I went down to see Neal Morse for the very first time in my city, in an unexpected, sudden and scarcely advertised appearance in a small (but warm) club in Barcelona. That was due to the organization, which was closely related to a catholic christian church, probably someone involved in these kind of religious affairs contacted Neal personally and convinced him to come. So, no advertisement was really planned.
I was really excited, I've been a huge fan since the Spock's Beard era, and I'm quite into the stuff he's made after leaving that band. Think both Testimony and One are great albums, and even when I'm not so fond with this "Question Mark" album... it wasn't really bothering.
First off, I misunderstood the time scheduled for the show, thought the whole thing started at 9 p.m, but when I arrived to the place at some point past eight, the supporters were already playing. I got in, and these youngsters were playing sort of a jazzy stuff that warmed up the room so nicely.
They were part of the kids at church, and that was impressive enough, my mind started conceiving ideas of a (prolly non-existant) "Prog Rock Church", where they prayed singing along old Rush songs or some Gentle Giant stuff and the walls were decorated with pictures of Steve Rothery and the Genesis line up, everybody looking in deep ecstasy.
So, I felt very pleased by listening to them, the music was catchy and nice, and the musicians were quite trained (except for the lead guitar, he gotta work on his skills and buy a better instrument). They were asked to play one extra song, presumably because Neal wasn't ready yet.
Then... he showed up. Neal Morse himself, all alone with a guitar and a borrowed keyboard (which he wasn't quite able to tune up according to his preferences at first). Started the show, played songs I didn't recognize and sounded so simple and lacking total inspiration, albeit he played them as if God himself was playing through his hands.
My worst fears came true: he looked as if into a religious delirium, God controlling everything and his name being pronounced every two and a half sentences. First part of the show pretty much sucked, think he played stuff from this new "album for worshippers" that he's done recently... and I tell you, no matter how much feeling he tries to add to his voice, the album isn't ellaborated enough to be compared to anything he's done in the past.
Besides, the place was crowded by the people from the church, who looked as delirious as Morse, laughing all the time and expressing themselves as if they were partying with the Poppa, drowning into excitement. It's strange what you catch from these people: they look happy... oddly happy. It seems to me that they look too happy, if you know what I mean, as if they were using drugs. From now on, I'll refer to them as "the church kids", if you let me. No offense, it was plain weird, nothing personal against it as long as their eyes don't pop out due to over-excitement.
It was somewhat announced that Neal's brother was going to show up, which led me to the idea that, being Alan Morse the talented musician he is, Neal would concentrate on a spockbeardish basis stained by some Transatlantic stuff and probably a couple of cover songs.
Surprise, surprise: it wasn't Alan the brother who was going to play along with Neal, it was Richard (who looked like the sum of José Luis Moreno + José Corbacho, two well known artists in Spain) who finally showed up. And another extra surprise: Paul Morse, father of the Morse brothers, came along too and even got up to the stage to perform a song (he's 85 y-o, but his voice was well pitched for someone of his age, even when he didn't quite remember the lyrics).
Richard has released a solo album, and they played two songs from that album. They couldn't be worse: no fun whatsoever, boring as hell (or heaven, only God knows!).
As Morse stated during the show, the set list wasn't really planned, he played whatever he felt right to do. The show started to unfold its wings when he decided to play the wonderful "Bridge Across Forever" from the second Transatlantic album. It is kinda spiritual, but God isn't the main character, and made much more sense to me.
Then, he continued with some stuff from the album "One", and Richard was barely playing anything. In the meanwhile, the church kids were totally out of their minds, they were laughing their asses off and singing along, I don't know what they would have done if Neal would have decided to play "Go Tell It On The Mountain", probably a collective suicide would have taken place. Well aware of this, Neal invited them to come up and play something with him.
Two kids climbed up, and started playing. One of them sat backwards and started doing drums, and the other remained at backing vocals. "Help Me", "The Spirit And The Flesh" or "King Jesus" were played, and the rest of the kids also got to stage and played piano and guitars, pushing Richard Morse to the backstage, where he knew he was better suited (barely knew a song his brother was compelled to play). Seemingly, at church everybody knows how to play one or more instruments, it's sort of a gift you receive when you check in: you acknowledge God and he gives you a six-string bass guitar.
At this point, I wasn't feeling comfortable. Yes, I appreciate the music from "Testimony" and "One", but everything sounded like propaganda. The whole Morse family around, the church kids in constant amusement, the chit chat between songs explaining how someone decided to dive into God's grace (and being translated to the spanish by some guy who intended to make it understandable for those god followers who weren't able to understand Shakespeare's mother tongue), Morse acting like a shepherder...
I bet the church kids felt it as the unbelievable night they were allowed to play with Neal Morse, the vivid musical image of his faith, but the whole show left me cold and disappointed. I expected "We All Need Some Light", which would be perfectly suitable for the always-on-top religious subject. The song, sadly enough, never was played.
Now, the fact that I didn't quite like the image of Neal spreading his message, eyes fixed in light and forced smile, doesn't mean that I despise anyone's belief or faith. In my opinion, religion might be a strong inspirational source, I appreciate music done by christian artists like Steven Curtis Chapman (who, I think, is a great song writter and singer). I fully respect anyone's beliefs, but I also acknowledge my own right of feeling pissed off when the religious inspiration turns out for the bad.
|ng.
I was really excited, I've been a huge fan since the Spock's Beard era, and I'm quite into the stuff he's made after leaving that band. Think both Testimony and One are great albums, and even when I'm not so fond with this "Question Mark" album... it wasn't really bothering.
First off, I misunderstood the time scheduled for the show, thought the whole thing started at 9 p.m, but when I arrived to the place at some point past eight, the supporters were already playing. I got in, and these youngsters were playing sort of a jazzy stuff that warmed up the room so nicely.
They were part of the kids at church, and that was impressive enough, my mind started conceiving ideas of a (prolly non-existant) "Prog Rock Church", where they prayed singing along old Rush songs or some Gentle Giant stuff and the walls were decorated with pictures of Steve Rothery and the Genesis line up, everybody looking in deep ecstasy.
So, I felt very pleased by listening to them, the music was catchy and nice, and the musicians were quite trained (except for the lead guitar, he gotta work on his skills and buy a better instrument). They were asked to play one extra song, presumably because Neal wasn't ready yet.
Then... he showed up. Neal Morse himself, all alone with a guitar and a borrowed keyboard (which he wasn't quite able to tune up according to his preferences at first). Started the show, played songs I didn't recognize and sounded so simple and lacking total inspiration, albeit he played them as if God himself was playing through his hands.
My worst fears came true: he looked as if into a religious delirium, God controlling everything and his name being pronounced every two and a half sentences. First part of the show pretty much sucked, think he played stuff from this new "album for worshippers" that he's done recently... and I tell you, no matter how much feeling he tries to add to his voice, the album isn't ellaborated enough to be compared to anything he's done in the past.
Besides, the place was crowded by the people from the church, who looked as delirious as Morse, laughing all the time and expressing themselves as if they were partying with the Poppa, drowning into excitement. It's strange what you catch from these people: they look happy... oddly happy. It seems to me that they look too happy, if you know what I mean, as if they were using drugs. From now on, I'll refer to them as "the church kids", if you let me. No offense, it was plain weird, nothing personal against it as long as their eyes don't pop out due to over-excitement.
It was somewhat announced that Neal's brother was going to show up, which led me to the idea that, being Alan Morse the talented musician he is, Neal would concentrate on a spockbeardish basis stained by some Transatlantic stuff and probably a couple of cover songs.
Surprise, surprise: it wasn't Alan the brother who was going to play along with Neal, it was Richard (who looked like the sum of José Luis Moreno + José Corbacho, two well known artists in Spain) who finally showed up. And another extra surprise: Paul Morse, father of the Morse brothers, came along too and even got up to the stage to perform a song (he's 85 y-o, but his voice was well pitched for someone of his age, even when he didn't quite remember the lyrics).
Richard has released a solo album, and they played two songs from that album. They couldn't be worse: no fun whatsoever, boring as hell (or heaven, only God knows!).
As Morse stated during the show, the set list wasn't really planned, he played whatever he felt right to do. The show started to unfold its wings when he decided to play the wonderful "Bridge Across Forever" from the second Transatlantic album. It is kinda spiritual, but God isn't the main character, and made much more sense to me.
Then, he continued with some stuff from the album "One", and Richard was barely playing anything. In the meanwhile, the church kids were totally out of their minds, they were laughing their asses off and singing along, I don't know what they would have done if Neal would have decided to play "Go Tell It On The Mountain", probably a collective suicide would have taken place. Well aware of this, Neal invited them to come up and play something with him.
Two kids climbed up, and started playing. One of them sat backwards and started doing drums, and the other remained at backing vocals. "Help Me", "The Spirit And The Flesh" or "King Jesus" were played, and the rest of the kids also got to stage and played piano and guitars, pushing Richard Morse to the backstage, where he knew he was better suited (barely knew a song his brother was compelled to play). Seemingly, at church everybody knows how to play one or more instruments, it's sort of a gift you receive when you check in: you acknowledge God and he gives you a six-string bass guitar.
At this point, I wasn't feeling comfortable. Yes, I appreciate the music from "Testimony" and "One", but everything sounded like propaganda. The whole Morse family around, the church kids in constant amusement, the chit chat between songs explaining how someone decided to dive into God's grace (and being translated to the spanish by some guy who intended to make it understandable for those god followers who weren't able to understand Shakespeare's mother tongue), Morse acting like a shepherder...
I bet the church kids felt it as the unbelievable night they were allowed to play with Neal Morse, the vivid musical image of his faith, but the whole show left me cold and disappointed. I expected "We All Need Some Light", which would be perfectly suitable for the always-on-top religious subject. The song, sadly enough, never was played.
Now, the fact that I didn't quite like the image of Neal spreading his message, eyes fixed in light and forced smile, doesn't mean that I despise anyone's belief or faith. In my opinion, religion might be a strong inspirational source, I appreciate music done by christian artists like Steven Curtis Chapman (who, I think, is a great song writter and singer). I fully respect anyone's beliefs, but I also acknowledge my own right of feeling pissed off when the religious inspiration turns out for the bad.
|ng.
