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RosFest 08 – Day Two

This morning we got a incredible wake-up call. Blind Ego. The side project for Kalle and Yogi from RPWL. I was really looking forward to this since I’m a big fan of theirs. And they did not disappoint. I was not real impressed with the guitar work from Friday night and Kalle just outclassed them by a large margin. What clean, thoughtful playing. Never too many notes. The lead vocalist, Paul Wrightson from Arena (another favorite group of mine, was very emotional and active onstage. A great performer. Yogi Lang handled the atmospheric keyboards well, but I would not call him a great soloist. But his vocals lend power to the songs. The percussion is an unknown to me, but he ably backed them up with solid rock drumming. Nothing spectacular, but okay. And what can you say about John Jowitt (IQ, Frost). I saw him with IQ last fall and he is a lot of fun onstage and brings a nice easy bass line to the music. He helps keep the focus on the emotional lead vocals and guitar, the two soaring parts of the band.

The second show was a nice surprise. Ritual played very well and is led by Patrik Lundstrom on guitar and vocals. He is a very strong persona on stage. Each of the performers wear a very ritualist costume from the folk world of their homeland and abroad. The first part of their set was very rock oriented. A nice blend of all the instruments, none really standing too far out from the others. This helped set up the 2nd part of the set when they went acoustic. The percussionist, John Nordgren, picked up a nyckelharpa, which is a ‘keyed fiddle’ (as described in the program notes) and the bass player picked up an acoustic bass, which was more like a bass mandolin. This was a very nice change and showed their musicianship well. It also brought them to their epic finish.

RPWL was up next. Quite frankly, they should have been the headliner. They are a powerful line-up and are consummate musicians. This band brings Yogi Lang to the front for vocals and synth. He was very charismatic with strong convictions about the economic condition of the world. This was best demonstrated by their song that brought out a guest female singer who’s name I didn’t catch. She was, however, more of a rap style singer and we may have seen the birth of Prog/Rap. (yikes). Anyway, the set was excellent. After a few brief of the politically charged songs they slipped into the style we have grown to love. Very atmospheric backgrounds with blistering Gilmore-esque guitar work, courtesy of Kalle Wallner. They did not disappoint in the least and were everything I had hoped for.

The headliner for Saturday was a let down, to say the least. CIRCA is the band that everyone loves to hate, much like Asia. But it’s not because of a lack of talent. The problem is being compared to YES, whom each of them have been associated with at one point or another. Even Jimmy Hahn, who did session work on the Union album. I have their album and I found it able, but very much single-minded. I was hoping that live it would come over better and with more energy. I was right about that for the first couple of songs, but the repetitive nature of the songs became a little borning. This was not helped by an incompetent sound engineer for this group. Let me preface that with the incredible job the house and contract technical staff did. There were very few if any sound or like glitches through the festival – until this guy came in. It was stadium sound in a small venue (bleeding ears for everyone!). Many people blamed the bass guitar, but what really got the chest thumping was the supporting keys work of Billy Sherwood’s brother. He sang through the vocoder to give that layered sound that seems to be a Sherwood trademark over the years. He also supported Tony Kaye’s organ work. Now, I was sitting further back in the house, so I did get a better feel for what the overall sound was like (I was close to the sound board). I’m very grateful I was not with the rest of the crew in the front few rows. That must have hurt, a lot.

Now, overall, I was disappointed with CIRCA, but I think that is mainly because of the expectations we place on them. We want another group that is as good as YES. It’s the same kind of thing we expected from ASIA, and didn’t get. Those are big shoes to fill. What the group really lacks is diversity. This was shown most prominently when they did the Yes medley. Seeing the incredible range of composition from the early to late material of Yes, it showed how single-minded CIRCA was. I would agree with Rick, Billy’s bass work rivals Chris Squire But even with the great back-up talents of Alan White and Tony Kaye, the group really just comes off as a YES tribute band.