Transatlantic, the on/off musical adventure featuring a wealth of talent including Mike Portnoy (ex Dream Theater), Roine Stolt (Flower kings), Pete Trewavas (Marillion), Neal Morse (ex Spock’s beard’) and, for the live show, Ted Leonard (Spock’s beard), are a true progressive super-group. An imaginative melting pot of ideas, the band offer stadium-sized drums, wild solos, stately progressive melodies and innovative vocal work and, over the course of nearly two hours and forty minutes, the band dig deep to deliver eleven varied tracks from across a back catalogue spanning some fourteen years. Playing to a packed house in Cologne, the band pull out all the stops to deliver an energetic and engaging show with Mike in particular enjoying his unusually placed stage-right drum kit as it allows him to interact far more with the crowd than if he was tucked away in the rear. With a huge video display projecting images behind the band, it’s not as fantastic a light show as, say, Pink Floyd (but then, let’s face it, who does match the aesthetic flair of that peerless band?) but it helps to hold the attention as the band delve deep to deliver their lengthy progressive epics.
Opening with one of five tracks from latest epic, the stunning ‘Kaleidoscope’, the band instantly draw the crowd in with the thrillingly epic ‘Into the blue’, a track that neatly summarises the many strengths of Transatlantic, with Roine’s gnarled solos, Neal’s elegant vocals and Mike’s typically inventive percussion all opening up myriad musical possibilities over twenty-six breath-taking minutes. What an opening! With the members of the band all getting their moment to shine, it’s easy to admire the collaborative nature of the band and the seemingly effortless way in which the band work together, seamlessly moving through the song’s complex sections. Although not on the album, Ted Leonard slots into the band’s live line-up as if he’s always been there, and his vocal contribution to the song is a highlight. Drifting all the way back to the year 2000 the band treat the ecstatic audience to another lengthy number, the seventeen-minute ‘My new world’ from debut album ‘SMPT:e’. It’s rare to find a band who can slot music from a fourteen year-old debut next to new material without a jarring transition, but such is the relentless quality control within Transatlantic that the two songs shine equally brightly and, judging by the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction, the song has lost none of its power to inspire and delight. Clad in a typically obnoxious shirt, Roinie is such an engaging presence, his quirky vocals and guitar playing just one of the many elements that make Transatlantic so special, and if his performance here doesn’t encourage you to seek out the wonderful work of Flower Kings then you must surely be dead inside. ‘My new world’ is a great choice to keep the set moving forward because, despite its length, it has a massive hook at its heart that grabs the listener and never lets go no matter how intricate the music becomes as the song progresses. This is progressive rock at its very best and it is an absolute delight to let the music flow over you. It’s back to the present for the next track, the comparatively brief and stunningly beautiful ‘Shine’ (‘Kaleidoscope’) before the band dig into 2009’s ‘the whirlwind’ for an epic medley that sweeps majestically across thirty minutes, entrancing the crowd and home audience alike.
The next two tracks return the audience to Kaleidoscope with the first, ‘Beyond the sun’ proving to be both short and sweet with Neal up front and centre, bathed in light and singing solo for the first minute or so. The second track, however, which proves to be the album’s title track, is a thirty-minute-plus exercise in near-miraculous musicianship that both ploughs rock’s deepest furrows and attains the greatest heights of prog over the course of its lengthy run time. Beautifully brief, the self-explanatory ‘Neal and Ronnie Duet’ provides a break from the mighty prog excess found elsewhere and highlights the remarkable talents of Neal and Roine who complement each other wonderfully before the show draws to its conclusion with ‘We all need some light’ (‘SMPTe’) and one last track from ‘Kaleidoscope’ – ‘Black as the sky’. The latter track in particular is a gloriously uplifting piece of music with thunderous percussion and wild keyboard underpinning the extravagant layers of guitar and it is a fitting conclusion to the show.
The encore draws together elements from two albums (‘SMPT:e’ and ‘Bridge across forever’) in the form of another Medley featuring ‘All of the above’ and ‘stranger in your soul’ and at twenty-six minutes in length it’s one hell of an encore. With the whole band looking like they’re enjoying the hell out of it all, the medley serves up some truly dizzying music and Neal, in particular, looks like he’d joyfully play all night given half the chance. Best of all, the encore sees the crowd fully participating, singing along with gusto and clearly relishing the concert as much as the band do.
Transatlantic haven’t exactly been shy with live releases over the years, but with plenty of extra features, a wealth of material from the stunning new album on board and an energetic performance from all, it is hard not to froth at the mouth a little with excitement when discussing ‘KaLIVEoscope’. With a powerful and punchy DTS soundtrack (that simply demolishes the comparatively weedy Dolby mix) alongside a crystal clear stereo track, the audio options cater for all systems and reproduce the Transatlantic experience perfectly. Moreover, director Bernhard Baran deserves endless credit for capturing the band with a simple clarity that eschews jump cuts and special effects and provides the home audience with the best possible view of the action on stage. It is increasingly rare, it seems, that the directors and editors of live DVDs understand that the home audience want to see a band unadorned by sepia photography, artificial film aging and epilepsy-inducing jump cuts, and Bernhard does a near perfect job of capturing the show in all its glory. In short, ‘KaLIVEoscope’ is an essential addition to the collection of any Transatlantic fan specifically and any progressive fan in general. It captures this most warm-hearted of progressive bands in full flow and highlights just what a remarkable musical force they are. Beautiful, brainy, complex and memorable, ‘KaLIVEoscope’ is a flawless display of progressive grandeur and an absolute delight from start to finish.
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