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Re: Review 26-02-2003
Black Dog - 20.12.2005, 17:47Review 26-02-2003
Leider in englisch :-(
Ralphy's Concert Reviews
Ray Wilson & Saga - in Concert
at Spirit of '66 in Verviers (Belgium) 26-02-2003
For those who would like to know a bit more about the band Saga and my personal history with them, I refer you to the first concert review that I wrote about them, it was in the same venue almost 2 years ago. (Read it HERE). At this night we arrived at Spirit of '66 at 19.50 hours, after a 40-minute drive (it always surprises me that within half an hour of where I live I am in a world where no-one can understand me or me understand them ; my French blows). The opening act for Saga during this tour is Ray Wilson. Scotsman Ray Wilson acquired some fame when he was leadsinger for the band Stiltskin, their song "Inside" broke into the charts when it was used in a Levi-jeans commercial. Shortly after that Wilson audienced for the vacant vocalist-function in Genesis, when Phil Collins left that band. He was hired and made the album "Calling all stations" with the other 2 remaining Genesis-members, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. Due to the weak receiving of that album by the fans the following tour was abbreviated and the whole Genesis-thing was over for Wilson. In the meantime I also found out that I own another Wilson-sung track namely on a CD made in the studios of Fish called Outpatients, where Wilson sings the song "Swing your bag" for the shortlived band Guaranteed Pure. He has been in a couple of other bands, none of which lasted very long and he is about to release his first solo CD, besides an earlier live and acoustic one.
Ray Wilson played an acoustic set of little over 30 minutes, only accompanied by himself on guitar. He started out with the Peter Gabriel-classic and one of my all-time favourite songs "Biko" and although this may not have been my favourite version of that song, it gave me goosebumps (once again) nonetheless. What followed was his hitsingle with Stiltskin "Inside" and the first single and the titletrack of his upcoming album "Change", which according to him is a song about accepting who you are. During that song my companion Maurice told me that he now understood how the Genesis-album with Wilson could have flopped. I was very surprised to hear that because I liked the way Wilson was singing tonight (I do not like his Genesis-album, I bought it, but hardly ever play it nowadays). It was a strange example of how people can watch and hear something and completely disagree about it. He thought that Wilson's singing was too much forced, while I got the impression that it was very natural and smooth. The next song was the Genesis-song "Carpet crawler" and following that there was a song that generated a lot of applause, but I couldn't bring it home. Listening to the lyrics a title like "Hello babe" would be fitting, the audience was as mentioned very enthusiastic about it, for me it was the worst song in his set (too quiet). Up next were 2 new songs, "Ghost" about which Wilson told that it was about the period when he just started playing with Genesis: "Like people were looking right through me, like I was a ghost". The second song was called "Time to see another day". This one was about a boy with whom Wilson was in a band in their teens, they played songs from the Sex Pistols and stuff like that and it was very heavy, untill one day when the 14-year-old shot himself in the head. Apparently this song was also remixed into a dance-version (entitled "Yet another day") by German DJ Armin van Buuren and it even reached the top spot in the Dutch dance charts, according to Wilson. He added with a bit of sarcasm "this is how it is supposed to go". The last song Wilson played was another Genesis-classic "Mama". When he announced it Maurice and me were looking at eatchother and asking ourselves how he could perform that song which is most famous for the persistent Phil Collins-drums, but after hearing his version we both agreed he did a good job on it anyway. All in all Wilson played a very satisfactory set, keeping in mind that it's not the easiest thing to do to keep an audience of prog-rockers entertained with just a guitar and a voice. Wilson was very available for fans during and after the Saga-concert and he seems willing to put a lot of energy in reaching out to fans. I overheard him saying to someone else that the genre on his new album would be singer/songwriter kinda like. On his website www.raywilson.co.uk you can see he found some good musicians to work with, so I'm interested to hear some of his stuff non-acoustically. His voice is quite good and I rate this performance with a 7.3 .
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After a pause of about 15 minutes it was time for Saga. I had a good idea of what they were going to play, because I found the set list of their opening gig of this tour in Augsburg 2 days earlier. They played exactly the same songs as on that list, accept they played an encore less. You can find the set list of this evening below. After the intro they played the title song of the new album "Marathon", which was an OK-song. What followed were some golden oldies, "On the loose", which started a bit weak, but became a better down the road, then a great version of "The flyer" (the only song from my 2nd favourite album "Heads or Tales", I'd wish they would play "Social orphan", that's such an amazing song), followed by "Careful where you step". During these songs I got talking to a bold-headed German guy, who told me about the first time he saw Saga live, 20 years ago for a crowd of 4,000 people. This time around the show was sold out, but this American bar could maybe contain 400 people maximum. Next up were 2 newer songs "How are you?" from the latest album and "The one" from "Full circle" and since I do not possess a copy of that album, I am not too familiar with that song. The following song "Mouse in a maze" was omitted at the concert I visited 2 years ago, because they hadn't rehearsed it enough and it seems to be a hard one to play right. Well this evening it was played more than right, this fan favourite was requested on the internet, so Michael Sadler dedicated it to the fans and the guys gave it their all. After that Jim Gilmour did a short (and very bad!) solo, while the others recuperated off stage.
The Dutch Choice All Time Hot 100 (year 2003; version 32) with -links
Now came the center part of their performances on this tour, the chapters. Spread across the first 4 studio-albums were songs which were subtitled as chapters 1 through 8. They tell a story, I do not know exactly what that story is, I tried to find out on the net, but there is no source with a good explanation that I have found so far. In the latest 3 albums Saga have once again restarted the chapters-thing, so there are now 16 chapters spread over 7 albums. As I gathered on the net they will be playing the original 8 chapters at some of the gigs and the new chapters at other shows. As an old-time fan I'm glad that this time the original 8 (plus extra the latest chapter 16) were due to be performed. Saga used to be a hesitant when they were called a progressive rockband in the past, but nowadays it seems they have finally embraced that label. These chapters are probably the best example of their progressive influences and at this night they were played very well. The instrumental excellence of these guys was in fact the most striking part of the evening. In comparison with the show I watched 2 years ago that was the major difference, I think. At that time it was a show of a rockband, this time it was indeed the show of a progressive rockband. It seems they have finally accepted that their fans have this background/taste and they somewhat left their commercial drive, that also used to be a major part of their music, behind and they are now (more) content with holding on and therefore playing especially for the fans that have remained loyal to the band througout the last 25 years. From the chapters the crowd pleaser "Don't be late" was ofcourse met with the most enthusiasm (and plenty of sing along), but to me the more scarcely played chapters like "Images", "It's time" and especially "Tired world" were nectar for the ears. The last 2 chapters (8 and 16) were new to me, the latter is ofcourse newly released and the first is on a CD of Saga ("Worlds apart"), which I don't own in any form.
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After the chapters were done, the guys were joking around on stage. Michael Sadler made some remark towards guitarist Ian Crichton like "Are you dissing me in front of public?". All in good spirit (of '66 ??) ofcourse. You could see that they were enjoying the show themselves, Jim Crichton seemed to have a smile chizzled on his face throughout the whole performance. The last 2 songs of the regular show were some of the most famous songs of the band, "Humble stance" and "You're not alone", which urged the crowd (even more) to call the band back on stage for an encore.
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The encore consisted of 2 songs, another golden oldie in the form of "Wind him up", excellently played, it seems like Saga has found a new pride in these old songs and they want to play them as best they can. The last song of the evening would be "The runaway", to me the best song of their previous album "House of Cards", which includes a wonderfull guitar part, that emphasizes Ian Crichton's mastery of that instrument. The one encore they didn't play in comparison with the set list I brought was "See them smile", but I didn't really care about that. Saga gave another great show, I have to say the one of 2 years ago was a bit better in my opinion, but I cannot exactly explain why, it's just a feeling, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was my first Saga live-experience. The boys were great tonight too, and in perfect harmony, there were absolutely no ego's on this stage, only a very tight band. Steve Negus and Jim Gilmour on drums and bass were the unremarkable and therefore solid backbone of the band, little Ian Crichton still has that mean guitar touch, Jim Gilmour seems to be the directing the whole show and Michael Sadler was all over the stage, sometimes singing, but it seems at least equally as much playing additional keyboards or whatever instrument was required to create a perfect sound. Most obvious of all was the pleasure that this band had doing all of this, which incited a spark that blew over into the audience. I rate this concert with a 7.9 .
Marathon cover
Before I went home I purchased the new CD "Marathon" at the travelling fanshop and as I've listened to it, I can say that Sagarians (as Safa-fans are called) will not be disappointed. I've seen a CD review in which the lyrics in particular were very criticized, but the lyrics were really never what Saga's music was about, at least I never felt it was their strenght, but musically it has that typical Saga-sound, that I (and many with me) enjoy so much. Although I'm not convinced (yet) that "Marathon" is as good as its predecessor "House of Cards".
The complete set list (which took almost 2 hours):
http://ralphys.tripod.com/Saga2003.html
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