EVENING DREAMS

While listening and watching to this DVD, to me it seems that this DVD experience succeeds to keep me more involved in the music than their last CD entitled Evening Games that I rated with 3 stars. The reason is that I feel much more emotion and to me the music sounds more powerful and compelling on this DVD than on the CD.

During the start of this concert (recorded live in Poland, 2005) the atmosphere is great with enthousiastic crowd participation (clapping and cheering). Then we can enjoy the wonderful lightshow and the modern, very tasteful and often emotional sounding neo-prog by the Polish four piece band Satellite: inspired vocals, howling electric guitar, pleasant keyboard layers and runs and lots of dynamics. The next track is Evening Games, a perfect example how Satellite manages to keep my attention, despite the long running time of this composition (more than 15 minutes): a wonderful intro with soaring violin-Mellotron samples, followed by warm vocals, sensitive electric guitar and some exciting bombastic eruptions. In the other seven songs Satellite also delivers wonderful, very melodic neo-prog with flowing shifting moods and beautiful work on guitar and keyboards, emotional vocals (early Fish inspired) and compelling work on keyboards and guitar (lots of very beautiful soli with hints from Latimer and Rothery). The bonus video contains the video clip Love Is Around You, the docu Satellite Offstage and extras like a biography, discography and bonus audio tracks (On The Run, Now, Rush and Why).

The total running time of this DVD is more than 200 minutes, THIS IS A MUST FOR ANY NEO-PROG FAN!

Very, very good DVD, one of the best in my collection, actually. Satellite is one of the best prog bands nowadays and they do deliever a fantastic live show, full of emotion and mind bending musicanship. The band members keep getting better and better, and this DVD is quite superior then the live Collage offering, which amazes me, really. The performance is very mesmerizing, like other reviewr have point so acutely.

So, why give it four stars, since I do think it's a classic? Well, although the other reviewers did not say a bad word about the DVD, I found it has some flaws. Minor ones, but flaws anyway. The obvious one is Robert Amirian bass playing. The guy is an excellent singer, but too much a newcomer on the instrument he chose to handle. Ok, he does not blow it, of course, but, hey, we're talking about prog music here! In progressive rock one should expect the musician to be at least very acomplished in his role. And Amirian bass playing is nil when you hear what his band mates do with their instruments. Besides, sometimes it seems that his playing distracts him from what he does best. I wonder what could have been improved here with an expert bassist.

Other than that one is only wondering why include 4 bonus audio songs when in a DVD you want to see the band playing them live (or in the studio, it does not matter). Besides, everyone who buys the DVD might have all this songs already on their two CDs. It would be much nicer to have one or two songs at least added to the (short) set list. Instead of a second time long song (Evening Games) it could have been another song from their great debut CD.

Oh, well, maybe I'm wishing too much. With all the above complaints I still find this DVD wonderful and I never get tired of watching it. How do they do it? I don't know. Satellite is something special, no doubt about it. Keep on proggin'you guys, I love you.

I guess I'm a bit in the minority here but I didn't find this to be all that impressive, especially when compared to other neo-prog I've heard. Overall the performances were professional but with the exception of the drummer who was pretty monster, I found the others didn't get my pulse up the way I like watching a show. The vocalist/bassist Amirian was the hardest for me to get past, I found his bass playing and singing to be adequate at best. I'm surprised at the positive comments he has garnered from others so perhaps it's just me. As far as the all important audio and video quality for your home theater both are truly excellent. Clean video with plenty of angles and close-ups and very good sound. The material varies in quality with some of the instrumental sections very impressive and truly rocking. Then the vocals come back and pull things to the overly cheesy and unbearable for me. I can only say I would choose to watch Arena, Galahad, Pendragon or Marillion again and again before putting this back on. If you've already heard Satellite before and enjoy the vocalist then by all means you will love this show. Not my cup of tea. I wish it were because I loved the drumming and a fair amount of the guitar work was admirable. About 2 ½ stars for me.

Ok that's another product regarding the Neo-Prog scene in Poland, always present- especially after so many concerts performed by Collage (the root of Satellite)- and We are talkin' about nothing new I should say, in comparison to the recent productions in the UK signed up by Pendragon and IQ a long time before Satellite...nevertheless, despite of their low budget, the audio and video quality and a good impact live on stage as well, sometimes let me change idea about this Polish ensemble...of course it's not for the cheesy lyrics and the simplistic approach that I'd like to give you a piece of advice about "Evening Dreams", but it's only as I remark- above all- some good instrumental parts (sometimes reminding me of an old Swiss band called Deyss, with their guitar soloings well supported by the keyboards) and even the good skill regarding the drummer, for which the present DVD is worth checking out at least.

The track "Evening Games" perhaps is the best episode, even though the song is too long and the use of Mellotron sometimes is able to disturb me just a little bit (moreover, always regarding the approach of this band in search of some typical bombastic solos- it's a sort of emulation of the seventies- "filtered" by means of the Neo Prog experience of the early eighties in the UK, a bit tiring nowadays...).

In any case the output live of their stuff is much more interesting here than in their usual performances at the Recording Studios..this is my opinion naturally and at the end your "music tastes" could be different from mine!

So make your own choice as usual, but for me the present product is quite essential within a personal Collection of Neo Prog music...in the average.

Tucked away amongst the "extras" on this DVD, that most people probably don't bother with, is an unassuming bio of SATELLITE that betrays the secret to the group's success. Founder Wojtek Szadkowski, who had been the leader of the legendary COLLAGE in the 1990s, stated that he wanted to start something again after a few years of silence, and he wanted it to be about melody as the fundamental goal of music as he sees it. And this from a drummer, albeit a brilliant one! It is that focus on melody that, as evident as it was on the first 2 and best SATELLITE albums, suffuses this entire live performance, in its hardest rocking or most romantic moments; in Robert Amirian's earworm choruses and grungiest pronouncements; in the surprisingly poetic English lyrics; in Sarhan's most searing guitar solos and more delicately plucked expressions; and in both the most atmospheric and pointed keyboards of Krzysiek Palczewski. It also distinguishes SATELLITE from most of the earlier neo prog groups of UK vintage who were so transfixed by their navel that they forgot about what lay both below and above.

It helps that 3 of these 4 members were in COLLAGE during their peak, because the chemistry and emotional intelligence is second nature. In fact, apart from the fact that there will never be an equal to "Moonshine", SATELLITE represents a 2000s upgrade on COLLAGE, particularly to the tightness of their playing, the more mature lyrical subject matter and vocalist Amirian's transformation from flower child to sensitive tough guy in barely 10 years! This fully compensates from my sense that his bass guitar is little more than a prop.

Another critical aspect to SATELLITE circa 2005 was their commitment to the "song" even if that song is 17 minutes long. I don't mean verse chorus song but a journey on which the listener becomes a trusting fellow traveler and is richly rewarded for that loyalty. The renditions of "Evening Games", "The Evening Wind" and "Beautiful World" reverberate with nuances that far exceed the limits of an audio only experience. Granted they could have done better for an encore than reprising the entire "Evening Games", especially given the mini epic quality of some of the shorter tracks on both "Street" and "Evening games". For instance, the version of "Fight" seems even more moving for its dedication to a perhaps departed comrade in the worldly sense.

Among the additional features are a couple of audio tracks from each album that were not in the setlist, an overly long video of the band rehearsing and kibbitzing, and, most interestingly, an official video of the romantic "Love is Around You" that leaves little question as to the orientation of the band's own heart.

As with COLLAGE, SATELLITE extinguished themselves with their own radiance, their next two albums matching neither the clarities nor the subtleties of their early work, and have been silent for over a decade now. Luckily we have this audiovisual register of Szadowski and company's second peak. One more time, Wojtek? Well, we can dream.