Transatlantic - Whirlwind
Asia - Omega
Bigelf - Hex
Bigelf - Cheat the Gallows
Up early having had little sleep for the second night in a row and so blighted with a headache…
Pills to the rescue, followed by a hearty breakfast before we donned the suncream and walked to Victoria Park for the inaugural High Voltage Festival, under a relentless sun…
Of course, I had to stand in line (for longer than it took to fly from Edinburgh to London) to pick up my wristbands ordered a week ago via Orange under their 2 for 1 offer…
However, as everyone attending seemed to have purchased their band in advance, there was no opportunity to offload my spare band at a goodly discount to anyone willing to part with a cash sum considerably below the £135 weekend entry fee…
Joined the Doc at the front of the queue and, wristbands scanned, we were soon round at the Prog stage where I proceeded to stand for the entire day watching Touchstone, Pendragon, Focus, Bigelf, Zappa Plays Zappa, Asia and Transatlantic before catching the end of ZZ Top’s set on the main stage…
No doubt there will be reviews across the net by more prosaic people than your correspondent, however, my take on today’s fayre was as follows:-
Touchstone – modern day prog by numbers really, not all that impressive and a female singer doesn’t cut it for me personally in this genre…
Pendragon – very good indeed with some fine playing from all four members of the band – a little off-putting though that the singer/guitarist bore a striking resemblance to Bill Oddie and the keyboard player looked like a fat version of Rick Wakeman (and yes, I know Rick Wakeman is already fat) – but hey, it’s supposed to be about the music – and the foregoing comments must surely have a little of pot, kettle, black about them…
Focus – featuring two members from their 70’s heyday, the bronzed and rotund OAP that is Thijs Van Leer and, the frankly, sexy older man from a French film-look alike Pierre Van der Linden on drums – accompanied by a brilliant and unassuming lead guitarist, who might well have been plucked from the audience, except no-one in the audience looked quite as ordinary (mostly fat balding old men in ill fitting t-shirts proclaiming some rock event they’d been to in the past or their favourite prog band) and a wonderful jazzy bassist (baldy but in a cool way), Focus delighted the crowd and me with a fine set of their best material from their heyday – only ruining it slightly with a rubbish encore of a song no-one had heard of…
Bigelf – brilliant, energetic rocking performance by these four absolutely dressed like and, indeed, striking poses of, rock stars, including the classic arms a kimbo playing two keyboards at the same time pose from the sometime top-hatted lead singer – this young(ish) band rocked the prog stage with their fine heavy sound…
Zappa Plays Zappa – an eight piece band of consummate musicians, led by Frank’s son Dweezil, playing probably the most complex music of the weekend, almost without breaking into a sweat – Mr Zappa spent the entire set grinning from ear to ear whist effortlessly spraying superb guitar solos around the stage and directing his ensemble with a good deal of aplomb. Brilliant – noted that I must investigate Zappa music further…
Asia – a classic prog supergroup who don’t really play prog, rather melodic tunes with prog undertones and fine musicianship from Steve Howe of Yes, Carl Palmer of tomorrow night’s headliners ELP, John Wetton of King Crimson fame on bass and vocals and Geoff Downes, also of Yes but possibly better known as one of the Buggles. They played their first album in its entirety, though out of sequence, and threw in a track each from their last two, post reforming, LPs. The new stuff was the highlight for me – they need to play more of it and stop concentrating on the past, otherwise, what’s the point of going to the bother of writing and recording it…
Transatlantic – a mind boggling performance by a modern day prog supergroup comprising members of Dream Theater, Marillion, Spocks Beard and the Flower Kings as, for what is probably their last performance for a few years, if at all, they played their latest 77 minute album in its entirety, non-stop, and then p[proceeded to top that with an encore of Genesis’ classic “The Return of the Giant Hogweed” complete with Genesis’ own Steve Hackett on blistering lead guitar…
ZZ Top – after a day spent in the front row at the Prog stage, the Texans could only really be an anti-climax, with their southern boogie blues but they kind of pulled it out of the bag at the end with a triple salvo of hits “Gimme All Your Lovin’”, “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs”, complete with synchronised classic videos on the big screen behind them…
I left before the Top’s encore, with the doc boogie-ing in the dark and hopeful of fireworks (there were none) and wandered home nursing extremely sore legs and feet but having been well and truly entertained…
Highlight of the Day : Transatlantic…
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