I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ricocher was opening the Saga show in Tilburg. When I walked into the venue quite some people had shown up to witness the support act. As much as I love the album I cannot tell you otherwise than that Ricocher is live a little bit of a deception. This has nothing to do with the excellent music, but there are some factors that this young band has to get under control before becoming a major live act.

These guys have somewhat of an identity problem. Guitar player Bart van Helmond for example seems to be too shy, hiding behind his base ball cap and standing in the same spot on stage the entire forty minutes. Lesson one: you shouldn’t be wearing base ball caps or sunglasses on stage, not unless this looks incredibly cool (Michael Schenker, Mike Portnoy).

The vocals of Erwin Boerenkamps will split the listeners into two camps. There are people that will love them, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that won’t be able to stand the over-expression in his voice. I belong to the first group of people. I know that Boerenkamp is trying to be a real front man the best he can, but watching this guy dancing along with the music is somewhat embarrassing; I should know because his moves reminded me of looking into the mirror while I’m trying to dance at home with the curtains closed. Watching Boerenkamp makes you wonder how the hell this guy is capable of singing these expressive vocal lines in combination with the quite complex music. Lesson two: Stop dancing, focus on expression (Michael Sadler is a great example).

Niels Nijssen in the bass player of the band. To be honest there isn’t very much to criticise about his stage performance despite the fact that he is a bit static. Keyboard player John van Heugten made the best impression of the entire band. He was very relaxed and seemed to enjoy every minute on stage. This brings us to lesson three: loosen up, try to be relaxed, enjoy the music. (Note: take an example from John.)

I know this review might be considered as writing a very promising Dutch band into the ground, but let me assure you that this is not the case. The fact is that I think that Chains is the best Dutch progressive rock album in many, many years. I also think that Ricocher has got the music to make it big. But, and this is a major but, this band has got to improve their stage performance to gain fame with a broad audience.

SAGA
Saga is one of those bands that never really caught on to me. I do own a couple of their albums, among which the very well acclaimed Generation 13, but even this masterpiece could never convince me. Now I hear you wonder why the hell I decided to go to their 013 gig. Simple, I saw Saga perform on the Arrow Rock Festival and the way they played the tent stage totally blew me away. I vividly remember the charismatic vocalist Michael Sadler and the way he played with the festival audience. Without knowing the larger part of the set played that afternoon, Saga was one of the absolute highlights of the day.

Tonight not all my expectations came through. Yes, I enjoyed watching Sadler turning a somewhat lame Dutch audience into an enthusiastic and joyful crowd. Yes, the music played sounded great and was a joy to listen to. But somehow my attention lessened after an hour or so. Maybe this was the greatest strength concerning the Arrow show where Saga only played a fifty minute set; playing their final encore at the time I’d heard enough of these Canadian rockers and their music had become somewhat predictable.

One more thing that was turning into a small aversion was the absentmindedness of leather pants wearing Jim Crichton. I never understood these leather pants anyway. I find it hard to watch these guys perform, just as I can hardly take bare-chested drummers serious.

The band opened the show with two tracks of the new album Network, On The Air and Keep It Real. These two were the only new songs the band played. Saga had decided upon performing the 1981 classic album Worlds Apart in its entirety. This might be a good thing for the fans - I had expected a more enthusiastic reaction from the crowd - but a little bit too much of the same for the neutral attendee.

After Worlds Apart had ended Saga returned to the stage with a collection of their best tracks, Don’t Be Late and U’r Not Alone being the obvious highlights. All in all I must admit that I enjoyed the evening, but the overall impression the band made during Arrow was much better.

(Review & Pics: Geert Oldenmenger)