Live at The Brudenell Social Club 17th August 2024
How is Thijs van Leer so smiley and warm coming off the back of a twenty-date US tour with Asia? His animated face as he hits chords on his Hammond or appreciates another member’s playing is one of the highlights of the evening. Dressed the same as last time in a black duster coat, black cap and mutton chops, he cues the band and switches from flute to Hammond as well as a healthy portion of wordless harmony and even some scatting – at one point engaging the audience in call and response nonsense words.
For music with limpidly beautiful guitar melodies and serious jazz-style chops, Thijs wears it lightly. The other original member is Pierre van der Linden, whose drumming is unique and another highlight – busy yet relaxed, jazzy, played as an instrument rather than purely a rhythm. This being a prog band, he got two drum solos – which added to the bass solo and guitar solo we got in ‘Harem Scarem’. This felt a harder-edged evening than my introduction to the band last year in Leeds with plenty of hard rock riffs amongst the jazz bass and fluid guitar. Menno Gootjes on guitar has a thing where he modulates notes with the volume control. Perhaps overused but it shows the detail he applies to his work.
The good natured feeling of the band is ever apparent. After opening with (of course) ‘Focus 1’, the bands first tune, ‘House Of The King’ is introduced with a smile – “this was our first hit in the Netherlands…. and French speaking parts of Belgium. Nowhere else.” Well known favourite, ‘Sylvia’, is introduced by Thijs with rhythms from slapping his head and face. Many of the pieces here take multiple forms, passing through parts and phases with ultra-melodic dripping guitar, hammering passages, organ swirls, flute sections. The audience concentrates on it all and smiles at the way it hangs together.
This is a band where, at times, everyone solos at once; making for absorbing instrumentals. This band has been through these many times before, with most of the set going back decades, and the crowd has heard it all as well, yet the complex stuff going on is a delight to the ears. They even turn in the hit – ‘Hocus Pocus’ – of course, but with minimal yodelling and a flute intro that has Baroque classical touches to it.. Elsewhere I hear things in the melodies – part of ‘Focus III’ reminds me of Jackie Trent & Tony Hatch’s ultra-catchy ‘Don’t Sleep In The Subway’, while ‘La Cathedrale de Strasbourg’ is gentle.
Over two sets and more than a couple of hours, the band play a mere ten pieces yet somehow keep the crowd’s, ahem, focus, on them. The set has been almost exactly the same repertoire as last year’s Leeds show, in the same order, yet it felt different, thanks to the band’s telepathic interplay modulating the feel into the mood of the band and the room.
We first heard the band live last year: