CONCERTS

BRIDGE ACROSS EUROPE TOUR 2001 !

At last ! European fans could see this Europe-US (hence their name) superband created by Neal Morse from Spock's Beard (vox, kb, gt), Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater (dms), Pete Trewavas from Marillion (bs guitar) and Swedish man Roine Stolt from the Flower Kings (guitar).
Also, joining them on the entire TransAtlantic tour as an extra "touring member" is Daniel Gildenlow from Pain of Salvation who will do additional/backup guitars and vocals, and possibly even keyboards.
This prog-rock set-up, following the way of Yes or Genesis, began just as a one-shot studio project but has recently taken the step to hit the road. And judging by the live album recorded during their mini-tour of the East Coast last year, it should be tasty.
Transatlantic is one of those rare and successful megabands where the sum is better somehow than the componing parts. Probably because each individual in it has nothing yet to prove (don't look for any guitar/keyboard/drumkit hero syndrome, something like : hey, look out folks, sock it to me, here I come with my killing riff). All the players are able to fuse in harmony into the rest of the line-up, so that in some sort of paradoxical reversal, you could figure that Transatlantic is the original band and DT, Spock's Beard or Marillion are just splitting efforts from its members !

TOP TATTOO !
Friday September 28th : Tattoo the Planet in Paris Bercy More than 5 hours of music, 7 bands playing on 2 stages, 12 cameras, 2 giant video screens, some megawatts of powerful sound, 15 000 crazy fans (male and female, these ones not the less crazy) and probably quite a few pints of beer... Tattoo the Planet held its promises (let's forget the dispute with "Tattoo the Earth" organization in the States) with this anthology of today's power/speed rock scene, from hardcore to thrash, including rap, grunge and black metal. As an opening act, 3 local bands. Theses Frenchies didn't prove themselves unworthy although the challenge was a difficult one. Pleymo and its speedy trip-hop, followed by Es la Guerilla, and its politically committed harcore (clearly inspired by RATM) and last but not least, a French female band (except a bearded moustachioed drummer) : X-Syndicate by name, coming from Paris, with a singer like a young Janis Joplin (but on the sexy side) who'd have listened to AC/DC a bit too much (but it's a quality as the weak point of many new French bands is on their vocal side. Too much rapping and not enough singing...). Then, comes the serious part : Beginning with Biohazard. In spite of a dramatically short time (a 30-minute set !) due to the number of shows, they presented us a medley of their classical tracks interspersed with their new album (with some powerful tracks like Fuck, Fight, Kill), and dedicated tonight's act to the victims of the WTC terrorist attack. A good opportunity to say fuck to fascism, racism, terrorism and all other -isms. Like so many other harcore bands from New York's scene, Billy Graziadei and his friends come from Brooklyn and they know what they say and what they do... Politically committed, aggressive, powerful, they're certainly not one of those sissies' grungy nerdy bands from Seattle (;-) Hey, man, I'm joking! Change of tune (but we stay on the same level of quality) with Cradle of Filth, the infamous British black/gothic act. Like every year, fall is the season of the witches, as Dani and his mutating "vempyres" come to haunt the stages in Paris... But this time, it was a king-size one : Bercy' stadium. Big success : the audience was quickly seduced by their mix of operatic voices (sung by their beautiful and "abundant" diva), gothic sounds, eeerie climate and speed metal riffs. With, as always, some enticing creatures walking on stilts and (this year's bonus) a finale with an armoured-walkyrie jacking off incandescent sparkles as she strokes her metal torso with an electric grinding wheel ! Cradle is the one band to have renewed the provocative glam-rock scene of Kiss or Alice Cooper without falling in the trap of some silly remake or moronic revival. Another change of mood and a good surprise with Mass Hysteria. These Frenchies (issued from Lofofora and Clearcut's lineage) play their hardcore/rap in the same range as Biohazard, Machine Head or Rage Against The Machine. A powerful rhythmic sound, with some funny electronic tricks, to go with political radical texts, somehow a little more intelligent than the common basic French-rapper tune. To make a long story short : stop smoking pot, go study and train your brain, for knowledge is power. Well, I've nothing to add. And at last, Slayer. After some warm-up with excerpts from "God hates us all", (God send death, Here come the Pain...) and great classic tracks (Post Mortem, Tom Araya wants to introduce a new song and, somehow, to make a stand, explaining that the NY tragedy was a real trauma for American people (and for them) but that the terrorists failed to understand one thing: we are all from the same Bloodline. From then on, the next 30 minutes and the encore will be a continuous sequence, intersperesed with Tom Araya's warning : we are bound to live hard times, war is at our door and things are gonna be worse. So, the only way out is...Mandatory Suicide. Shall I add that there is no hope between Angel of Death or South of Heaven and other "sabbatical" gems, assembled to build Two Decades of Aggression, as Jeff and Kerry's guitars dialog in an incredible sequence of heavy-powered riffs punctuated by Paul's apocalyptical drumming. Tonight, the Californian slayers slain their audience with a killing show ! * I must add that the band was graced tonight with a top-quality sound amplification, which was far from being the case during their previous tours when their speed-thrash music was grossly mutilated in some sort of speedily trashy shit. Tough luck !

TOP TATTOO !

Friday September 28th : Tattoo the Planet in Paris Bercy

More than 5 hours of music, 7 bands playing on 2 stages, 12 cameras, 2 giant video screens, some megawatts of powerful sound, 15 000 crazy fans (male and female, these ones not the less crazy) and probably quite a few pints of beer...
Tattoo the Planet held its promises (let's forget the dispute with "Tattoo the Earth" organization in the States) with this anthology of today's power/speed rock scene, from hardcore to thrash, including rap, grunge and black metal.
As an opening act, 3 local bands. Theses Frenchies didn't prove themselves unworthy although the challenge was a difficult one. Pleymo and its speedy trip-hop, followed by Es la Guerilla, and its politically committed harcore (clearly inspired by RATM) and last but not least, a French female band (except a bearded moustachioed drummer) : X-Syndicate by name, coming from Paris, with a singer like a young Janis Joplin (but on the sexy side) who'd have listened to AC/DC a bit too much (but it's a quality as the weak point of many new French bands is on their vocal side. Too much rapping and not enough singing...).
Then, comes the serious part : Beginning with Biohazard. In spite of a dramatically short time (a 30-minute set !) due to the number of shows, they presented us a medley of their classical tracks interspersed with their new album (with some powerful tracks like Fuck, Fight, Kill), and dedicated tonight's act to the victims of the WTC terrorist attack. A good opportunity to say fuck to fascism, racism, terrorism and all other -isms. Like so many other harcore bands from New York's scene, Billy Graziadei and his friends come from Brooklyn and they know what they say and what they do... Politically committed, aggressive, powerful, they're certainly not one of those sissies' grungy nerdy bands from Seattle (;-) Hey, man, I'm joking!
Change of tune (but we stay on the same level of quality) with Cradle of Filth, the infamous British black/gothic act. Like every year, fall is the season of the witches, as Dani and his mutating "vempyres" come to haunt the stages in Paris... But this time, it was a king-size one : Bercy' stadium. Big success : the audience was quickly seduced by their mix of operatic voices (sung by their beautiful and "abundant" diva), gothic sounds, eeerie climate and speed metal riffs. With, as always, some enticing creatures walking on stilts and (this year's bonus) a finale with an armoured-walkyrie jacking off incandescent sparkles as she strokes her metal torso with an electric grinding wheel ! Cradle is the one band to have renewed the provocative glam-rock scene of Kiss or Alice Cooper without falling in the trap of some silly remake or moronic revival.
Another change of mood and a good surprise with Mass Hysteria. These Frenchies (issued from Lofofora and Clearcut's lineage) play their hardcore/rap in the same range as Biohazard, Machine Head or Rage Against The Machine. A powerful rhythmic sound, with some funny electronic tricks, to go with political radical texts, somehow a little more intelligent than the common basic French-rapper tune. To make a long story short : stop smoking pot, go study and train your brain, for knowledge is power. Well, I've nothing to add.
And at last, Slayer. After some warm-up with excerpts from "God hates us all", (God send death, Here come the Pain...) and great classic tracks (Post Mortem, Tom Araya wants to introduce a new song and, somehow, to make a stand, explaining that the NY tragedy was a real trauma for American people (and for them) but that the terrorists failed to understand one thing: we are all from the same Bloodline. From then on, the next 30 minutes and the encore will be a continuous sequence, intersperesed with Tom Araya's warning : we are bound to live hard times, war is at our door and things are gonna be worse. So, the only way out is...Mandatory Suicide. Shall I add that there is no hope between Angel of Death or South of Heaven and other "sabbatical" gems, assembled to build *Two* Decades of Aggression, as Jeff and Kerry's guitars dialog in an incredible sequence of heavy-powered riffs punctuated by Paul's apocalyptical drumming. Tonight, the Californian slayers slain their audience with a killing show !

* I must add that the band was graced tonight with a top-quality sound amplification, which was far from being the case during their previous tours when their speed-thrash music was grossly mutilated in some sort of speedily trashy shit. Tough luck !

THE RESIDENTS
Wednesday October, 26th : Panic at the Elysee : the Residents for President ! Panic at the Elysée (Montmartre), the anonymous American E-T attacked. For those (few) who don't knwo Residents, let's picture them like Frank Zappa's universe reborn to be given to the Kraftwerk techno-robots with the look of Devo, and grooving on a video/happening devised by the Taking Heads with the greasy humor of a Dr John buggered by Alice Cooper. Can you figure it ? No ? No matter, it's far worse (or better). The Residents make them scarce in France : their last gig was some ten years ago), while they seem to have a fondness for Germany (A TV special on VIVA in 97, and a live set two years ago in Berlin, plus the beginning of this tour... Not to mention their best-of-remix DVD (Icky Flix) published for Europe by the German label EuroRalph. Well, the DVD, let's talk of it. This most unlikely compilation (unlikely because these men hate all those cheap marketing moves) became a remix of 29 years of career for those multimedia geniuses. 3 hours of sound and video, with the original mixes and a brand new remasterisation in Dolby 5.1 to go with reprocessed video images, plus four brand new unreleased tracks. Now, it was this brand new DVD which was used as a thread for the first part of tonight's set ; in the wake of silent movies theater shows of yesteryear, the foursome dressed as eerie aliens, (front lamps or infamous classical eyeball mask) played their instruments (electronic drums, vintage mini-Moog, digital synth and guitar) behind translucent screens while the two singers (male and female, this one being Molly Harvey) were illustrating the videos from the DVD displayed behind them... The result was a hundred minutes full-time full-scale happiness with a choice of their classical hits, from Third Reich Rock 'N' Roll (as an opening), to Constantinople. Among many nuggets, let's quote Harry the Head, Hello Skinny, One Minute Movies (from their "Commercial Album" and its 40 one minute long tracks/clips), Where is She, He Also Serves ou Burn Baby Burn, their outrageous covers of James Brown (This is a Man's Man's Man's World), Band Aid (We are the World) or Renaldo and the Loaf (Song for Swinging Larvae), plus, (brand new on this DVD and on stage) some remix-medleys - they call them "concentrates" - of their essentials - a habit dating from their 20 year anniversary album with Kick a Picnic (also played tonight) : Bad Boy on the Midway (a long instrumental part), or Gingerbread Man and, last but not least, as an encore, this wondrous Freak Show concentrate. They played it in an operatic mood that brought back memories of Kurt Weill's Drei Groschen Oper (Meat Loaf revised), as it was served by the most sublime Molly Harvey (a regular guest of the band), a mischievous body but an incredible husky voice like a young Bonnie Tyler... One word can summarize this evening's set : great.

THE RESIDENTS

Wednesday October, 26th : Panic at the Elysee : the Residents for President !

Panic at the Elysée (Montmartre), the anonymous American E-T attacked.
For those (few) who don't knwo Residents, let's picture them like Frank Zappa's universe reborn to be given to the Kraftwerk techno-robots with the look of Devo, and grooving on a video/happening devised by the Taking Heads with the greasy humor of a Dr John buggered by Alice Cooper. Can you figure it ? No ? No matter, it's far worse (or better).
The Residents make them scarce in France : their last gig was some ten years ago), while they seem to have a fondness for Germany (A TV special on VIVA in 97, and a live set two years ago in Berlin, plus the beginning of this tour... Not to mention their best-of-remix DVD (Icky Flix) published for Europe by the German label EuroRalph.
Well, the DVD, let's talk of it. This most unlikely compilation (unlikely because these men hate all those cheap marketing moves) became a remix of 29 years of career for those multimedia geniuses. 3 hours of sound and video, with the original mixes and a brand new remasterisation in Dolby 5.1 to go with reprocessed video images, plus four brand new unreleased tracks.
Now, it was this brand new DVD which was used as a thread for the first part of tonight's set ; in the wake of silent movies theater shows of yesteryear, the foursome dressed as eerie aliens, (front lamps or infamous classical eyeball mask) played their instruments (electronic drums, vintage mini-Moog, digital synth and guitar) behind translucent screens while the two singers (male and female, this one being Molly Harvey) were illustrating the videos from the DVD displayed behind them...
The result was a hundred minutes full-time full-scale happiness with a choice of their classical hits, from Third Reich Rock 'N' Roll (as an opening), to Constantinople. Among many nuggets, let's quote Harry the Head, Hello Skinny, One Minute Movies (from their "Commercial Album" and its 40 one minute long tracks/clips), Where is She, He Also Serves ou Burn Baby Burn, their outrageous covers of James Brown (This is a Man's Man's Man's World), Band Aid (We are the World) or Renaldo and the Loaf (Song for Swinging Larvae), plus, (brand new on this DVD and on stage) some remix-medleys - they call them "concentrates" - of their essentials - a habit dating from their 20 year anniversary album with Kick a Picnic (also played tonight) : Bad Boy on the Midway (a long instrumental part), or Gingerbread Man and, last but not least, as an encore, this wondrous Freak Show concentrate. They played it in an operatic mood that brought back memories of Kurt Weill's Drei Groschen Oper (Meat Loaf revised), as it was served by the most sublime Molly Harvey (a regular guest of the band), a mischievous body but an incredible husky voice like a young Bonnie Tyler...
One word can summarize this evening's set : great.

ARK + FREAK KITCHEN + THRESHOLD + BLACKSTONE (ELYSEE)
Sunday, September 23rd : The Scandinavians at the Elysée or the Wasa cracker Festival Scandinavian evening at the Elysee Montmartre for the "Cooking in Europe" tour. Following as a starter some moderately palatable hors-d'oeuvre - Blackstone a British-French line-up playing some quite heavy going and unsubtle folk blues rock, even if the singer has a looks between Roger Daltrey and Iggy Pop, though on the sleepy side), we quickly get going on something serious (and Swedish) with Threshold. Threshold is a promising northern act who play a prog-rock music tainted by a serious case of sixties nostalgia (with allusions to some psychedelic fads as in a song like Turn On Tune In Drop Out). At times, you could figure you're hearing the tunes of Family, Caravan, Yes or the Moody Blues (in their heavy sound period, i.e. "On the Threshold of a Dream"). A remarkable treat, most recognizable in those long musical suites interspersed with vocal harmonies a la Savatage : songs like Making a Change or Paradox, which closed their act. Let us add that tonight's set was recorded (on a Fostex 16 tracks digital Hard Drive deck) for their next live album. Then, it's a dramatic change of mood with the crazy threesome of Freak Kitchen, accompanied by their infamous crazy cow. The bass player (who is a master in slap) seems a recollection of the long way gone time of the Mothers of Invention and Motorhead Sherwood, while the singer/guitar player has a knack for brutalizing his instrument with the most unlikely tools, such as a portable telephone or a cheap Chinese golden electric dildo (!). Can you imagine that this man can play his axe as if it were an hybrid of a pedal-steel guitar and a Fender Rhodes piano. Imagine something like young and talented sons of Daevid Allen or Frank Zappa, but with the groove and the infectious energy of "Cyco Myko" Mike Muir leading Suicidal Tendencies. Navigating between funk and pop, they deliver acid and deliberately stupid melodies ("I'm so Proud of my new Haircut") and other dancing sing-a-long crazy tunes, played with a tongue in cheek mood but always an amazing virtuosity. So I'll take the leader's motto for this evening (Goody-goody !) and tell you that this bunch of eccentric cooks are the living proof that Sweden isn't exclusively devoted to big-headed guitar-heroes or deep suicidal romantical black-death-doom-gothic bands... After such a fine surprise, came a bit of a disappointment with the act played by Ark. The Norwegian masters of prog-power-metal seemed to have opted for a power oriented set (perhaps because of the poor quality of the sound, way too thick and hazy for their style of playing). Nevertheless, the singer keeps his gravelly raucuous powerful voice and the whole set can bring the audience back to the peak hours of the power metal scene (Judas Priest, Manowar, Maiden or Queensryche). But then again, what's the point of doing what their models did (and are still doing) better ? Finally (and we'd better forget (and forgive ?) the sad exhibition of a bass-player who is certainly not Chris Squire but tried to make an Hendrix show with a jerky distorted and monotonous rendition of the Stars and Stripes played in front of an American flag... Hearing it, you'd be prone to share the Taliban point of view ;-). To make a long story short, Ark seems at his best on stage when they take the long way round and go playing compound rhythms, exotic tunes, with spanish or brazilian acoustic guitar riffs like they did for their nplugged acoustic showcase during the Dream Theater convention six months ago in the same location, as an opening act for their fellow countrymen of Pain of Salvation. Let's hope it was a one-shot misstep in their European Tour but IMHO, I'd say you can content yourself with their latest studio album, Burn in the Sun to fully appreciate their melodic richness and their musical abilities.

ARK + FREAK KITCHEN + THRESHOLD + BLACKSTONE (ELYSEE)

Sunday, September 23rd : The Scandinavians at the Elysée or the Wasa cracker Festival

Scandinavian evening at the Elysee Montmartre for the "Cooking in Europe" tour. Following as a starter some moderately palatable hors-d'oeuvre - Blackstone a British-French line-up playing some quite heavy going and unsubtle folk blues rock, even if the singer has a looks between Roger Daltrey and Iggy Pop, though on the sleepy side), we quickly get going on something serious (and Swedish) with Threshold.
Threshold is a promising northern act who play a prog-rock music tainted by a serious case of sixties nostalgia (with allusions to some psychedelic fads as in a song like Turn On Tune In Drop Out). At times, you could figure you're hearing the tunes of Family, Caravan, Yes or the Moody Blues (in their heavy sound period, i.e. "On the Threshold of a Dream"). A remarkable treat, most recognizable in those long musical suites interspersed with vocal harmonies a la Savatage : songs like Making a Change or Paradox, which closed their act. Let us add that tonight's set was recorded (on a Fostex 16 tracks digital Hard Drive deck) for their next live album.
Freaky-Kow

Then, it's a dramatic change of mood with the crazy threesome of Freak Kitchen, accompanied by their infamous crazy cow. The bass player (who is a master in slap) seems a recollection of the long way gone time of the Mothers of Invention and Motorhead Sherwood, while the singer/guitar player has a knack for brutalizing his instrument with the most unlikely tools, such as a portable telephone or a cheap Chinese golden electric dildo (!). Can you imagine that this man can play his axe as if it were an hybrid of a pedal-steel guitar and a Fender Rhodes piano. Imagine something like young and talented sons of Daevid Allen or Frank Zappa, but with the groove and the infectious energy of "Cyco Myko" Mike Muir leading Suicidal Tendencies. Navigating between funk and pop, they deliver acid and deliberately stupid melodies ("I'm so Proud of my new Haircut") and other dancing sing-a-long crazy tunes, played with a tongue in cheek mood but always an amazing virtuosity. So I'll take the leader's motto for this evening (Goody-goody !) and tell you that this bunch of eccentric cooks are the living proof that Sweden isn't exclusively devoted to big-headed guitar-heroes or deep suicidal romantical black-death-doom-gothic bands...
After such a fine surprise, came a bit of a disappointment with the act played by Ark. The Norwegian masters of prog-power-metal seemed to have opted for a power oriented set (perhaps because of the poor quality of the sound, way too thick and hazy for their style of playing). Nevertheless, the singer keeps his gravelly raucuous powerful voice and the whole set can bring the audience back to the peak hours of the power metal scene (Judas Priest, Manowar, Maiden or Queensryche). But then again, what's the point of doing what their models did (and are still doing) better ? Finally (and we'd better forget (and forgive ?) the sad exhibition of a bass-player who is certainly not Chris Squire but tried to make an Hendrix show with a jerky distorted and monotonous rendition of the Stars and Stripes played in front of an American flag... Hearing it, you'd be prone to share the Taliban point of view ;-). To make a long story short, Ark seems at his best on stage when they take the long way round and go playing compound rhythms, exotic tunes, with spanish or brazilian acoustic guitar riffs like they did for their nplugged acoustic showcase during the Dream Theater convention six months ago in the same location, as an opening act for their fellow countrymen of Pain of Salvation. Let's hope it was a one-shot misstep in their European Tour but IMHO, I'd say you can content yourself with their latest studio album, Burn in the Sun to fully appreciate their melodic richness and their musical abilities.