Light — i'Varca, Lintelo, Netherlands, 18 October 1996

On the 18th of October, my brother-in-law and I drove to the hamlet of Lintelo to see Dutch prog rock band Light play live.

Lintelo gives a whole new meaning to the term "middle of nowhere". The venue, "i'Varca", was a youth centre which had previously been an old train station. The hall where Light would be playing was quite small. The venue had a bar in a separate room, and I think there was another hall upstairs.

While ordering a beer at the bar, I was happily surprised by the price of the drinks. ƒ 2,50 (Dutch Guilders) for half a liter of Grolsch isn't bad. I could clearly notice the results the next morning, ;-)

The first band who played were Cliffhanger. A week before someone had lend me their album Cold Steel which I didn't really like. The same person told me they were a lot better live. I didn't agree...

In my opinion Cliffhanger had more sense of humour than sense for music. But then again, it's all a matter of taste, isn't it? After listening to a couple of songs we quickly returned to the bar.

After a while Light arrived, and after a small-talk with bass player Randy, keyboard player Jeroen, and Yvonne, the sister of guitarist Mario, the band went to the hall to set up their equipment.

45 minutes later, the band kicked off. I was amused to see that guitarist Mario and keyboard player Jeroen had apparently switched hairstyles since the last time I saw them. ;-)

Besides most of the tracks from their debut album (they didn't do Dreams) they played some older songs of which some had appeared on demos. I recognised some of these from previous live performances by the band. The complete setlist was:

Although Post '45 was an old song, it reminded me a lot of Shadowland's United States of Insanity. Elephants ... went straight into Dream On, instead of the instrumental Carnivore Feast on the album.

Most of the people present seemed to be locals and only partially interested in the band. When I asked drummer Jack after the gig if that wasn't frustrating, he told me he hardly noticed because of the bright stage lights.

God on Wires made a nice impression on most of them. Someone even asked me which band originally played that track. The poor bastard thought it was a cover version. ;-)

While a technical problem was solved after 'God on Wires' the band played a snippet of Dutch sing-along song Daar bij die Molen.

A rather heavy self-titled track which will appear on the new album followed. This didn't only show the many-sidedness of the band, it also proved the Randy can play bass, smoke and sing at the same time. ;-)

The next track, Just Feelings, made an enormous impression on the locals and had them shouting for more. Although it is my least favourite track on the CD the live version was a lot better, especially because of the extended middle break.

After the encore of Mopke 1 (I'd like to know the explanation of that title...) the short gig was over. They did not play Juice of Burning Meat, although it was mentioned on the setlist. 'though I like that song I think it was a wise decision; it's not really a concert closer, in my opinion, at least not in a place like i'Varca.

I was slightly disappointed that they didn't play some parts of the Dreams epic, but teh again, that would have taken up a large part f the setlist.

The band had only rehearsed two times since the vacation periods. They told me afterwards they had messed up a couple of times, but to be honest, I hadn't really noticed. As I told Randy before the gig this could be considered a perfect try-out for the "big ones" they would be playing later:

2 November 1996, Alphen a/d Rijn, Het Kasteel

tripple concert with Cliffhanger & Grey Lady Down

30 November, Tilburg, Noorderligt

support act Pendragon

It was a very enjoyable evening with (in my opinion) the best prog rock band in Holland.