SWEET OK SUPERSISTER

It was a very pleasant surprise when Supersister got together for a reunion tour. This was initiated by the organisers of Progfest who asked Supersister to play on the year 2000 edition of the festival. And so they played together for the first time since 1974. After Progfest they did a few more show in The Netherlands, like in Groningen (which I saw) and in Amsterdam (at Paradiso) where the show was recorded. In 2001 this was released on a double CD (Supersisterious) and now it is finally released as a DVD. So everyone who didn't have the chance to attend one of the reunion concerts can experience this. The first disc contains the concert, the second disc contains a documentary and archive material.

With the first track, Present From Nancy, it is magic. This is why I love the music of Supersister so much. It is great Canterbury music with it's jazzy and psychedelic leanings. They play great melodies with an ever changing rhythm. The fuzzy organ and the typical voice of Stips are of course very essential to the music, as is the beautiful flute playing by Van Geest. The great thing about this performance is that the band has so much fun in performing. And when you think of it, a part from Robert Stips who has been playing after the break up of Supersister, the other three musicians haven't been playing live since that moment, the performance is excellent. The songs you can both hear and see are from the first three albums. Included in the set is also the live favourite Wow, the single She Was Naked and the odd 6 Blauwe dwergen. In between the songs Stips explains the meaning of the songs like in the long introduction to WOW where he tells they wanted to write an intelligent song.

The second dvd contains a documentary of how they got together to perform at progfest. It contains footage of the first try out in Delft and the Progfest performance. There are lots of interviews with the band members, with the organisers of the festival an with the fans. Unfortunately there is not much archive material from Supersister. On this dvd they included an item from 1971 which was aired on Dutch television. It is a portret of Supersister during rehearsal and travelling. Then there is a slide show of pictures from the band from 1965 to 1974. It ends with a long list of all the names and place that were involved with Supersister. And for those who don't speak Dutch, there a English subtitles.

This is a marvelous dvd. A great performance by one of the best canterbury styled bands. And it is still sad that Sacha van Geest died not long after the reunion.