Tag Archives: Touchstone

Heather on Tour – The Phoenix Rises

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Tim Hall

With the retail release of The Phoenix Suite upon us, Heather Findlay has been busy setting up some tour dates to promote it.

A couple of festival dates with the full band (Heather, Chris Johnson, Dave Kilminster, Steve Vantsis and Alex Cromarty) had been announced earlier, the first being the Cambridge Rock Festival on Friday 5th August, followed by The Galtres Festival in Yorkshire on the 28th of the month. Long before that there’s an acoustic date at the Lincoln beer festival on 28th May, as a duo with Chris Johnson.

In October, Heather will be the special guest for Touchstone on their album launch tour, again performing an acoustic set accompanied by Chris Johnson. This certainly came as something as a surprise. Touchstone, as readers of this blog are aware, are a tremendous live act, very much a prog-rock band, albeit with the emphasis on “rock”. This promises to be a great tour.

Four dates are confirmed.

13 Oct 2011 – Mr Kips, Poole
14 Oct 2011 – The Borderline, London
15 Oct 2011 – Riverside, Newcastle
16 Oct 2011 – The Robin 2, Bilston

Heather then follows this with her own headlining tour with the full band, with three five gigs announced so far.

17 Nov 2011 – The Brook, Southampton
18 Nov 2011 – Fibbers, York
19 Nov 2011 – Classic Grand, Glasgow
26 Nov 2011 – The Borderline, London
27 Nov 2011 – The Robin 2, Bilston

I’m very much looking forward to these; it’s been far too long since we’ve seen Heather on stage, and she’s always an exciting and dynamic performer. I’m sure the five songs from The Phoenix Suite are going to come over very well live. With the EP only 25 minutes in length it will be very interested to see what else she’ll play to make up a headline-length set. More new material which will appear on future EPs? A few reworked Mostly Autumn and Odin Dragonfly favourites? Some interesting and eclectic covers? Extended Dave Kilminster guitar wig-outs? Or perhaps all of the above?

I’m sure it’s going to be well worth the wait.

Updated 14/5/11 with additional tour dates

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Touchstone, Islington Academy 2, 5th March 2011

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Tim Hall


Photo © Roger Allen

Islington O2 Academy saw the final night of the “Prog 2.0 tour” came to London, with rising stars Touchstone topping the bill.

On record at least, openers Enochian Theory are a prog-metal act with a nice line in atmospherics, and have been compared with the mighty Opeth. But tonight’s performance suffered from a very poor mix, with overpoweringly loud drums drowning out the guitar and bass, losing a lot of the subtlety. While they’re clearly talented musicians, their songwriting and compositional skills have yet to reach the level where their music can survive that sort of treatment from the soundman. I’m sure I’ve seen their frontman before somewhere – he certainly looked as though he wouldn’t have looked out of place behind a model railway layout at DEMU Showcase. Saying that, I certainly wouldn’t write them off, and there’s a lot of potential for the future.

Jurojin were a very different beast. They started as a straightforward four-piece prog-metal act, up to the last few numbers when they were joined first by a tabla player, than by virtuoso violinist Anna Phoebe. At that point they morphed into a kind of folk-metal-world music fusion that sounded like an utterly different band from what we’d heard at the beginning of the set. Like IOEarth when I saw them last summer, there music is going off in many different directions, and they need to pick one and run with it. The last part of the set was genuinely exciting, and that feels to me like the direction in which they ought to go.

As for Touchstone, well, they were the band everyone came to see, and their tight high-energy performance delivered in spades. As for most of the past year and a half, the setlist drew heavily from their second album “Wintercoast” with a few selected songs from their earlier “Discordant Dreams”, including a great version of “Being Hannah”, a song I don’t think I’ve heard live for a while.  As always, Kim Seviour makes an great frontwoman and visual focus for the band, but one thing that was very obvious this time was how much Moo Bass’ playing dominates the sound. From the machine-gun riff of the title track of “Wintercoast” onwards, his bass both drives the rhythm and acts as a principal lead instrument, leaving Rob Cottingham’s keys and Adam Hodgson’s lead guitar to add colour to fill in the sound. Like Panic Room the weekend before, with performances like this they seem destined for far bigger things.

While I’d hardly say the O2, with it’s overpriced beer and often indifferent sound and atmosphere was a favourite venue of mine, this was certainly the best gig at this venue I’ve seen to date. With the tour promoted by Classic Rock Presents Prog, attendance was very good indeed, with over two-hundred and fifty through the doors. And nice to see Porcupine Tree’s Steve Wilson in the crowd.

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A Year in Live Music

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Tim Hall

My musical year has been defined more by live music than by albums, with something like 40 gigs this year. It’s almost impossible to chose the best of these, but here are a dozen of the most memorable, in chronological order.

Mostly Autumn at Leamington Assembly

This gig on Good Friday was Heather Findlay’s farewell performance with the band she’d fronted for twelve years, the whole thing superbly captured on the DVD “That Night In Leamington”. It was a very emotional night for those of us who were there, but also one of the best performances I’ve seen by the band to date; certainly a fitting close for an era of the band.

Breathing Space at Bilston Robin 2

Two days later, on Easter Sunday, Olivia Sparnenn played her last gig with her old band Breathing Space before leaving to replace Heather in Mostly Autumn. The Robin is always a great gig and this was no exception; Olivia certainly ended her time with the band on a high. The whole thing had a great vibe and I can remember how positive everyone was after the gig.

Protect the Beat at the Mumbles Jazz Festival

When a gig is billed as jazz-fusion played by top rock and pop session musicians, one could be excused for fearing the worst. But the energy and enthusiasm of the five musicians made this instrumental set one of the gigs of the year. The key factor was that it was abundantly clear that they were enjoying every minute on stage, and that enthusiasm was infectious. This is what live music is all about.

Transatlantic at Manchester Academy 1

The prog-rock supergroup proved every bit as enthusiastic about being on stage as had Protect The Beat a couple of weeks earlier. The three and a half hour set comprised just seven songs of grandiose swirling epic prog, including their 70-minute “The Whirlwind”. The word “progtastic” is the only way to describe an evening like this, even if the song to set length ratio is enough to give Guardian music journalists the vapours.

Mostly Autumn and Panic Room at Shepherds Bush Empire, London

Just a week after those two farewell gigs Mostly Autumn took to the stage with Olivia Sparnenn fronting the band. I saw them a number of times on that tour; the best of the lot was when they and Panic Room supported Wishbone Ash in London in mid-May. Panic Room played a short and sweet opening set, then Mostly Autumn went absolutely full-tilt for a special guest spot of just under an hour. The headline act just could not follow that; the consensus was that they ended up the third-best band of the night.

Fish at The Band on the Wall, Manchester

After taking the best part of a year out, the former Marillion frontman has been touring with a stripped-down acoustic show in small intimate venues backed by just Frank Usher on guitar and Foss Patterson on keys. Despite having suffered from throat problems in recent years, Fish proved that he’s very much still got it as a live performer both as a singer and a charismatic frontman. Most memorable moment was when he looked me in the eye when he mentioned an earlier gig in York, and didn’t make any mention of his ex.

High Voltage festival at Victoria Park, London

While this big commercial festival had it’s downsides of long queues to get in, overpriced beer, and a yawn-inducing Saturday headliner, the upsides were some superb bands, of whom Touchstone, The Reasoning, Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash, BigElf, Zappa Plays Zappa, Opeth and Transatlantic stood out. The whole thing ended with a gloriously ridiculous show by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, which was probably the only way to end such a festival.

Cambridge Rock Festival

This small friendly festival was a complete contrast to the commercialism of High Voltage. No big name headliners, but the vibe of the festival was such that it didn’t really need it. The best day was undoubtedly the Sunday, headlined by Mostly Autumn (them again!) and also featured great sets from Panic Room and Breathing Space, the latter being the début for their new singer Heidi Widdop. But it was the special guests The Enid who stole the show with an utterly mesmerising set.

Therion at Shepherds Bush Empire, London

I went to this gig having heard a couple of their albums, not really knowing what to expect. Seeing a band whose lyricist apparently heads a magickal order on Halloween night makes you wonder if they would attempt to summon Great Cthulhu at some point in the show, but what we got was epic symphonic metal with elaborate but hugely melodic multi-part vocal arrangements from four classically-trained singers. An amazing gig, quite unlike anything else I’ve heard all year

Steve Hackett at Shepherds Bush Empire, London

The Godfather of prog guitar gave us one of the most prog gigs of the year, mixing material from his excellent recent album with 70s Genesis classics like “Watcher of the Skies” and “Firth of Fifth”. Nick Beggs (of Kajagoogoo fame) on bass and Chapman stick managed to make himself the centre of attention as a cross-dressing steampunk Gandalf, but it was Hackett’s distinctive liquid guitar playing that reminded us just how influential his guitar sound has been in the progressive rock world.

Mostly Autumn at The Fleece and Firkin, Bristol

I got to see Mostly Autumn several times on their Autumn tour, when they laid to rest many of their old standards to play a set drawing very heavily from their superb new album “Go Well Diamond Heart”. Of the shows I saw, their return to Bristol after an absence of several years was the best; good sound, spirited and enthusiastic performance, and a lengthy set ending with some Christmas standards. I do love their rockier take of Greg Lake’s “I believe in Father Christmas” in particular.

Panic Room and Touchstone at Bilston Robin 2

Some people don’t like the idea of double headliners where both bands play 70-80 minute sets instead of a full-length headline set, but this one pulled a vastly bigger crowd than I’ve ever seen either band draw on their own. And they got their money’s worth; both bands pulled out all the stops and gave as good a performance as I’ve ever seen them play. High spot, if there was any single one, was Anne-Marie Helder’s spine-tingling rendition of “O Holy Night”.

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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.

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Four Gigs

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Tim Hall

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been to quite a few gigs, and have been most remiss in reviewing them.  This post is an attempt to rectify that.

Kim Seviour
Kim Serviour of Touchstone

First up was Touchstone, promoted by the Classic Rock Society in The Wesley Centre in Maltby, just outside Rotherham, the latest of my “lets stay in a cheap B&B to see a great prog band play a small town in the middle of nowhere”,weekends. The venue is a quite small but modern hall; standing at the front, tiered seating at the back, with a capacity of I guess about 150 people. Wasn’t full, but the CRS are better at pulling in the punters than one or two other ‘promoters’, so there was a decent crowd.

Support was six-piece Dee Expus, who I’m managed to miss on one of the smaller stages at the Cambridge Rock Festival, but who played a great set of modern-sounding streamlined guitar prog. Hats off to their bassist for doing the gig despite suffering from a hernia (did he try to lift a Mellotron?).

A couple of months before they’d rocked the Cambridge Rock Festival main stage, and tonight Touchstone gave another demonstration of just how much they’ve improved since I first saw them support The Reasoning two years ago. Kim Seviour has matured from a shy girl who was little more than a backing singer to a self-confident frontwoman who dominates the stage. Their blend of melodic hard rock and prog manages just the right combination of tightness and energy level; their instrumental virtuosity sufficiently restrained that solos never outstay they welcome.  With a headline-length set they played almost all of Wintercoast plus a few highlights from their debut, lovely to hear songs like Kim’s very moving ‘Solace’ played live.  They ended with a prog-disco version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. On the evidence of this, they’re well on the road to world domination; in a year’s time I’m sure they’ll be playing far bigger venues than this one.

After all this prog, The Bad Shepherds on Wednesday night at the newly-reopened Band On The Wall are a bit of a change of pace. I’d had tickets for a couple of dates on their tour this time last year, with Mostly Autumn supporting. But that all went pear-shaped when the promoter ran off with more than just the money days before the start of the tour, leaving those who’s purchased tickets with no refunds.

The Band On The Wall is another new venue for me, since I’d never been before it closed for refurbishment a couple of years ago. Even though everything is new and shiny it’s got a character that featureless boxes like Manchester Academy can never hope to emulate.

The Bad Shepherds play celtic folk arrangements of 70s punk and new wave songs. They’re made up from former Young One Ade Edmundson on lead vocals and “Thrash Mandolin”, Troy Donockley on Uilleann pipes and various other celtic instruments with funny names, and Andy Dinan on fiddle. The original limeup also had Fairport Convention’s Maartin Allcock on bass, but too many other commitments forced him to drop out, to be replaced on this tour by Brad Lang.

After a short but sweet set from Ade Edmondson’s daughter Ella, The Bad Shepherds hit the stage with “I Fought the Law, and the Law Won”. Much of the set came from their album Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera!; their covers of standards by the likes of The Clash, The Jam and The Stanglers were often unrecognisable until the vocals started, and sound quite different with added fiddle solos. Highlight was probably Kraftwerk’s “The Model” played on Uilleann pipes. A hugely entertaining live band, even if you don’t particularly like the original songs.

Three days later it’s over to The Met Theater in Bury to see neo-prog veterans IQ.

IQ play old-fashioned prog. It’s all swirling keyboards, liquid guitar solos and strange time signatures you can’t dance to, and they may wear some influences on their sleeves, particularly Peter Gabriel era Genesis.  But their distinct approach to melody and composition sets then well apart from just about any of their competitors.

It’s almost three years since I last saw IQ live, and I’d forgotten just how good they are. They’re both intense and impeccably tight, the complexities of the albums reproduced perfectly, the virtuosity of the band providing the perfect foil to Peter Nicholls’ theatrical delivery as frontman. It typical prog fashion, they started by playing the latest album, “Frequency” in it’s entirety, followed by just four older songs taking up the second half of the set, ending with the 20-minute epic “Narrow Margin” from their 1997 album “Subterranea“. Two encores, ending with a superb rendition of “The Wake” took the show to two and a half hours, playing (I think) exactly one song from every album featuring Peter Nicholls.

IQ don’t gig very often, but when they do, they’re well worth seeing.

The following Wednesday saw me return to The Band on the Wall for yet more prog, this time from legends The Enid, a band I hadn’t seen since The Reading Festival in 1982(!).  They’ve gone through many, many lineup changes over the years, but the central figure has always been the charismatic Robert John Godfrey.

With so many years since I last saw them live, I had no real idea of what to expect, but The Enid proved they can still very much cut it live. Ably supported by a band including a bass player doubling up on Timpani, Robert John Godfrey entertained us with an hour and a half of what can best be described as classical music played on rock instrumentation, interspersed with a lot of banter between songs. Not owning much of their back catalogue I couldn’t name many of the pieces they played, although I did recognise “In the Region of the Summer Stars” quite early on. Sadly they no longer play things like “The Dambusters March” or “Land of Hope and Glory”; as Robert John Godfrey say, he doesn’t want to be mistaken for a Tory nowadays.  While most their largely instrumental orchestral pomp isn’t really rock and roll, the powerful groove of last number of the main set rocked an absolute bastard. Naturally they got called back for several encores, RJG responding to someone’s shout of “Play some Chopin” by playing some Chopin, and they ended with “Something Wicked The Way Comes”.

With Progressive Nation 2009 two days later, that makes five gigs in thirteen days.

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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.

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Sunday at the Cambridge Rock Festival

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Tim Hall

The Cambridge Rock Festival (formerly the Rock and Beer Festival) took place in the unlikely venue of the Wood Green Animal Shelter in Godmanchester, just outside Huntingdon. Given the vagaries of the British excuse for a summer, this one took place in an indoor arena. That turned out to be a large cow-shed like building, whose acoustics were actually a lot better than you’d expect.

With both Mostly Autumn and Breathing Space on Sunday’s bill, along with The Reasoning, whose fan base has a big overlap, the festival saw the biggest gathering of Mostly Autumn fans since the convention last March; an awful lot of familiar faces there, far too many to name, and apologies to anyone I didn’t get the chance to say hello to. Add to that a bar with an extremely large selection of real ales, most of which I’d never heard of, so ordering a beer was a matter of choosing something at random.

Local blues band Taildragger opened the proceedings; competent and tight but rather generic; as a friend of mine remarked, blues bands all tend to sound the same. Bijoumiyo were rather better; a mix of funk and reggae basslines with psychedelic guitar, quite unlike anything else on the bill.

The first two acts played to a largely empty hall; clearly the prog fans had time their arrival to get there in time for Touchstone’s set. I’d seen them a year and a bit ago supporting The Reasoning; frontwoman Kim Seviour’s first ever gig, and that was a somewhat nervous performance. Today they played a confident and energetic set, mostly drawn from their album Discordant Dreams. Probably the proggiest band of the day, but with a hard-rock edge. You could tell they were clearly enjoying their time on stage, and went down well with the growing crowd. I think this performance probably earned them quite a few new fans.

Breathing Space played an absolute blinder. For the biggest gig of their career so far, they rose to the occasion with a superbly tight set, the best band of the first half of the day, helped by having just about the best sound of any band at the festival. There’s little I can say about Breathing Space I haven’t said before; a bit poppy for some tastes, perhaps, showcasing Livvy Sparnenn’s fantastic lead vocals, but there’s still enough instrumental depth to keep prog fans interested. Aside from Livvy, the rest of the band shone too, especially guitarist Mark Rowan. Livvy’s striking mermaid costume was definitely the stage outfit of the day.

John Otway’s pub-rock meets standup comedy shtick isn’t really my cup of tea, I’m afraid, and I missed part of his set in search of food. But I have to say his set closer of The Osmond’s “Crazy Horses” with the theramin solo was entertaining.

The Reasoning’s set was one of the most eagerly awaited of the day’s lineup, their first gig with their new guitarist Owain Roberts. They played strong hard rocking set, mixing favourites from “Awakening”, a great version of the Karnataka oldie “Talk to Me” with several songs from the forthcoming “Dark Angel”, including the prog-metal masterpiece of the title track, and the live debut of one called ‘Call Me God?’. Marillion’s Steve Rothery guested with them for “Within Cold Glass”. They did suffer from more than a few technical glitches and sound mix problems, which took the edge off things slightly, which meant they didn’t quite top Breathing Space’s earlier set.

I felt sorry for Jim and Geoffrey. As an acoustic duo (guitar and violin) they struggled to hold the attention of an audience that had been rocked out by the previous band, and despite being quite good, they died horribly. I’d love to see them in a small club venue, where might make more of an impression.

If the number of t-shirts was anything to go by, Mostly Autumn had the greatest fan support of any band on the bill. So many people were seriously annoyed when they got half-an-hour lopped off their set because the following band apparently insisted on having a whole hour to set up rather than the half-hour everyone else had. To make matters worse, problems with Bryan’s guitar setup delayed the start, so the band ended up playing for just 40 minutes or so, to the intense disappointment of both the band and their legion of fans. But for that short set the band were absolutely on fire; a storming ‘Fading Colours’, a really intense ‘Unoriginal Sin’ and a fantastic ‘Heroes’. Heather’s stage outfit certainly caused one or two jaws to drop; wearing a catsuit when seven month’s pregnant took some courage. Had they had the opportunity to play their originally planned setlist they would have been the band of the day without question.

In contrast, Andy Fairweather Low was the nadir of the day. As someone who’s had a few hits aeons ago, and had since been an anonymous sidesman of other people, he had neither the charisma nor the material to play such a long set this high on the bill. His interminably long set seemed to consist mainly of 50s and 60s covers, with perfunctory takes on his few hits. As someone it’s probably better not to name said “Who wants to listen to this wank? Just because he’s been on Later with Jools Holland”. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Music for chin-stroking Mojo readers perhaps, not not music for the sort of Rock fans who made up this audience.

And so, headliners Marillion. A band I’ve been a fan of for longer than members of some bands lower down the bill have been alive, playing a 90-minute festival set. To be truthful this wasn’t in the same league as the two awe-inspiring shows I saw in 2007; still good, but lacking the sort of intensity I’ve seen in past gigs. H was on fine form despite evident lack of sleep due to being the father of a five week old baby. “Sleepless nights, very rock and roll”, as he said. I’d love to have seen Heather’s and Ian’s reaction to that line! They played what amounted to a greatest hits set of the post-Fish era, favourites like ‘Easter’, their recent hit ‘She’s Gone’, ‘Afraid of Sunlight’, ‘King’ and the encore ‘Neverland’. Still very good, but for me at least failed to top the Mostlies, despite their truncated set.

While what happened to the Mostlies put a bit of a damper on an otherwise great day, in the end the event was bigger than any individual band. The whole festival had a relaxed air, members of many of the bands mingling with fans throughout the day, helped by the fact that there was no backstage bar. And there seemed to be no egos involved, with one possible exception. That laid-back approach probably would not have worked at a bigger festival, but here it added to atmosphere; the whole thing felt like a fan convention of sorts. It made me wish I’d camped and made a weekend of it.

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The Reasoning, Crewe Limelight, 19 Apr 2007

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Tim Hall

Thursday night was the first of three gigs in four days, The Reasoning at Crewe Limelight. I’d previously seen their first ever gig at the Uplands Tavern in Swansea back in January. That was very much a low-key warmup gig in preparation for the tour to come. This one was a higher profile show at a larger rock club, which happens to be one of my favourite small venues. I phoned the venue the night before the gig, to be informed they’d sold a grand total of 13 tickets, so I concluded I’d have no problem getting tickets on the door. In the end, fears of an almost empty venue proved unfounded; there were about 150 people there, about the same number as for Karnataka a few weeks back. Of that 150 I recognised an awful lot of familiar faces; the north-west Mostly Autumn fanbase had turned up in force.

Support was Touchstone, a band I hadn’t seen before, although I’d read some favourable reviews. They play the same sort of blend of melodic hard and progressive textures as the headliners. This gig marked the debut of their new singer, Kim Serviour, yet another of those performers who make me feel old by not having been born when I started going to gigs. They played an entertaining and energetic set; I think we’ll be hearing more from this band in future.

The Reasoning didn’t hit the stage until gone 10pm. Their performance was an order of magnitude better than the somewhat nervous set in Swansea three months before. The whole band were far tighter and more confident, and were clearly enjoying being on stage. Naturally they drew much of their set from their excellent debut album “Awakening”. They still included a few Karnataka favourites, the highlight of which was still the amazing ‘Talk to Me’. Those more atmospheric Karnataka oldies don’t quite sit comfortably with the rockier and more guitar-driven new material, but at this stage in their career it’s still great to hear them performed live. While I don’t remember the complete setlist, I think they played the whole of the new album. The encore was the atmospheric epic ‘Within Cold Glass’ followed by their barnstorming cover of ‘Stormbringer’, with Rachel singing Glenn Hughes’ vocal parts. I’m sure there was a hint of Tommy Bolin in Dylan’s guitar fills too.

Since I had some time to spare before the late train out of Crewe, I had time for a brief chat with Dylan, Matt and Rachel, and Kim from Touchstone. They all remembered me from Swansea; I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

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