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Events and Reports - Star One - Live in Hamburg, 30. September 2002
We are now on our way home form an amazing concert in space... no wait, Hamburg. We arrived very early so we had time to contact the tourmanager so that we were sure to get an interview with the mastermind himself, Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Read it here. Let's just say that he is an extremely nice guy and after the interview we were looking even more forward to the show.
The concert hall was in the middle of Hamburg and the atmosphere was very good. I suppose that about 4-500 people had shown up, so there was room for everybody and there wasn't much of the usual pushing and fighting to get to the front of the stage (which meant that I had a fantastic place in the first row.).| The musicians | 
Arjen Lucassen |
Joost van den Broek | | |
Russel Allen
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Damian Wilson | | |
Robert Soeterboeck | 
Ed Warby | | | 
Floor and Irene Jansen | | | 
Peter Vink |
And then the show started. We heard some very spacey Ayreonish sounds while the whole stage was blinking with lights and there was even a big cinemascreen with a lot of spacey computergraphics. The intro to "Lift Off" started and people went crazy. Then the band came running in and started on "Set Your Controls" and right from the beginning you could see that the band was very tight and they were playing very well together. This was quite impressive since Arjen told us earlier that they only had time to practice together 5 times.
The sound was good too; you had the incredibly heavy rythm guitars of Arjen (he's playing on a very old Gibson guitar, and he has a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and some preamp. The Yanmaha DG100, I think), you had the very tight drums of Ed Warby with Peter Vink keeping the rythm section tight and heavy. The 19-year old wonderboy Joost van den Broek did a great job playing all the well-known Ayreon sounds on his 6 (six!) keyboards.
And then we have the singers! The first one we saw was sir Russel Allen who came running in and started on "Set Your Controls" and man, this guy is just built of muscles and energy! So amazingly much power both in his stage presence and in his voice. Tonight, as on the Space Metal cd, this was the man with all the aggressive parts because of his very strong voice, but there were also parts where they slowed down and he could show us his angelvoice. There was a quiet song where he had a beautiful a-capella ending. Damn, I thought only black people could sing like that. It was just incredible how this huge man could give something so beautiful and vulnerable at the same time. For me he was surely the best singer of the night (but I'm a huge Symphony X fan already and that may influence me a bit...).
Damian Wilsons voice is very different from Russ' voice. Actually I think that his voice is very different from everybody else's voice. He can sing incredibly high but it just sounds like it's natural for him to sing like that. He had a duel with Russ in "Intergalactic Space Crusaders" when they were singing against each other, and they seemed to have a lot of fun up there. Basically they all semed to really enjoy themselves during the whole set. Then there was Robert Soeterboek whose voice was less in-your-face. Actually it was difficult to hear him through most of the concert. That's a shame but that was the only thing that wasn't perfect about the sound. Suddenly we saw him sitting on top of one of the big speakers, singing his parts. Seems that this guy put it on himself take the stageshow to new heights.
In the beginning of the show, there was a time when the stage was relatively dark and suddenly you could see some definitely-not-male shadows walking from one side of the stage to the other. When the lights came on again, there were 2 tall, long-haired gorgeous babes dressed in leather on the stage. Those were the Jansen sisters, Floor and her sister Irene. They did all the angelic backing vocals and Floor had some solo spots too. She has a very strong voice as we all know from the cd and also from her own band After Forever. She even played the flute in one song. After having seen these two girls, I have now figured out that the only thing that is hotter than a chick in leather is a chick in leather who is headbanging! At least the way these 2 girls did. Yeah, how is it that women are able to take something so aggressive as headbanging and turn it into a sensual dance??? Not that I'm complaining but sometimes you just got to wonder... Anyways... We didn't get to hear Irene sing alone much but what I gathered from the Backing voices I could hear when Floor was singing solo, she has a beautiful voice too.
After the first few songs you could see that the band started to relax a bit and to start enjoying themselves. At first you could see that they were a little bit tense which is perfectly natural since they have only played together so few times but later nobody could guess that they hadn't been touring the world the last 10 years. Actually they started to have a lot of fun! The atmosphere up there on the stage seemed to boiling just as much on stage as in the audience. I believe that for the audience to really enjoy a show, they need to feel that this show is something special. And this show deserves to be called special more than any other I have ever seen. The musicians on stage just seemed to be happy and this feeling spread to the whole concert hall. I think we all had the feeling that this wasn't just you average metal concert, this was something more. After all, some people have waited a long time to hear Ayreon live.
I must say that the setlist was very well chosen. Of course they played most of the Space Metal cd but we also heard several older Ayreon song. Songs like Isis and Osiris, Valley of the queen and Dawn of a Million Souls were just so beautiful and emotional. Who could possible want any drugs when you can get high on music like this? Another magical moment was "The Eye of Ra". As you can all hear on the cd, the music fades out and all singers sing the chorus together. They do this live too! The band just stopped playing and the singers kept singing; they were all standing next to each other on the edge of the stage and kept singing their souls out to the audience. No words can describe how beautiful this was.
The setlist was great but of course there are always songs that you miss. For me I would have loved to hear "Master of Darkness"and "Accros the Rainbow Bridge" but they played so many others that I'm not going to complain. All the show lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes. Quite impressive that they could learn all this in just 5 rehearsals.
After they finished and came back in and played encores, the crowd was still demanding more songs, so they came back in and played Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'". If you missed Star One on the road, pray that Arjen will decide to do another tour later. But if he enjoyed it just half as much as I and the rest of the audience, I'd say that this isn't the last time we've seen him live.
Setlist
Intro: Lift Off
Set Your Controls
High Moon
Dreamtime
Eyes of Time
Songs of the Ocean
Dawn of a Million Souls
The Dream Sequencer and guitar solo from My house on Mars
into the Black Hole
Actual Fantasy
Valley of the Queens (Sung by Floor, Irene background vocals)
Isis and Osiris
Amazing Flight in Space (With keyboard / guitar battle at the end)
Bass and drum solo
Intergalactic Space Crusaders
Castle Hall
The Eye of Ra
1st Encore:
Star Child
The Two Gates
2nd Encore:
Space Truckin'
Written by Tajs
Comments from Steen:
Whoa, where should I begin? I'm sitting here back home the day after the concert in Hamburg and I'm still amazed at the experience. This is without doubt my best concert experience ever! It even managed to surpass concerts of my favourite bands like Enuff Z'nuff, Savatage and Manowar!. I'm not sure my words are sufficient to describe this concert. Tajs already did a great job above, so I'll be quick here.
There was magic in the air that night in Hamburg and I've never seen a band enjoy themselves that much on stage. Sparks were flying from all the great chemistry between the band members. It was apparent right from the start that these guys (and girls) were going to put on an entertaining show.
The images from yesterday are still flashing before my eyes. Russel Allen jumping around on the stage like an energy beast, Damian Wilson singing Into the black hole with a god like stature, the always rocking and HOT Jansen sisters with their angel voices, Arjen Lucassen with a smile on his face playing one perfect note after the other, the brilliant and fun keyboard solo of 19 year old Joost van den Broek or Peter Vink's solo spot which was a total laugh fest. Everyone in the band weaved magic for two hours and ten minutes and during that time they held the audience enthralled in a show where everything came together to form a concert of galactic proportions.
Just a couple of timeless moments:
- Ending of Eye of Ra when all singers were in front of the stage and singing without any instruments. Wow!
- Songs of the Ocean with a great performance by the Jansen sisters
- Floor Jansen singing Valley of the queens including a solo flute performance. Words cannot describe how beautiful this whole song was
- Russel Allen and Damian Wilson put on a magnificent performance during Intergalactic space crusaders playing their roles out to extremes. It was damn funny to look at and heavenly music for the ears.
- And many many more...
Anything missing? Well, I would have loved to hear One small step played live, but I never counted on it.
Unfortunately my camera went dead about 30 minutes before the end of the show and I didn't capture the magnificent finale. It will be forever etched in my mind though.
If you missed the Star One tour this time around, you will have to hope and pray that they will be back in the future.
This was the experience of a lifetime and one that I'll never forget. Check out the pictures and if you were at the concert be sure to let us know your opinion below.
You can also read a review of the double live album Live on Earth here
| You can click most of the pictures for a bigger view
All pictures taken by Steen | Written by Tajs & Steen
Wednesday, October 9, 2002 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Anonymous) - Wednesday, October 23, 2002 | Wow, what a great review Tajs and Steen! It was very special for me and the rest of the band too. I guess you could clearly see that we had a lot of fun also. And of course I'm extremely proud of all these great musicians I've been allowed to play with this tour. It all seems like a beautiful dream now. And I would like to thank all the people who were there, I never expected such a warm reception and such a great crowd. The pics are beautiful too! Can you send me a CDR please? You can email me at music@ayreon.com Thanks again guys, and keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Arjen.
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| Comment by Oholsson@hotmail.com (Anonymous) - Friday, January 6, 2006 | I love the After Forever video with Floor ;) such a beauty ;)
and of course I worship Arjen lucassen for being such a music Genious!
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| Comment by danique (Anonymous) - Sunday, February 18, 2007 | hallo fllor janssen
ik kom naar hey concert van july 22 februwar vogen de week donderdag
ik vind juulky vet cool
groetjes van danique
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| Comment by daniela vergara venezuela (Anonymous) - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 | woOoW....
my dear friends of after forever am hisher, your great admiradora of venezuela am 17 years old and live in barinas .. pleasing admiration towards you who good path take congratulations.
los quiero mucho y espero que mis pleglarias lleguen a sus oidos ! los amo... espero su venida a venezuela.
.los want very much and hope that my pleglarias come to his(her,your) ears(hearing)! I love them ... I wait for his(her,your) coming to venezuela
daniela !
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