Mellotronists

The process of getting to Mexicali (and getting out again) was quite
an adventure. Some things came up family-wise that delayed the
departure from San Diego on Friday. It rained heavily all morning and
by the time we got going it was dumping snow by the bucket on I8 as it
ran through the mountains between San Diego and Calexico (the Cajon
pass). As my brother Gareth and I very slowly and carefully made our
way along I8 in his Miata (the "Green Miata"), keeping as much as
possible in the tire tracks of bigger vehicles, we wondered if we'd
make it there at all. Passing by several motels and the large
casino/hotel we made contingency plans for spending the night at one
of these places if necessary. The casino hotel would have been our
preferred stop. Hey! They have a bar, and food, and music...prog
right? So it would have worked out.

Eventually we made it to Calexico, then had to endure a long traffic
queue to get over the border. So we missed the afternoon bands and
most of the first of the evening bands. By the time we had checked in
to our hotel (the Calafia) and grabbed a quick bite to eat Interpose+
were well into their set. For some reason it took the festival
administration the best part of half an hour to get our tickets sorted
out, so we hung in the lobby while they got it squared away. Time for
a drink or three and catching up with people as the lobby filled up.

We saw England and Nektar on Friday night. England was good, with
flashes of real brilliance, but never quite caught fire in the way I
hoped they would. In addition to the expected quartet they band was
joined by an extra singer (England "project manager" Maggie Alexander)
who also doubled on Mellotron when Robert Webb stepped out to play 12
string acoustic guitar. IMO England would have benefited from a bit
more volume, especially for the vocals, which had a habit of not
sitting far enough up in the mix. Because of health reasons the
original drummer could not participate, and the original guitarist
wasn't up for it. The two new members (Steve on drums and Alex on
guitar) acquitted themselves well. Alex sang lead on a very well
developed prog-shuffle built around Dylan's "Masters of War". Robert
Webb played some of the smoothest and effortless Rhodes in a rock
context that I've ever heard on this tune. No doubt that can be
attributed to his jazz sensibility. I'd certainly like to see them
again with a few more gigs under their collective belts, some new
material added to the set, and fewer audience expectations.

Here's the day three comments of Richard Barnes, nicked from
www.progressiveears.com

--->
Day three was possibly the best so far. Afternoon acts Arbotel and
Lazuli were very good with the latter earning the second ten of the
week in my book.

Arbotel played a very symphonic set with a lot of neat synth
arrangements and a soprano singer with a voice close to the woman who
fronted Kotobel a few years back here.

Lazuli were just amazing. 6 piece with a superb guitar player, a guy
playing an instrument he designed called a Liode which looked like a
stick and sounded somewhere between a slide guitar, a zither and a
theramin. Great movement, powerful, infectious rhyhthms and constant
change visually and musically. Would have liked to have heard more but
Mr Alvarez got an extra half hour to start the day and milked it to
over an hour, making everyone have to bolt their food to get to the
theatre.

It was worth the rush though to catch Interpose+. Spot on sound from
this fairly typical Japanese symphonic outfit. Played their album
pretty much note perfect. The singer was again better than on the
studio version and had an engaging character, bursting out in a fit of
giggles every time she had to make an announcement in English, which
had everyone else laughing with her of course. Great guitar work and
keyboards. No Tsuboy though although Dani played bass as smoothly as
always.

England did a great job of Garden Shed with a few extras thrown in.
Not note perfect but nobody expected it to be - the stuffs hard enough
without leaving it alone for 30 years. Bob Webb came across as a real
nice guy who was just amazed we all had turned up to hear them.

Nektar were on great form even in the stripped down format. A super
Recycled opened the show and set the stage for a brilliant powerful
set with material from Journey, Tab, RTF Part 1, and Sounds Like This
in the main. Which is just how I like it. A couple of numbers off the
new ones Prodigal Son (Now) and Evolution which I would have liked to
have heard a couple more tracks off as its an excellent album. Roye's
voice held up real well as he carefully navigated around the higher
notes. A masterful performance from him. I should also mention that
Mo's replacement was excellent as was the new keyboard player who
looked like Gregg Allman and stroked that Hammond like a lion tamer.

Only downer was the theater was full of fag smoke from the hall and
backstage leaving me with a sore throat and stinking clothes. It
really is time they did something about this.
<---

Richard mentioned the awful cigarette smoke in the lobby. It was more
than I could tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time, so I went
outside for most of the intermission between England and Nektar.
Fortunately the rain had abated so it was quite enjoyably brisk. I ran
into Paul Whitehead and Jeff Sherman of Glass. After chatting for 10
minutes we went back inside where Paul introduced me to the large
Hatfield and the North contingent. Very nice people though I think he
was glad to dump me on them so he could grab a beer and sneak away for
a crafty smoke while I got an earful about internal band politics.

Nektar absolutely rocked the house down. The band was rehearsed to a
"T" and they exhibited big-time rock attitude. The difference in a
band that was obscure vs one that had been able to fill big halls in
its heyday. Everything about the set worked well. They played for 2
1/4 hours, covering a lot of ground in the catalog. Of course there
were several of the side long pieces, "Recycled" pt 1, "A Tab In The
Ocean", "Remember The Future" pt 1. A couple of tracks from the most
recent (post reformation) CDs. With Mo Moore bowing out because of
business commitments before the new studio album came out, and Taff
Freeman's health forcing him to not participate, only half the
original band was present. However, the two new boys more than held up
their end of the deal. Moore's replacement on bass (Randy) and
Freeman's replacement on Hammond B3 (Tom) were both excellent.

Here's the post-festival and Day 4 comments of Richard Barnes, also
nicked from www.progressiveears.com

--->
Back in the UK and over the jet lag. Spent 5 hours in some godforsaken
hole off the I8 because half of San Diego had decided to play
snowballs up in the hills. There were even muppets building snowmen on
the car hoods and shoveling snow into their pick ups - if I had any
doubts Americans were barmy, this cured it. None of them seemed to be
able to work out that if they went back a few miles and took Route 94
they could get home - instead they just sat in a great big Q on the I8
for hours. As the Eastbound carriageway could not be reached without
passing the clowns trying to go West, we were just logjammed. Still we
should count ourselves lucky as the next day the road froze and was
closed altogether.

Anyway a belated day 4 review for you all:-

Odessa were forced indoors due to rain in a rather unsatisfactory room
they did a sterling job, nice interaction with the crowd. The singer
was just too powerful for me though in such a confined space - shame
because they have a lot to offer in a better venue. Did as well as
they could in the circumstances.

The good side of the rain though was that we got to see Mirthrandir on
a big stage at the Theater and boy they deserved to be there. I always
thought England's album was technically more challenging until seeing
Old women performed. Man there are some tricky things in here - the
bass lines especially and vocal parts. A few sound problems here and
there but the delivery was faultless. Brilliant. Gave me a whole new
appreciation of this work.

National Health were next up and again a 'ten' stellar performance.
New keyboard guy was exceptional and I had to cry along with him
during Richard's beautiful and moving tribute to the late Elton Dean.

Great selection of material too with just the right balance of moods
and tempos and vocal/instrumental pieces.

Marillion did a more electrified version of the afternoon set with
some alternative numbers, again emotionally delivered by a slightly
well tequila'd Steve Hogarth.

SBB topped the bill with a neat mix of fusion, rock-symphonies and
drum not-quite-solos. A lot of the material didn't do a lot for me
personally but they are all consummate professionals and gifted
musicians; their fans will have loved it.

Back to Alfonso's for the party again - a welcome return after the
night club experiment - thank you Lupita for another wonderful outlay
of great food and drink.

For me at my 7th Baja I would say this was the most consistently good
one of all - not a single poor performance throughout and several
'tens' Personal awards to Amarok, Lazuli, Mirthrandir, Nektar and
Hatfields.
<---

Odessa were fine in a Deep Purple-ish way. Very enthusiastic with an
excellent lead singer. Due to the cramped space inside I spent most of
the time outside eating tacos, drinking beer, and moving a few copies
of "Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" at Paul Whitehead's table.
Eventually the rain reached downpour level so we had to pack it in and
decided to head over to the main stage, since the hotel bar was
inexplicably closed!

Mirthrandir (with two new guitarists) were excellent. They presented
their 70s album + a couple of other pieces (new album coming soon) and
were everything I'd expected based on the quality of "For You The Old
Women". I think they moved quite a few copies of that disc in the
lobby after their set.

Hatfield and The North, with new keyboardists Alex Macguire replacing
Dave Stewart (not interested in participating) delivered a sublime
set. If you like their avant-Canterbury style of prog fusion then they
were perfect. If not, they might have seemed all over the place. Pip
Pyle was amazing on drums, but I was pissed off a bit at his
chain-smoking behind his drum kit.

I enjoyed the Marillion acoustic trio, which was quite electric in
places. Would've preferred to see the full band again. Lots of later
material, though they did do something off every Hogarth-era album.
rather cool was seeing Steve Rothary play bass on several tunes.

SBB were very impressive, working through some advanced guitar trio
fusion and powerful organ-driven keyboard symph, though I must say
they didn't play anything I recognized. At the end they got into a
sort of "Rollin' and Tumblin'" Jack Bruce bluesy vibe. Good enough
that my brother, who had never heard them before, went online and
ordered a couple of CDs the next day.

Our drive back into San Diego was hair-raising. Because of the snow
pelting down the I8 route over the Cajon pass was very hard driving.
But there were snowploughs going continuously in both directions so we
dug in behind one and followed it all the way through until it looped
around to go back towards Calexico. Coming down past Alpine the skies
opened with a massive hailstorm, which suddenly cut away to nothing by
the time we reached El Cajon. Around 4am we made it to his house were
I was very glad to crash.

All in all, a very good two days. I'd like to have seen other bands
like Thirty Years War and Amarok (again). Maybe next year I can slide
in to do the second day as well. Nice to meet the VAXman amongst other
faces for names. A special round of applause for Gene Stopp from the
mellotronists list who provided the M400 and some other analog
keyboards used. The equipment sounded really good.
-- 
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
Systems Theory internet music project links:
soundclick <www.soundclick.com/systemstheory>
garageband <http://www.garageband.com/artist/systemstheory>
"Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" CD released Dec 2004
"Codetalkers" CD coming very soon in 2006
NP: nothing