Hi all,
If anyone who is going to the RAH concert on Thursday and wants it to be a
complete surprise, read no further!
Just back home after the concert and a full day's work straight after, so
exhausted.
The Gods shined on me, even if the sun didn't, everything went perfectly;
got to meet some French fans in the pub beforehand, who in turn introduced
me to the organisers, which led to a backstage pass
Unfortunately for
some however, the TD card didn't wash, as the concert was organised by the
Olympia themselves and had no connection with TDI. About a dozen priviliged
people got through two sets of heavy security doors to meet the band. I
have to say that Edgar looked extremely frail, but he did at least come out
to meet the fans briefly, as did the rest of the band and Bianca, who were
all extremely friendly. Iris has 'big hair' ( a perm) and Edgar kept his
hat on all the time, just saw a platt sticking out the back of it. I had
the time to chat to all of them and get all their autographs, as well as get
photos with them, apart from with Edgar, who was obviously exhausted,
apparently he had had only an hour's sleep the night before. He staggered a
couple of times on stage and was obviously not in good health, he is
painfully thin these days and was a bit 'distracted' shall we say. I asked
Bianca how he was and she said he was fine, but I wasn't convinced.
So what did they play? Well, a set that lasted over 3 hours, not including
the intermission (yep, it is compulsory at the venue apparently) and apart
from the first part of the second set it was a great concert. The hall was
only around half full unfortunately, and I can't say that the French were a
great audience, nobody even stood up until the concert had finished). No
lasers, but lots of projections of space, World Trade Centre being attacked,
nuclear bombs dropping on Japan (very cheerful!), Egypt, Australian
aboriginies, Grand Canyon, clouds, you know the style if you saw the London
Eye concert. The first set was mainly classic material (in this order,
apologies for lack of precision in some cases):
Rubycon 2010 (nice!)
Phaedra
Stratosfear
Kiev Mission remake 2009
Song of the Whale
No Man's Land (very short version)
Horizon
Tangram
New track (didn't recognise, very nice sequencer)
Cloudburst Flight
Dream Mixes
Warsaw in the Sun
Cinnamon Road
Death of a Nightingale
Tyger
Astrophel and Stella (string version)
Oracular Road (from Trauma)
Second set was more recent stuff mainly, some of which I have to admit I
didn't recognise (the first few tracks not necessarily in the right order):
Order of the Ginger Guild
The Halloween Cast
Transition (I think, in this style anyway)
Carmel Calif
A few other tracks that I would have to dig into my collection to find out
what they were...
Then suddenly after about three quarters of an hour of what I found quite
bland, they suddenly woke up, Iris did a bit of singing (what a voice!) then
a grand finale...
Logos
One Night in Space
Long and loud guitar solo (220 Volt style) by Edgar first (not exactly
Hendrix, but after blowing on his hans and rubbing them together he managed
rather well!) then with Bernard (who did some nice rocky stuff, he was on
form).
So there you have it, an altogether great night out, lots of stuff on the
merchandising stand (signed posters, 4 or 5 different DVDs including London
Eye and Alte Oper, Booster 3, Zeitgeist EP, t-shirts showing an egg with
wings coming out of it ( Dali style Easter egg!)
Can someone keep a note of the tracks they do at the RAH so I can fill in
some or all of the gaps above...
Have a good one in London
Paul