Montreal Prog Music Festival:FMPM

[zvinki]

Day 2:

On tap were Interference Sardines fro Quebec, Charles Kaczynski from Quebec, Riverside, and Univers Zero. Unfortunately we only saw Riverside due to my son's schedule conflicts. I really was hoping to see Charles Kaczynski and Univers Zero especially the latter for their strong visual component to the show.

Riverside

I am a bg fan of this band and have all their CD's so I was really looking forward to this. As was already suggested by other members of Aural Moon, Riverside is fairly tight in concert however I didn't find the musicianship of the individuals up to par with the general prog bands that I have seen live. I guess that their strength is more in the song writing although I also found this a bit thin and prone to sounding formulaic by the end of the concert. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the concert immensely but I was slightly disappointed by their lack of depth. I especially enjoy the singer's voice however in concert he needs to shed the typical rock star screaming at the audience especially given their size and average age (He should take some notes from Mikael Ackerfeld and Maynard Keenan). I should give a special mention of the guitarist Piotr Something-ski. The guy was in a zone and didn't seem to be chemically induced. His solos, timing, pitch, everything was bang on. Even when his eyes were open his focus was somewhere else (maybe a telepathic link with David Gilmour and Steve Rothery to help with those tasteful solos). Overally a good concert by they need to dig a little deeper to get to the next level. Why they didn't play Second Life Syndrome for a prog crowd is a mystery.