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| 2013-09-22
DE – Oberhausen - Zentrum Altenberg |
| Having already completed an almost 2 months leg in spring, followed by several festival appearances in summer, RIVERSIDE once again embark on a 4 weeks ride throughout Europe in support of their latest album Shrine Of New Generation Slaves. I for sure will not complain about this fact, since I was not able to catch them in spring and summer. To be honest, I never have seen RIVERSIDE playing live so far. :: pics :: Out of the nightshifts and without much sleep I head towards • Zentrum Altenberg • in Oberhausen, Germany, a place I visit quite often lately ;) It is Sunday and the weather is rather made to spend the evening on the sofa. Though, many fans find their way to the venue and with RIVERSIDE on stage it is almost packed inside.
But first
things go easy. Many people are still outside or around
the bars when :: MAQAMA
:: enter the stage. I never have heard of this band
before and even a special archive for Prog bands did not have
them. Ok, an inquiry later I found out that MAQAMA is a
Polish band too, from Warsaw to be exactly, founded back in 2008
and now with 2 records under their belt. And maqama is actually
an (originally) Arabic prosimetric literary genre of rhymed prose.
I think, this gets reflected in the band’s logo design.
The music meanwhile has nothing in common with Arabic folklore. Instead we get really
charming progressive Rock, neither too complex and tricky, nor
too playful and soft, with a proper drive and punch. The
sound is amazing and almost feels like a surround sound (I for
the first time experienced at the Steven Wilson show at Night
Of The Prog Festival). And the band has great songs too, especially the last one,
Dream Catcher, from the current album Gospel Of Judas,
where most of the songs were played from, went under my skin.
Great and lively band, great show! Really!
Change-over
takes now a little bit longer as many cameras have to be set up
and justified. Tonight’s show will be recorded. Surprisingly :: RIVERSIDE
:: enter the stage at Zentrum Altenberg for the
fourth time and after
an almost 2 hrs show, singer and bass player Mariusz Duda will
say that this was the best show so far. As already mentioned,
I never saw RIVESIDE before and thus was quite surprised
to see how similar Mariusz Duda is to Steven Wilson, on so many
levels: look, the way he acts on stage, his singing, music, instruments,
concepts… just as an overall picture. Really astounding.
They should be twins. Ok, it’s a bit exaggerated, though…
However, musically, as one can imagine, this band is beyond all doubts.
And again, Steven Wilson with his Porcupine Trees comes to mind.
Here we have extremely talented and experienced musicians who
just love to play. The sound is brilliant; the material is emotionally
stirring, captivating and touching and much diversified. In between
Mariusz knows how to entertain his crowd (and reminds me of a
certain Mr Åkerfeldt). Unfortunately, the audience is lazy
at English language and responds quite lame. Guitar player Piotr
Grudzinski seems to be more the calming influence, while Michal
Lapaj is the wild child, who seems to have the fun of his life
when hammering over his keys. All of them seem to be so grounded,
so normal. No attitudes but downright likeable :) This show was
for sure a highlight, a musical top-class experience. And I will
definitely not again miss a RIVERSIDE show near me!
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| story & pics © Dajana |
