"Space Metal" (2CD limited edition digibook)"Space Metal" (2CD limited edition digibook)
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At first I wondered why this wasn't being released under the Ayreon name, but now I think I've figured it out. For starters, there's but a paltry four guest vocalists here -- Russell Allen (Symphony X), Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, etc.), Damien Wilson (umm...Ayreon?) and some goth chick named "Floor". Unlike the "guest spotlights" of the Universal Migrator series, they sing on all songs, which makes for quite an interesting mix as their voices are all so different. (Although they don't play specific "roles", as on Into the Electric Castle.)
Ok...second thing, the music. Ain't a damn thing wrong with it, if you like cheesy power rock with barely a hint of progressive elements. :) Okay, let me rephrase that. Where Flight of the Migrator leaves off, this album picks up and carries on. And to be honest, there's not a lot of variety between the individual songs (which are all based on science fiction movies that take place in outer space -- "Star Wars", "Outland", "Dune", "Alien", etc....I did notice that the lyrics were just vague enough to avoid getting sued by the motion picture companies, right down to the lyric sheet painting of the humpback whales from Star Trek IV being drawn as killer whales!) But it does sound like they are all having lots of fun, which is the important thing.
The limited edition second disc is essential for the Hawkwind medley, a fantastic jam session of Ayreonized versions of the original "space rock" band, featuring Dave Brock, the original Hawkwind singer, as guest vocalist! (Arjen made a big deal of the fact that Brock has NEVER guested on anyone's album before, lol.) I'm not that fond of the David Bowie song "Space Oddity", however -- sounds too cold and computerized (which it is, basically.) The alternate versions of "Starchild" and "Spaced Out" don't sound any different, at least to my ears.
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"Live From Earth" (ltd. edition 2CD + bonus DVD) | |
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Okay, I'll assume you've already read about my ambition to see Arjen Lucassen live on the Ayreon page...if not, go back and read it, and I'll wait here. Hmm hmm hmm. Do dee do dee do. *whistle* *whistle* Ok, back now? Good.
As I was saying, I hoped that the Troubadour show (and the one in Japan) where Arjen & Erik supported Lana Lane would "light a fire" under Arjen's ass and prompt him to set up a full-blown tour. And that's exactly what happened!! Arjen found a loophole in his ultra-perfectionist mindset, and figured out that: "I can't perform Ayreon live, because it would never be 'perfect' enough; but I CAN perform STAR ONE live, because it's just a rock and roll side project, and we can perform AYREON COVER SONGS live, which don't have to be perfect since Star One is just a cover band!" WHOA!!!! So in June and July of 2002, Arjen pulled together all (well, most) of the musicians who played on Space Metal, and scheduled about 10 dates...which were all in Holland and Germany, of course. (Unfortunately, I was so flat broke and my securities were worthless due to the stock market crash, so unless I hijacked a plane...err, bad chose of an example, that...I couldn't attend the shows.) And since Arjen announced that it was "all for fun" and he would NOT be recording the shows, I hoped and prayed to God that someone, somewhere would be making a bootleg tape, I didn't care if it was a cheap fuzzy audience tape where you can barely hear the band at all, I only knew one thing...I must hear this show!!!
Now here we are, almost a year later, and guess what!! Arjen decided to record & release the show after all!!! Why did he change his mind? Here, I'll let you read Arjen's comments directly [taken from the official Ayreon website]:
"Before I went on this tour I decided not to record any of the shows because I didn't want to put any extra pressure on the musicians and just wanted everybody to have a good time. Another reason was that most of the musicians only met a couple of days before the first show so I never thought the band would be tight enough to record a live album. But already after the first rehearsal we realised that there was 'some kind of magic' in the air. Besides, despite a few minor mistakes, the first few shows were already fantastic. So when Andreas @ Audial/Germany, who has a recording studio built into his car suggested recording the last show, we all liked the idea. We felt that this tour had to be 'immortalized' in some form or another; if only for ourselves. Then our 'video-guys' Bert and PM @ Scratch Media /Enschede, who provided the great on-screen animation during the shows, arranged for two cameras to film the entire Rijssen show."
"Having heard the live recording I was convinced I could make a really good live mix; in my humble opinion it even sounds better than the Star One album itself!"
"However, when I saw the video material I was afraid that, being the perfectionist that I am, the two cameras hadn't been enough to make a good DVD, although the material itself was really great. But then I received a DVD from a company called D'iMages (Angelique and Mirko) with an edit of a couple of songs they filmed, and I suddenly saw lots of possibilities: combining D'iMages' material (also 2 cameras) with that of Scratch Media would make a great DVD! We also used some footage from Marcel Haster, Jon Hinchliffe and Colin Tench who filmed some shows with a hand-held camera. A "DVD by the fans, for the fans" so to speak."
"So then the record-company Inside Out came to my place to review the material we had. We all felt that it was so great: we just had to share it with the rest of the world! So we decided to release a double live CD including a bonus DVD with the complete concert registration and lots of extras!!"
Ok, now the DVD part caused a bit of a dilemma with me...I knew I *had* to buy the "special limited edition", being a full-blown Ayreonut at this time, except...I had NO DVD PLAYER!! And as cheap as they are right now, I knew that would be like opening Pandora's Box, where my cash flow is concerned...I already spend WAY too much on CD's every month, can you imagine the horror of spending money on DVD's as well??? Then, purely by chance...or maybe by "design", if you're one of those "Predestination Rules" guys like Morpheus...my crap, semi-working CD burner, which was basically a loaner since my original CDR drive died last year, gasped its final breath and died completely. So now I had NO CHOICE but to upgrade... and my "computer guru" friend (who actually was responsible for the two crap CD drives plus a Zip drive that went bad right quick and took a few Zips with it, so I'm leery of him by this point) suggested this $100 LG 48x24x48x, with DVD 16x capability. After some hemming and hawing by me, I finally decided to let him order one for me, BRAND NEW, at a discount cost of around $68. Let me tell you, this drive fucking SCREAMS!!! I've never been able to copy discs at faster than 2x before (sometimes I can get to 4x, but that would more often than not cause errors) -- this sucker really DOES copy at 48x without breaking a sweat!!
So that's that. Unfortunately, I discovered right away that I had NO DVD SOFTWARE on my computer, and I didn't get the "PowerDVD" disc that was supposed to come with the drive. (I did get Nero Express, which I think was mainly responsible for my suddenly increased burn speeds. But I digress...) My "computer guru" friend did have a copy, but kept forgetting to bring it whenever we met, and finally had to send it by snail mail. Meanwhile (having bought the 2CD+DVD set once I knew I would be able to watch it) I spent a lot of time visiting my brother, my stepmother, and just about everybody I knew who had a standalone DVD player, whether they liked this type of music or not. :)
Okay! After all that, it's time to review the music itself. First of all, Arjen didn't quiet get everyone from the original Star One project -- Dan Swanö was too busy, so his vocal spot was filled by Robert Soeterboek (and may have been for the best, as he has a slightly better vocal range.) Also, more importantly, keyboardist Erik Norlander had a major falling out with Arjen before the tour started, so they had to get some "scab" named Yoost something-or-other. He's really not bad, but not godlike either...hence, some of the more twisted keyboard solos (esp. the last part of "Amazing Flight"!) had to be toned down or cut entirely. (And while watching the DVD, my brother and his roommate spent most of the show trying to figure out if he was a guy or a girl -- they settled on "guy", after catching a glimpse of hairy armpits, but hey in Europe, that is NOT a sure bet! Haha.) Everyone else shows up, though...including "Sir" Russell Allen, Damian Wilson, and Floor Jansen on vocals (Floor brought along her sister Irene to help on backup vox), Ed Warby on drums, and of course Arjen on the axe. :)
Now, the songs. Half the show is Star One material, performed exactly like the studio album, so nothing to discuss there. Where it really gets interesting is the "Ayreon Cover Songs." Make no mistake, this is AYREON LIVE. And I don't care what euphemisms Arjen comes up with. Hell, Russell Allen was the guest vocalist on "Dawn of a Million Souls" and he's singing it here!! And Damian already proved on Ayreonauts Only that he can handle "Into the Black Hole" just fine. And Russell & Robert may not have appeared on Into the Electric Castle but they take on the parts of The Highlander and The Barbarian perfectly. And "Floor" takes the spotlight for a lovely rendition of "Valley of the Queens". My only objections are how they handled the first two tracks on disc 2 -- in "Isis and Osiris", the break from the acoustic intro to the faster part is all herky-jerky, not at all smooth like the original version...and I've already mentioned that the wicked keys/flute duel in "Amazing Flight" is gone completely. But I'm sooo glad they chose "The Two Gates", as that's one of my favorite songs from Electric Castle; indeed, Russell uses that song as a chance to pump up the crowd, introduce the band members, etc. You know, if he were born 30 years ago, he'd have been filling arenas, he knows how to work a crowd that good. I never understood why people like him so much, and refer to him as "Sir" Allen...but now I do.
The DVD show is exactly the same setlist as the audio CD (although "Keyboard Solo" and "Bass Solo" are listed separately, for some reason) but this time you get to SEE the whole performance. It's a bit low-budget, yes, but looks quite professional -- and while the camera editing is certainly more typical for 1973 than 2003, only in a few spots does it look like they could have used a few extra camera angles. (I hate today's trend of "2000 cuts per minute", anyway!) And I'm simply amazed just how "on" everyone seems that night. It's hard enough for a normal four-piece band to get everything right in one show, and these guys had FIVE singers, plus a guest flute player, and NOBODY missed a mark! (Oh, and those goth-looking Jansen chicks are fucking HOT, too!!!) The DVD also contains a 15-minute "Behind the Scenes" collage of random backstage & rehearsal footage, plus a "Photo Gallery", plus three "bonus" live tracks: "Dreamtime" sung by Edward Reekers (at a totally different venue), and two encores cut from the main show, Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" and Arjen soloing on "The Intergalactic Laxative". Unfortunately, the sound quality of each is pretty pathetic, especially the vocals which are completely unintelligible, and that's just a bloody shame.
Still...this is FAR more than I ever expected to get out of the "Star One featuring Ayreon" tour. And I wonder...what next?? Will Arjen finally put together a FULL Ayreon show, completely with Erik and Lana and all the other guest musicians he's dealt with? Well, all I can say is, if that EVER happens...I am fucking there, man. I will move heaven and earth and the Matrix itself to be there.
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