3RP 2009, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, August 8-9, 2009

^^ Nate, great vid, thanks for posting.  

Nice reviews.  Which reminds me that I still must acquire Tall Ships and Phideaux 7.

Edited by rushfan4 - August 13 2009 at 21:13

IQ Performance Review, 3RP, Pittsburgh, PA, USA  8/8/09

So nighttime arrived and there was but one band left for Saturday, IQ, the band that many had been waiting for.  Throughout the day I had spent time on a few of the breaks talking to a gentleman named Moses from Mexico City who had flown in to see Phideaux and IQ.  There were cars in the parking lot from all over the US, I think there was someone from Iowa, Utah, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New York and of course a few of us locals; IQ was the uniting factor that drew them all in.  If I understand correctly, they hadn't played in the US for the past five years or so.  This was big!

They started the show off by triggering an extended version of the sound mélange that starts off their latest CD, "Frequency".  After the effects, the band crashed in with a wall of sound that left no mistake, IQ was here and they were ready to play.  Sadly, Peter Nichols was struck with the initial frustration of not being able to hear himself in the monitors.  How do we know this, I believe he did the universal signal for 'Bullocks, I can't hear myself ya git, turn me up' four separate times, with each time his facial expressions became more exaggerated.  Once things were somewhat straightened out (the vocals still weren’t loud enough) they hit a groove, blasting through "Frequency" and into another 'happy' song about 'everything around you being taken away', Mr. Nichol's words, not mine.  Nonetheless, they played "Erosion", which was never my favorite from "The Seventh House" until now, this song is fantastic live.  One of my personal highlights; guitarist Michael Holmes was using a Theremin like device to control the effects on his guitar swells at the end of the song.  Very neat for the technogeeks amongst us, and let's face it, fans of the Neo genre have to prove their technogeekry to get the membership card.

"The Darkest Hour" from Ever followed and though Mr. Nichols voice still sounded a little odd, we could at least hear it.  Sadly, this was not the case in "Stronger than Friction".  After the first minute or so, the Mr. Nichol's microphone finally gave up the goat and died, completely.  After an awkward second or two, Mr. Nichols stole bassist John Jowitt's microphone and did a five star improvisation and sung, "This mic is useless, it does not work, It does not serve me, not even mine".  Yes, I know, it's not that much of a stretch from the original lyrics, but still, points for doing something other than throwing the dead mic at the sound man.  Once the mic was replaced, Mr. Nichols sounded amazingly better and received a round of applause from an appreciative audience.

Next they pounded out "Outer Limits" followed by "Sacred Sound" from "Dark Matter".  For the end of Sacred Sound, the rhythm section of Paul Cook and John Jowitt sounded like they'd been playing together for years . . . oh yeah, well, they regained their previous chemistry instantly and sounded phenomenal on this song, especially in the last part of it.  Mark Westworth shined on the keyboards throughout "The Province" which was immediately followed by "Guiding Light".  "Guiding Light" was one of the great moments of their set as everyone hit this one beautifully, the extended instrumental section in the middle was spot on and Peter Nichols sounded wonderful.

I must take a moment to applaud Misters Holmes and Jowitt who were apparently rather relaxed throughout the entire set.  The biggest source of concern seemed to be when their prospective pitchers of beer ran out.  Their hilarity climaxed during "Closer" when Mr. Holmes started throwing set lists at Mr. Jowitt.  These two were obviously having fun and they hit every single note while they were at it.  This is the sign of an experienced musician.  Kudos to you two.

The finished the set with the closing section of "Subterranea", yes folks, they played "The Narrow Margin" in its entirety and this was the ultimate highlight of their set.  The whole song sounded amazing and the famous syncopated middle section was perfect.  I was so grateful to be there at that moment listening to them.  When Peter Nichols entered to describe the murder of the contemporaries of the main character, you could begin to feel the pain of the lead character, by the time they got to the fateful end of the song, the pain and loneliness in Peter Nichol's voice moved the entire room.  This earned the band a standing ovation and a continued round of applause until they returned to the stage for an encore.

The choice of their encore was interesting; they played "It All Stops Here" which unfortunately I didn't recognize, though it sounded pretty good.  Once the final note was played the band lined up for the traditional bow, with Mr. Holmes looking at the rest of the band with a smirk and a 'I'm not touching you look'.  Mr. Jowitt then ended the night with some words of wisdom, "Right, let's all get pissed!"

Glass Hammer Performance Review, 3RP, Pittsburgh, PA, USA  8/8/09

Glass Hammer was the band that I was the least familiar with coming into the prog fest.  I had purchased "Culture of Ascent" and had listened to it quite a few times to familiarize myself with them.  As such, I was a little surprised when they took to the stage with only one microphone for Susie.  I kept asking myself what happened to the male lead.  For the show, the band consisted of:

Matt Mendians - Drums
Fred Schendel – Keyboards, Vocals
Steve Babb – Bass, Vocals
David Wallimann - Guitars
Susie Bogdanowicz – Lead Vocals



Susie (This one's for you Henk), and bassist Steve Babb, (Picture copied from Glass Hammer's official web site).

The down side of this is that they played practically nothing from the one album that I was familiar with, the upside of this is that Susie's was the best voice on the album.  I can't really speak to the specifics of their work as their finale was the only song that I was familiar with.

In general though, they sounded fantastic.  While many of the bands over the weekend suffered from a poor sound mix, Glass Hammer was one of the better sounding bands.  Susie has a wonderful voice and it was nice to hear her as the featured lead throughout the entire show; also the band was tight behind her.  Drummer Matt Mendians started out on what was to be the only drum solo that I had heard over the weekend; I use the term 'started out' as Fred Schendel joined in a few moments later (yes, also on the same drum set) trading placed in the drum seat with Mendians.  It was fun to watch and to their credit, they didn't miss a beat during the transition.

They ended the set with a stellar version of Yes' "The South Side of the Sky"; ironically the only song that I was familiar with hearing them play was a cover.  None the less, with only a minor vocal miscue, the song was done beautifully and was the highlight of their set for me.



Edited by Roland113 - August 19 2009 at 11:38

King's X Performance Review, 3RP, Pittsburgh, PA, USA  8/8/09

The stage set up for King's X was unlike anything else seen to date over the weekend.  For starters, there wasn't a keyboard to be seen!  As if that wasn't enough to let you know that this wasn't your standard prog band, the stage was dominated by amps and speakers.  Both Guitarist Ty Tabor and Dug Pinnick had a wall of amps to convey their signature rumble.  They launched their set off with the crunching "Groove Machine" thumping us all with the heavy bass of Mr. Pinnick the crunching chords of Ty Tabor and drummer Jerry Gaskill assaulting his drums with a ferocity worthy of a Viking in a berserker's rage.

Much like Crack the Sky, much of the progressive fan base of the show, didn't quite appreciate the volume or music of King's X and promptly departed for so called greener pastures.  Those that remained were rather stoic at first.  Dug even commented on this, saying that it was ok; we were allowed to stay in our seats and analyze the music . . . wasn't a lot of fun for the band, but they were cool with that.  

Having played in a band before, you feed off of the audience; a lot of times it's the energy emanating from the fans that can drive you to your best.  I then made it my mission to help the band out as much as possible.  I looked at both Dug's comment and the now empty seats in the front row as an opportunity.  By their third song, my wife and I had moved up three rows to get into the front row.  There was a guy on our left who was also a fan, and shortly after we moved up, someone took the seat to the right of us.  We now had a series of four of us in a row who were obviously King's X fans.  You could tell, we'd be singing along and bobbing our heads, pretty much getting into the band and showing our appreciation.  I'm not certain that it fit the cliché of a progressive concert, but it was sure as heck what I was used to from a rock concert.  Anyways, as the concert progressed, we'd stand up after each song and cheer . . . and move one seat closer to center stage until the four of us had pretty much made it past Ty Tabor.  We were officially in the center of the front row.  Never have I been that close to a band, and never before was I in fear of my life from being impaled by a drum stick.  As I said before, Jerry Gaskill is a very intense drummer and if he had lost a stick in our direction, there would have been a casualty.  Once they did their final bows, I snapped a picture with my phone, just to show you all how close we really were.



My apologies to the guys from Singularity if I blocked your view at all.

Their set rocked through and through including some of the material from XV including the satirical "Pray", and the upbeat "Move".  I was surprised at their omission of anything from "Ogretones" on of my favorite albums by the band.  They did, however, play a lot of their older hits including "Lost in Germany" and "Dogman" which were two of my favorites of the night.  They asked the audience what we wanted to hear and someone called for "Goldilox', to which Dug replied, 'You got it.'  In one of the less successful moves of the night, Dug then turned the microphones around and let the audience sing.  That didn't work out so well.  We started off strong hitting the first two lines with gusto, unfortunately, after that, there was a lot of looking around nervously trying to pick up a word or two.  After the first chorus, Dug ended the song declaring it to be a failed experiment; I believe he used the phrase 'Well, we won't try that again'.

They quickly recovered and rocked through the next song then dropped the feel down again for the soulful "Summerland".  They then launched into "Over My Head" causing a mild stage rush as the pulse of the band thumped into your chest.  I learned at this point that John Jowitt  and IQ's roadie were also King's X fans as they had been part of the stage rush, ending up four seats away from us.  When ever Dug came to the edge of the stage, their roadie was pretty much jumping along to the music . . . between Dug's legs.  You had to be there.

When I first saw King's X back in ninety two or so, their rendition of "Over My Head" was one of the most memorable moments in my concert going career.  In the middle break down, Dug told a story about his life, religion and faith that was truly inspiring.  In my case, while I wasn't as receptive to the religious aspect of his sermon, I appreciated the values of love and family that he espoused at the time.  All throughout the sermon, the audience sung along with the chorus, "Music music I hear music, music I hear music music, music oh oh oh Lord, music over my head".  Fifteen years later, King's X and Mr. Pinnick are not as overtly religious, though make no mistake, this is a band that still reveres God and his teachings; they just don't revere the people that organize religion.  His sermon reflected this change as he was now preaching from the church of rock and roll, though his message equally inspiring.  'Do what God intended you to do, if you’re a musician; don't let anyone tell you not to play'.  Again, the audience sang along and made for a memorable moment.  I wasn't as awed this time as I had been through this once before; on the other hand, my wife who had heard me speak of this moment for years was experiencing this for the first time.  It was amazing to see the impact of the piece as the music and the wisdom energized her.  This was a perfect ending to an amazing weekend . . .

. . . but we weren’t actually done yet, again, the audience cheered and again, we were rewarded with a fantastic encore beginning with "It's Love".  They segued into "We Were Born to be Loved" which absolutely smoked.  The last couple of minutes featured a few odd musical breaks, from my standpoint, the breaks were basically Dug trying to set up John Jpwitt to head bang at the wrong time, he even got him a few times.  My only complaint was that the show was over, I wanted more King's X.  It was great to see the interaction between the bands and again, an amazing weekend all around.

Thank you Howard Levy for putting this together and bringing us all of these great bands.



Edited by Roland113 - August 19 2009 at 13:55

Scott, if you're a fan of King's X, and I know you are, it was an amazing experience.  Yeah, it wasn't the best fit, but for those of us that stayed, they blew the place out.  My wife, who absolutely loves It Bites and IQ came out of the weekend with awards to King's X and Phideaux for putting on the two best shows.