THE FIFTH SEASON - LIVE IN CONCERT

I must say I have mixed feelings about this concert. On one hand this DVD is extremely well recorded and performed. The songs from SurRevival gain some extra punch and life, specially the opener Hands Off. On the other hand I saw their bootleg DVD recorded live in Mexico. While the latter is clearly an amateurish affair, the band sounded much more progressive and original when Emilia was the lead singer. This is quite clear on the new DVD too: when the band plays the old material they sound much better than with the new stuff (and get much more response from the audience, by the way). New singer Bartek Kossowics is obviously very good, still he has a lot to proof and stepping into Emila´s shoes is not an easy task. She not only had a great voice but was also very charismatic and quite responsible for the Quidam sound we all know and love.

Actually Quidam´s future is not really on his hands (or voice). It´s the main songwriters decision to go more alternative sounding (like on the album) or to stick to progressive music that hangs in the balance. Since I´m not a big fan of the former style, I really hope they choose the prog path. At least they gave us some great moments, like their beautiful debut CD. No wonder their most enthusiastic received songs on this DVD are their past tunes.

So, in the end, this DVD is kind of an enigma. An excellent performance of a band which we really don´t know where they´re going to. Emila´s ghost and their past progressive work still weights a lot on them. They´re still good, but there´s still some things missing here.