LIVE AT HIGH VOLTAGE 2011

Mostly Autumn's "Live at High Voltage 2011" was recorded 24th July at 2011 at Victoria Park, London to a packed crowd. They were one of a huge swag of bands that came in and entertained the eager audiences. Research on this event is interesting and I discovered there were 3 sections spanning the weekend; a Classic Rock Stage with some prog including Dream Theater, Queensryche, and Michael Schenker; and a Metal Hammer Stage with lots of thrash and extreme bands. The Prog Stage was of considerable interest to progheads and began on the Saturday with John Barclay Harvest, Neal Morse, Anathema, Caravan, Amplifier, and The Von Hertzen Brothers. Not a bad lineup but the bands who played on the Sunday were more popular with worldwide class acts Jethro Tull, and Spock's Beard, followed by thhe lesser known Mostly Autumn at 4:45 to 5:30, then they were followed by cult favourites Curved Air, The Enid, and finally, Neo proggers, Pallas. Admittedly, this is a great lineup of artists, as good if not better than the 2010 festival that included prog bands ELP, Opeth, Transatlantic, Asia, Dweezil Zappa, Bigelf, Focus, Pendragon, Touchstone, Marillion, Argent, Uriah Heep, Magnum, Wishbone Ash with Martin Turner, Steve Hackett and The Reasoning. These festivals are really only slices of bands because they are only permitted to play an hour or less of material unless headlining the event. I think Mostly Autumn felt this pressure as they have a relatively short set and it did not have enough for me to really recommend this live album, despite the interview disc that comes with it. It is great though that High Voltage are releasing these albums, as they have done in the case of the concerts of ELP, Marilion, Spock's Beard, and Barclay James Harvest, among others incuding DVD compilations of the live performances.

Enough research, so onto this album of Mostly Autumn. The band members are all comparable including Bryan Josh, who has become essential to the group on lead vocals, lead and backing guitars, and acoustic guitars, and of course the newly appointed Olivia Sparnenn on lead vocals, and tambourine. The other musicians are made up of the likes of virtuosos Iain Jennings on keyboards, piano, Hammond organ and Anne-Marie Helder on vocals, flute, keyboards, and acoustic guitar. The performance occurred during the much hailed massive festival High Voltage in 2011. Mostly Autumn was an afternoon concert and the set only consisted of only 6 songs. All of the songs are fan favourites in particular the performances of 'Evergreen' and 'Heroes Never Die' that have appeared on countless setlists over the years. It is good to hear live versions of 'Distant Train', 'Answer the Question', and the rocking 'Deep in Borrowdale'. During this Olivia says to the crowd "come on High Voltage, let's see you!" as the crowd needed a bit of waking up. After all they had just heard about 6 bands prior over the weekend, and perhaps were waiting theur favourite bannd to follow. It is a difficult task to appease a crowd that may be there for a different band but I believe Mostly Autumn are capable of better when given a full set. Olivia does invite the crowd to have signings and say hello at a venue after the show, and of course this is terrific PR for a prog band.

The set ends with the dreamy ambience of 'Questioning Eyes' at 11 minutes, with extended keyboard and lead guitar solo, and the ever reliable classic closes the set, 'Heroes Never Die' at almost 10 minutes in length. At least the crowd got to hear these classics and hopefully it might lead to new fans as this is a criminally underrated band both here on the progarchives and elsewhere on the net. They basically have an underground cult status, yet Mostly Autumn are realy incredible artists and rarely disappoint, and I have heard everything on studio and would rate all at least 3 stars as it is excellent consistent quality prog. This is a snippet of their greatness but is worth a listen if you want to hear the more modern live sound. I would highly recommend the masterful performance on "Still Beautiful" which features everything on this album setlist but way more with 19 songs. With 13 live albums to choose this may be the last Mostly Autumn live CD you should put on your list, but it is a taster of how great this band can be.

Review Nº 718

Mostly Autumn is a British progressive rock band producing music that is heavily influenced by the classic 70's era. They have built their reputation through a constant career with many solid albums and constant tourings, never signing to a major record label. The band's early influences were Genesis, Renaissance, Deep Purple and especially Pink Floyd and the Celtic music. Later albums also include more contemporary progressive influences. Beyond the traditional rock musical instruments, the sound of Mostly Autumn incorporates many folk musical instruments like flutes, Celtic bodhran, whistles, Uilleann pipes, violins and powerful vocal harmonies, creating a sound really interesting to hear.

Mostly Autumn saw their origins in the mind of Bryan Josh in the early of 1990, but it didn't come to action until 1998. That was the year that he recruited Heather Findlay, Ian Jennings, Liam Davison, Angela Goldthorpe, Jonathan Blackmore and Andy Smith, to create a very solid line up of Mostly Autumn for the beginning of their musical career.

"Live At High Voltage 2011" is the thirteenth live album of Mostly Autumn and that was released in 2011. High Voltage is a music festival held in Victoria Park, London. This musical event hosts artists from various strands of rock music, including classic rock, progressive rock and heavy metal. The first festival was held on the 24 and 25 July 2010. The second took place on the 23 and 24 July 2011, the time where the recordings of "Live At High Voltage 2011" were taken.

High Voltage is a very good interesting rock festival with the presence of many great bands. I'm just naming the bands more connected to prog rock music. In 2010 took part Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Opeth, Transatlantic, Asia, Zappa Plays Zappa, Bigelf, Focus, Pendragon, Touchstone, Marillion, Argent, Uriah Heep, Magnum, Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash, Steve Hackett and The Reasoning. In 2011 we had Queensryche, Dream Theater, John Lee's Barclay James Harvest, Neal Morse, Anathema, Caravan, Amplifier, Von Hertzen Brothers, Jethro Tull, Spock's Beard, Mostly Autumn, Curved Air, The Enid and Pallas. As we can see, this is a very impressive set of band's names of our progressive rock world.

The line up on "Live At High Voltage 2011" is Olivia Sparnenn (lead vocals and tambourine), Anne-Marie Helder (backing vocals, flutes, keyboards and acoustic guitars), Bryan Josh (lead vocals, lead and backing guitars and acoustic guitars), Liam Davison (backing vocals electric and acoustic guitars), Iain Jennings (keyboards, piano and Hammond organ), Andy Smith (bass guitars) and Gavin Griffiths (drums).

"Live At High Voltage 2011" is a double live album. The first CD has six tracks, "Distant Train" from "Passengers", "Answer The Question" also from "Passengers", "Evergreen" from "The Spirit Of Autumn Past", "Deep In Borrowdale" from "Go Well Diamond Heart", "Questioning Eyes" that isn't from Mostly Autumnn but belongs to Breathing Space and "Heroes Never Die" from "For All We Shared". The second CD doesn't own any tracks but only features an interview and some never seen before photographs of the band as well as backstage footage of the High Voltage festival of 2011.

The live set features a mix of material old and new, though unsurprisingly it leant heavily on the most recent "Go Well Diamond Heart" album, the first to feature Sparnenn's lead vocals. Josh, whose vocals somehow sound more emotive live than they do on studio proved gently spoken and clearly boast a poetic sensibility when it comes to music and lyrics and his emotive Gilmour-esque guitar style is central to Mostly Autumn's music. A word of praise should also go to Anne-Marie Helder, who when she's not behind her keyboards contributing with backing vocals, switches to the flute and she adds decidedly a kind of a Jethro Tull's flavour to the likes of "Caught In A Fold" and "The Spirit Of Autumn Past: Part 2". The instrumental "Distant Train" kicked things off, a prime example of the band's multi layered epic sound. Olivia Sparnenn entered the stage as the instrumental segued to sing "Answer The Question". Her voice has a pure, ethereal quality that meshes well with the band's soundscapes. Despite being relatively new to the role, her stage presence was that of a confident front woman at ease in the spotlight. Highlights include the new song, at the time, "Deep In Borrowdale" that begins with a haunting piano intro from Iain Jennings. It slowly builds to a crescendo where Olivia really let rip vocally. Finally, the fan favourite's "Evergreen", which received the loudest cheers of this live show.

Conclusion: There is something wholly admirable about Mostly Autumn. They always had self financed their live tours and album releases and they always attracted a diehard and selected base of fans. "Live At High Voltage 2011" is a very special live album in band's discography. This is a live album recorded in a live festival. So, the people present aren't properly composed by their fan base. So, I think that is a very difficult thing to a band play in a place like that. Thus, I think "Live At High Voltage 2011" suffers from that problem. Despite Mostly Autumn are an incredible bunch of great musicians that rarely disappoint us, on this live album their live performance is a bit lower than is usual. By the other hand, the sound is lower in quality. So, rather this one, I prefer to recommend their live albums "Live 2009 ? Part I & II", "That Night In Leamington" and "Still Beautiful ? Live 2011", that show very well how great this band can be when live.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)