Slippermen and Seven Virgins,,,, Nov 2005

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   Slippermen came to Toronto last night and played the Opera House. A hearty and lively crowd was treated to the following songs (not in order): 

The Musical Box 
Return Of The Giant Hogweed 
Watcher Of The Skies 
Supper's Ready 
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight 
I Know What I Like 
Firth Of Fifth 
The Cinema Show 
In The Cage/Raven/In That Quiet Earth/Afterglow 
Dance On A Volcano/Drum Duet/Los Endos 
Entangled 
Eleventh Earl Of Mar (intro)/Squonk 

...quite a great set! As you can see, they never veered from the Hackett material, not even to play "The Knife"! They advertise themselves as a band who play material ranging from Trespass through Duke, but they did not play anything outside of Nursery Cryme through Wind and Wuthering. Each member of the band is highly talented, the bass/12-string player (Rutherford's parts) guy also played drums, and so did the singer, who also played bass and 6-string electric. Their usual guitarist was ill, so the replacement was the original guitarist of The Musical Box (the guy who actually looks like Steve Hackett except with white hair) - I have seen him before, with TMB, and he is out-frickin'-standing. The singer was also highly impressive, switching back and forth between Collins and Gabriel-isms quite fluidly. Oh, and whenever possible, the songs were done a la Seconds Out. 

Here is a promo poster I snagged by sweet-talking the coat-check girl: (It fits nicely with my Musical Box posters) 

The opening act was Seven Virgins And A Mule, a highly accomplished ELP tribute act. Wow, do these guys ever NAIL this material. I am a more casual ELP fan, although I do know a good amount of their material. This is what I recall them playing: 

Karn Evil 9 (part 2, starting with "Welcome back my friends....") 
Touch & Go 
The Barbarian 
Knife Edge 
Lucky Man 
Tiger In A Spotlight 
Tarkus (the whole thing! - that song has always been a little too meandering for my tastes) 

... anyway, all in all a good night, except for the drunken idiot behind us who would NOT stop crashing into my seat when he got up to get his umpteenth beer. A 40-year-old going on twelve. The kind of guy who always makes me embarassed to be a prog fan at these kinds of shows. I love the music but I always hate the other fans. On the flipside, there was a group of six young guys and one girl, they had to be no more than 17 or 18 tops, who stood and danced, singing along, through the ENTIRE Slippermen set. It was a great thing to see, made me happy. The LOVED it, it was just so cool. 

So, if you ever get the chance to see these guys, I recommend them very highly. They don't recreate the show the way TMB does (although the singer did have the old man mask, the batwings and the leather jacket), they just play two sets of great Genesis material, and they play it damn well.  