she’s also on spectacular form vocally, and dominates the stage visually. Bury has always been a good venue to see the band, great atmosphere and good acoustics; just about the best sound balance I’ve heard on this tour; every voice and instrument clearly heard in the mix, and nobody so loud that they drowned out anyone else.

Still another half-dozen dates left on this tour; the next gig is next Saturday at Bilston in the Black Country, followed by appearances at Southampton, Tavistock, Oxford, Gloucester and Norwich. I’m planning on going to three of these. If you like powerful 70s-style melodic rock with a bit of celtic-flavoured prog thrown into the mix, you really ought to go to one of these.

Posted in Music, Railways | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Howard Sparnenn Memorial Concert, York, 3-May 2009

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Tim Hall

It’s difficult to imagine a video of a drum solo being the perfect way to end a gig.

But the charity concert in memory of Howard Sparnenn at The Duchess in York wasn’t any ordinary gig.  Six bands, all of which Howard had been involved with, with York’s finest, Mostly Autumn, topping the bill. This was as much a social gathering as a regular gig; many, many familiar faces in the crowd, and a lot of people I hadn’t had the chance to catch up with for ages. And the atmosphere for the whole evening was incredible; you did feel that it was really about Howard. And he was definitely there in spirit.

Smart Move and Freeway opened the evening with two entertaining sets of covers; Freeway were especially good with their mix of Thin Lizzy, UFO and Judas Priest songs, even though they made me feel old. I remember when too many of them first came out, and it was many years before Olivia Sparnenn was born. They were followed by Free Spirit and Flight, the latter reformed (again) for the occasion, with blues-rock sets made up of what I assumed was original material.

Breathing Space took the stage with a somewhat amended lineup due to some members being unavailable; Olivia Sparnenn and the Jennings brothers were joined by Bryan and Andy from Mostly Autumn, and Harry James from Thunder on drums.  With an improvised lineup this wasn’t the best Breathing Space gig I’ve ever seen, although “The Gap Is Too Wide” with Anne-Marie Helder guesting on flute was wonderful. I always find Livvy singing ‘The Gap’ incredibly moving. I know the song wasn’t originally about Howard, but it still fits.

Mostly Autumn are in the middle of their tour, and played a shortened version of their touring set. They rose above a few irritating technical glitches to deliver a tight but emotionally powerful performance. The band have been on superb live form this year, this one was well up to their usual standard. They finished in the only way they could, with “Tearing at the Faerytale”, the song written about Howard, and “Heroes Never Die”.

The evening ended with a film of Howard’s performing a drum solo, recorded in Matlock in Derbyshire some time in the 1980s. A reminder that Howard wasn’t just a great bloke, but a superb drummer as well.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Mostly Autumn, Manchester and London, Feb 27th/28th 2009

Posted on March 7, 2009 by Tim Hall

Although I’ve seen Mostly Autumn nearly thirty times now, this is actually the first time I’ve seen the band two nights in succession in two different cities. Both the Manchester and London shows on the 27th and 28th of February were rescheduled from September last year due to Heather Findlay’s maternity leave.

Mostly Autumn had not played Manchester since a low-key date at Jilly’s Rockworld back in 2004, which happened to be the very first time I ever saw the band. This time they played Academy 3, on a stage where I’ve seen the likes of Michael Schenker, Paradise Lost, It Bites and Blue Öyster Cult over the past years.

A big surprise when the band took to the stage was that Gavin Griffiths was back behind the drumkit, replacing Henry Bourne. I’d always liked Gavin’s drumming with his previous stint with the band in spring 2007, and while Henry was in many ways an ideal drummer for the Mostlies, if anyone could replace him, it was Gavin. And he didn’t disappoint.

Unfortunately Heather had caught a very nasty throat infection the day before the Manchester gig, and although she managed to sing for something like two thirds of the set, backing singer Olivia Sparnenn stood in on lead vocals for a few songs. It’s a tribute to this band that they can still put on a highly enjoyable show despite having their lead singer partially incapacitated, and hats off to Livvy for standing in at virtually zero notice. If it wasn’t quite one of the best Mostly Autumn gigs I’ve ever been to, it was certainly one of those for the Mostly Autumn history book.

Saturday’s showcase gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire was their first London appearance for more than a year. With fans descending from all parts of the country, including a busload from York, there was a real buzz of anticipation before the gig, and a lot of faces I hadn’t seen for a long time. Nice to meet baby Harlan, who gave me an enormous grin! I met up with a couple of gaming friends who were seeing the band for the first time. I decided it was wise not to mention Heather’s vocal problems of the night before to anyone before the gig.

While I love the intimate atmosphere of many of the small clubs I see the band play, it’s great to see them on a big stage before a sizeable crowd. And they rose to the occasion with an absolute barnstormer of a performance. Heather’s voice turned out to be in far better shape than the previous night, with little evidence that she was suffering from any throat problems at all. And the rest of the band were also on superb form. This was as tight and powerful a performance as I’ve ever seen them do, and at least as good a show as from any band I saw last year. From the now-traditional opener ‘Fading Colours’, the energy level barely dropped for the next two and a quarter hours. The only glitch was the rattling snare drum on ‘Above the Blue’ forcing a second take of the song.

The setlist contained a few surprises, with oldies like ‘Winter Mountain’, ‘The Last Bright Light’ and ‘Half the Mountain’ which haven’t featured in the live set for several years. ‘Winter Mountain’ was especially powerful live propelled by Gavin’s drumming, as was “Passengers” favourite ‘Answer the Question’. The rest of the set was pretty familiar to those who’s seen the band at the tail end of last year, Glass Shadows songs ‘Flowers for Guns’, ‘Unoriginal Sin’, ‘Above the Blue’ and ‘Tearing at the Faerytale’, alongside perennials such as ‘Nowhere to Hide’, ‘Evergreen’, ‘Spirit of Autumn Past’ and of course ‘Heroes Never Die’ (That flute intro always gives me goosebumps). The final encore was unexpected, a cover of Genesis’ 1980 hit ‘Turn It On Again’, and I have to say Heather is a far better singer than Phil Collins.

Although the band had intended to release the recording of Shepherd’s Bush as a live album, the band have decided that although the gig itself was great for those present in the hall, the recordings aren’t quite good enough to release as an album. So they’ve postponed the album and plan to record a few dates on the upcoming spring tour. With the band on great live form, with what might just be their best ever live lineup, the tour will be one to see.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Top Ten Albums of the Year 2008

Posted on December 11, 2008 by Tim Hall

I wasn’t originally going to arrange these in order, but in the end I did it anyway, just to annoy those people who hate ranked lists.

10. Van der Graaf Generator – Trisector
Reduced to a trio after the departure of David Jackson, this album proves the slimmed-down version of the 70s progressive rock veterans can still deliver an album in the same league as their 2005 comeback album “Present”

9. Magenta – Metamorphosis
Magenta are very much old-school Prog, wearing their Yes, Genesis and Mike Oldfield influences on their sleeve, playing 20 minute epics with titles like ‘The Ballad of Samual Layne’. They get away with it though superior songwriting and arrangement, and stunning individual performances from Christina Booth on vocals and Chris Fry on guitar.

8. Josh and Co – Through These Eyes
This solo album from Bryan Josh of Mostly Autumn appeared out of the blue at the end of November. Has a similar sound and production to Mostly Autumn’s last album, but the songs are looser and more contemporary-sounding. Quite dark in places, playfully self-indulgent in others, and Bryan cuts loose on the guitar in a way that shows how much he’d been holding back on recent Mostlies releases; I haven’t heard him shred like that for ages. Although Bryan naturally handles most of the vocals, there are also some quite stunning contributions from Olivia Sparnenn which really make me look forward to the next Breathing Space album

7. Uriah Heep – Wake the Sleeper
Nine years since their last studio album, and the mighty Heep are back with a powerful statement that the hard rock veterans are very much in business. Ironically for a band who have spent much of their career in the shadow of the much bigger and more successful Deep Purple, they’ve now come up with something that blows away anything Purple have done in the last nine years. It compares very favourably with their best output from their 70s heyday, and I don’t think they’ve ever rocked harder than this.

6. Panic Room – Visionary Position
The debut from the band that grew out of the ashes of Karnataka, fronted by Anne-Marie Helder. Three years in the making, it’s a rich multilayered album with a real mix of styles from hard rock, folk, pop and full-blown prog which was well worth the wait.

5. Pineapple Thief – Tightly Unwound
Pineapple Thief are one of the new generation of progressive rock bands who mix elements of 70s progressive rock with more contemporary influences to give a streamlined modern sound rather than produce a pastiche of older bands. You can hear the influence of both early Radiohead and Porcupine Tree on this album, although thankfully we’re spared Thom Yorke-style whining vocals, and there is definitely no shortage of tunes.

4. Mostly Autumn – Glass Shadows
A strong release which is a marked improvement on the patchy and badly-produced “Heart Full of Sky” even if it doesn’t quite match their best work. Written entirely by Bryan Josh and Heather Findlay this time around, it’s more mainstream melodic rock than the celtic-tinged prog of their early work, but retains the 70s vibe that’s still a major element of their sound. Musically it has hard rockers, shimmering piano ballads, dreamy atmospheric numbers and soaring guitar-driven epics. Lyrically they’re certainly not singing about Hobbits any more, this is a true life story about heartbreak, joy, tragedy and hope.

3. Opeth – Watershed
2005′s “Ghost Reveries” wasn’t an easy album to follow, but Opeth managed to equal it with “Watershed“, which contains all their trademark elements; piledriving heavy passages alternating with delicate guitar harmonies, Mikael Ã…kerfeldt’s vocals swapping back and forth between harsh ‘cookie monster’ and heartfelt clean vocals, typically all in the same song. It’s not an easy listen, songs average ten minutes, and don’t have anything as crassly commercial as conventional verses or choruses. But when you get what they’re doing, the result can only be described as ‘symphonic’.

2. Marillion – Happiness is the Road
This double album is a vast improvement on last year’s patchy “Somewhere Else“. The two disks are conceived as two separate single albums; the atmospheric “Essence“, and the rockier “The Hard Shoulder“. Both contain plenty of gems and very little filler. Stylistically it’s the same contemporary sound as recent albums rather than a reversion to an earlier sound. Steve Hogarth is on great form, using his voice as much as a musical instrument rather than solely to express the lyrics, and Steve Rothery demonstrates in many places why he’s one of the best rock guitarists out there.

1. The Reasoning – Dark Angel
It’s difficult to choose just one album as my album of the year, but in the end I’ve settled for The Reasoning’s second album. Last year’s debut “Awakening” was one of my top albums of last year, a great mix of melodic hard rock with progressive flavouring, with three-part vocal harmones and a powerful twin lead guitar attack. This one takes things to another level, adding some metal to the mix, full of melodies that get stuck in your brain, sublime vocals from Rachel Cohen, and some amazing but never self-indulgent playing from new guitarist Owain Roberts.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Mostly Autumn – York Grand Opera House, 2008

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Tim Hall

And so we come to the final chapter of November Gig Madness. And this is really the only possible ending.

The first time I travelled to York for the annual Grand Opera House was in 2007, when it was moved to the beginning of the month so that flautist/keyboardist Angie Gordon, who was expecting a baby in December, could make one final appearance with the band before going on maternity leave. This year it returned to the more traditional date of the last weekend in November. And I’d learned my lesson leaving it too late to order a ticket; instead of the restricted view seat I ended up in last year I purchased a ticket the day they went on sale, and scored the second row, just off-centre on Bryan’s side of the stage.

I’m usually one of those curmudgeons that complains that Christmas starts earlier and earlier, but walking through the medieval streets on the way to the gig with all the decorations out in near sub-zero temperatures meant it was starting to feel like Christmas. The famous Shambles rather beats the 60s grot of Crewe shopping centre as the scenic route to a gig.

Mostly Autumn gigs are known for their great atmosphere; this one, with many friends and family of the band takes that to another level. You could taste the anticipation in the hall. The last Mostly Autumn gig was the Cambridge Rock Festival four months ago, Heather Findlay’s last appearance before going on maternity leave. After four months in which many people wondered if she’d want to take a more extended break from the band, tonight’s was to be her first live appearance with the band on returning.

The band hit the ground running with the now-traditional opener of “Fading Colours”, no trace of the rustiness from having off the road for four months. The setlist started out much as the spring tour with ‘Caught in a Fold‘, ‘Flowers for Guns‘ and ‘Unoriginal Sin‘, although they varied things later on. Nice to hear another couple of songs from “Passengers“, ‘First Thought‘, which I’d never heard live before, and the old favourite ‘Answer the Question‘, which hasn’t been played for something like two years. And they debuted two more songs from this years “Glass Shadows“, ‘A Different Sky‘ and ‘Until the Story Ends‘, the latter featuring a guest appearance from Troy Donockley on Uilleann pipes.

This was really Heather’s show, as much as Cardiff eighteen months ago, although this one was an altogether more happy occasion. She looked wonderful, and sang like a goddess. The sparse piano ballad ‘Above the Blue‘ was possibly the best version I’ve heard so far, and the epic ‘Carpe Diem‘, also augmented by Troy Donockley’s Uilleann pipes, was utterly spellbinding.

If the streets of York hadn’t started the Christmas season, the encores certainly did, with all the traditional Christmas covers, kicking of with their spine-tingling five-part harmony version of the traditional Carol ‘Silent Night’ with guest appearances from former members Angela Gordon and Chris Johnson.

Altogether a magical evening, and reminds me of just why Mostly Autumn remain my favourite band. And it was nice to meet half the band at the Old White Swan after the gig. I just hope I didn’t give one band member my lurgey; she insisted on giving me a hug before I had the chance to tell her I have a cold.

I’ll probably catch the band at least once more on the December leg of the tour.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment