Mellotronists

Gene Stopp wrote:
>Hi y'all,
> 
>Must... tell... story....
> 
>Oh well, Greg Walker's M400 s/n 968 was there but the most use that it saw
>was holding up the Minimoog Voyager in Par Lindh's set. Reportedly it was
>tried in Focus' soundcheck but there was some kind of hum when hooked into
>the DI and they decided not to use it (Mr. van Leer did not trust it). I
>heard about this from the hotel and scurried over to the theater for Friday
>soundcheck and it was set up in the back room behind the stage - I had it
>working just fine over a little test PA. I popped the lid and checked it
>out, seemed to be in fine shape, except for the missing tape bin lid
>(another missing tape lid bin? are my machines the only ones with tape bin
>lids?). Cut a piece of cardboard and stuck it over the alignment pins, and
>declared it safe to use, but nobody wanted to trust it.
> 
>During Par Lindh's set there were calls from the audience of "play the
>Mellotron!" which made me chuckle, but alas it wasn't even powered up. Like
>I said, holding up the Voyager.
> 
>The Voyager belonged to Alfonso (keyboardist for Cast, promoter of the show)
>as did the beautiful B3 and Leslie 122 and most if not all of the rest of
>the huge piles of gear. (He's worse than I am!) Everybody was ga-ga over the
>Voyager, so it appeared in the keyboard setups for 4 of the bands in a cameo
>role.

It was gorgeous sounding.  Especially when used by Premoli to provide 
those exquisite "phat" lead lines.

>Except for PFM - Flavio Premoli used it extensively for the famous
>"voice of PFM", along with the B3. I was pleasantly surprised to see him
>dump the all-digital rig that they've been using live over the last couple
>of years, and use the real Hammond and Moog. Boy did that work out well.

Indeed it did.

>All
>the original band members were playing, with the exception of the
>violin/flute player, whose part was filled in by the violinist from the
>Italian band Deux Ex Machina. Can't get much better than that.

<PFM geek mode>
Except that long-time bassist Patrick Djivas didn't join until after the
1st PFM album "Storia Di Un Minuto". :-)
</PFM geek mode>

>During sound check the PFM guys were struggling to get the "normal" minimoog
>sound out of the Voyager, and I had leaked out to Flavio that I had one
>myself, so darnit I was the Moog tech once again... darn all those new
>modulation switches! I also got Flavio to sign the inside of Greg's
>Mellotron lid. After sound check the band needed a ride back to the hotel,
>so I held up the keys to our truck and said "I've got eight seats". My wife
>caught wind of this and caught us before we left, squeezing in and sitting
>on their laps. I declared that the fare would be everybody signing the liner
>notes on her copy of Photos of Ghosts. It's important to have a happy wife.
>:)

My brother Gareth and I saw you leaving with PFM just as we were walking 
up on Saturday.  Very cool to have "POG" signed by everyone.  I got 
"Passpartu" and "Ulisse" signed by Mussida and Di Cioccio.

>(For the benefit of PFM fans, they opened with Photos of Ghosts, eventually
>played most of it, mixed in some new stuff, some older stuff, a great
>rendition of The World Became The World, and everything on "Cook", pretty
>much note-for-note.)

Nice blend of material.  Where the tunes can be found on the three 
original Italian LPs and "Photos Of Ghosts/World Became The World" the 
arrangements were taken from the Italian albums, except some of them had 
vocals in English, which seemed like a reasonable nod to the US fans.

>Pretty much still feelin' kinda stoked... got lots and lots of jpegs, but
>I'm not sure if I should attach to list mail. Unless?
> 
>So, sadly, not a lot of Mellotron action when there should have been. Must
>try again next time. Didn't manage to hook up with any list members - eager
>to hear what you thought!!!
> 
>- Gene

My brother Gareth and I arrived late on Friday, missing the first two days 
of the festival [8 bands] and the opening "main stage" set on Friday by 
Magenta [some said we really missed out, others have said we missed very 
little]. We saw six bands and really got our money's worth. This was a 
marvelous festival, held in a superb theatre that seated almost 1000 with 
the extra rows added up front and the two balconies. It might even have 
been close to full for Focus and was full for PFM. It was never less than 
3/4 full for any of the bands.

Three things stood out: (1) the number of young people. Half the audience 
were under 30. (2) the number of latinos. I presume this means that there 
was a strong turn out of locals and/or plenty of prog fans from central 
and south america. (3) the number of women. 25% of the audience were 
female. OK, many of them were almost certainly "prog fan" family members 
or were family members of some of the bands, but it was nice to see an 
audience that wasn't 95% aging white nerds like me.

Other than the cigarette smoking in the theatre that really irritated me 
[Van Leer "Mr. chimney stack" was the worst offender, closely followed by 
the chain-smoking members of Ange...how stereotypically "french"...LOL!] 
this was very enjoyable. Thanks to Alphonso, the leader of Mexican 
symphonic proggers Cast and festival organizer. I'll be back next year, 
hopefully for all four days.

A friend lost a very expensive 6 megapixel digital camera. This was a 
great shame, especially after getting a group of US progfans together for 
a photo. It was also too bad about another friend getting terrible food 
poisoning and missing the group photo and the entire last day -- he was 
still too sick to crawl out of bed to make it to PFM. Before going to Baja 
Prog I'd been warned not to put anything down anywhere. No disrespect 
meant to Alphonso, but numerous people have told me horror stories of 
things being nicked at Baja Prog. Fortunately Gareth got his expensive 
prescription sun-glasses back after they vanished at the bar during the 
French TV set. Storming around making a huge fuss about them did pay off, 
since they "magically" reappeared a few minutes after we left the Azaiga 
to go to the Teatro del Estado -- probably after the miscreant tried them 
on and got incredibly disoriented by the prescription lenses. Serves the 
bugger right!

Shame that there was no detectable 'tron action going on, but maybe that 
will be differetn next year.  Here's my comments about each band that I saw.

Ange
====
I must admit that I've not been excited about an Ange studio record in 25 
years. But they absolutely spanked the crowd with a bold and theatrical 
set. Christian D\ufffdcamps reminded me of Ian Anderson when he was more 
mobile; his son Tristan has inherited his dad's immense talent; they had 
one of the best female singers I've heard in rock...ever. Thay also have a 
band in which everyone who sang was superb and could easily be the lead 
vocalist. They played for over two hours unless I'm very much mistaken. 
The young guys in the band clearly aren't just hired guns -- the rhythm 
section was really "on" and the young guitarist commanded the stage with 
extraordinary ability and dominating rock-god swagger. I think this 
franchise will continue when the old man hangs up his boots since they 
felt like way more than Christan D\ufffdcamps and a backup band.

Focus
=====
I thought "The Thijs Van Leer Group" was outstanding on the new material, 
and OK to excellent on the old material. Van Leer was witty, chatty and 
clearly delighted to be playing for such a responsive audience. His new 
cohorts, with a little bit of seasoning, will do just fine. New guitarist 
Jan Dum\ufffde has the Akkerman fluid axe-maestro thing going on, however he 
needs to work on strengthening his voice is he's going to be effective 
doing the "high" vocals on classic tunes [Van Leer now handles the lower 
parts]. The rhythm section of Bert Smaak and Bobby Jacobs (Thijs' stepson 
IIRC) did a more than credible job of keeping all the tunes firmly 
grounded. I enjoyed "Focus 8", seeing it as a bridge album with plenty of 
nods to the past [some more obvious than others], and look forward to more 
great things from this reconstituted Focus lineup. I hope that Van Leer's 
facial paralysis was just a temporary medical thing [dental work?] and not 
something more serious.

French TV
=========
"Frech TV" (according to the huge billboard on the main avenue) were 
"Gonzo Prog"! Three cheers for Mike and company who entered the room [a 
bar at the Azaiga hotel] as a college marching band. I especially loved 
the way they dead-panned into the close of "Tales From Topographic Oceans" 
at the end of their main set. Ah yes! French TV as symphonic prog gods! In 
between they dazzled the 150 odd people in the room with their 
head-spinning avant-prog. This was only the 2nd time their new drummer had 
played with them. He was bloody brilliant! The funniest thing happened 
about 90 minutes into their set. A very attractive young woman sat down 
next to the guy in the next seat down from me [we'd moved from the bar]. 
She asked if the seat was taken. He waved her in and said, in smooth move 
mode, "Are you with the band?". She shook her head demurely. He then went 
on to say something about them being "pretty out there". Little did he 
realise until later that this lovely lady was the superb sax player of 
Amarok. he he he he he!

Amarok
======
This band was a fabulous and completely unexpected treat. Especially good 
on the "Carmen"-ish showmanship. I'd never even heard of them until a few 
weeks ago. Damn! Thanks to Mike Thaxton (ProgWest organizer) for the HU! 
on how good these guys were going to be. Once again he proves that he 
really knows his stuff. As soon as I get some disposable cash I want all 
of their albums. The segue into a brief (1 minute) "E' Festa" at the end 
of their set was delightful, and the way the flautist played the lips of 
the sax player at the end was masterful [in more ways than one ;-)]. They 
have a terrific sounding (and looking) vocalist who needs to take a few 
"theatrical" lessons from the Ange singer to give her greater stage 
presence. Another band with a bunch of people who could be the lead 
singer. Also a very interesting lineup with the personnel shifting off to 
different instruments and all of them handling incidental percussion. This 
band should have been higher on the bill IMO, maybe switching places with PLP

Par Lindh Project
=================
First off let me say that the audience seemed to eat up the PLP set, so my 
comments don't reflect the _huge_ response they got. Even Mike Sary had 
positive things to say about them. All right...he said "They were much 
better than I expected!", to which I replied I wished I could be that 
complimentary, and could I have some of what he was smoking. I agree 
wholeheartedly on Bill Kopecky being an astonishing musician, however in 
his case the adage "the better the bass player, the better the band" just 
wasn't true. The keyboard-heavy trio format just reeked of ELP-wannabeeism 
and frankly I didn't think it was executed with anywhere near the elan 
needed. If you're gonna ape Emo, for God's sake have the courage to be 
over the top. Show some panache, please! Great chops were displayed by the 
trio, but they never clicked with me, and only intermittently jelled into 
a 21st century ELP -- though judging by audience response I'm pretty much 
alone in that opinion. I'll leave the last comment to my brother Gareth, 
when I observed how much like Emerson Par Lindh looked and played..."true, 
but it's too bad he can't compose like him".

PFM
===
Their set was wonderful, with a couple of head-scratching moments. They 
could have picked much better "commercial" tunes -- almost anything off 
"Ulisse" would have been much better. Why three tunes from "Suonare 
Suonare"? Why play anything off "Serendipity"? Who knows. Still, what they 
played beyond those very well executed pop excursions was transcendent. 
Going back stage afterwards to talk to Mussida and Di Cioccio was 
wonderful. (Djivas was sick so Premoli took him back to the hotel). They 
were gracious and humble, and genuinely excited to play for this audience. 
The final encore of "E' Festa" was thrilling! They torched that one with 
the swagger of 23 year olds. Fantastic.

A good job was done by the two extras on the tour, a 2nd percussionist 
(Roberto ? who became the drummer when Di Cioccio stepped up as front-man) 
and Alessandro from Deus Ex Machina. Both of whom acquitted themselves 
very well, becoming involved in more than a support role at several times 
-- except when the band was grooving with Premoli vamping over Djivas and 
Di Cioccio, while the techs tried to get Mussida's rig working again. The 
extras, especially Alessandro [whom I've seen positively peel the paint 
with DEM] could have really helped out the band by coming forward to get 
involved in improvisation at that point, maybe allowing the techs to get 
the situation resolved without needing to stop the show. That's just my 
opinion, of course. Other's might see it differently.
-- 
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
http://systemstheory.net    internet music project
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