Ayreon/Arjen Lucassen Thread (Star Three on the way)

[Adami]

yes, Arjen already confirmed a DVD/Bluray on FB. You should check ayreon's page, Arjen comments a lot and answers pretty much every question you ask him in PM.

OR I could just ask you guys and make you guys do all of that work for me.

[Elite]

See you this afternoon! Really looking forward to this one

[ErHaO]

I am super tired, so I apologize if this question has long been answered, but was this show professionally recorded (or will be or whatever)?

They record two evenings I believe. Anyways, yesterday was clearly recorded and looking at how damn well the stage and lightning is designed, I have high expectations for this release. The production values are way beyond Theater Equation.

[jingle.boy]

It's a day 1 purchase for certain.  Full artbook package and whatever else comes along.

[Ben_Jamin]

It's a day 1 purchase for certain.  Full artbook package and whatever else comes along.

That was a given for me once He announced he'll be recording. That was based on The Theater Equation.

[Cyclopssss]

I'll hold off my complete comments untill after the last concert on Sunday. Suffice to say, mind was duly blown several times!

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Sounds awesome, that dvd is an insta buy for me!

[Schurftkut]

production is top notch, best looking show i've ever attended. flawless vocal executions and a rock solid band. Mind blown indeed..

[ErHaO]

Second time was just as captivating!!! Can't pick a highlight because there are so damn many. And yes, this is the best looking metal show I have ever attended. Amazing production.

Also, since they weren't filming they were a bit looser, some swearing, Arjen explaining what a Lul is, and Damian and Maggie stage diving after the show. Totally different speech by Arjen this day as well. (Though Unlike friday, they did film the crowd and bow at the end of the show for a while, so they did shoot some material).

[Lethean]

Sounds like an amazing show.   How was the guy who replaced Russell Allen?  What songs did Jonas Renkse do?  How was Hansi?  Um, hmm, I imagine Damian Wilson was great. 

[ErHaO]

Sounds like an amazing show.   How was the guy who replaced Russell Allen?  What songs did Jonas Renkse do?  How was Hansi?  Um, hmm, I imagine Damian Wilson was great. 

Russel's replacement was great. A similar vocal powerhouse and he brought tons of energy to the stage. Offcourse he is different than Russel, but I loved his parts. This was probably always going to be the case, but Maggie also did some parts of songs Russel normally would sing (Intergalacric Space Crusaders and Stars of Sirrah).

Renske did Waking Dreams and Comatose. Not familiar with him but he has a pleasant voice.

Hansi was Hansi. He has that unique texture to his voice that makes him shine and he was mostly a chorus guy, except for River of Time. I loved that this song made the setlist, because it is the song that introduced me to Ayreon (me being a Blind Guardian fan).

And yes, Damian absolutely delivered 

[Lethean]

Sounds like an amazing show.   How was the guy who replaced Russell Allen?  What songs did Jonas Renkse do?  How was Hansi?  Um, hmm, I imagine Damian Wilson was great. 

Russel's replacement was great. A similar vocal powerhouse and he brought tons of energy to the stage. Offcourse he is different than Russel, but I loved his parts. This was probably always going to be the case, but Maggie also did some parts of songs Russel normally would sing (Intergalacric Space Crusaders and Stars of Sirrah).

Renske did Waking Dreams and Comatose. Not familiar with him but he has a pleasant voice.

Hansi was Hansi. He has that unique texture to his voice that makes him shine and he was mostly a chorus guy, except for River of Time. I loved that this song made the setlist, because it is the song that introduced me to Ayreon (me being a Blind Guardian fan).

And yes, Damian absolutely delivered 

Sounds interesting about Maggie doing Allen's parts.  I'm not familiar with her other than through Ayreon.  Looking forward to the dvd to see how all of that came together.

Jonas Renkse, but I don't think it's something that you realize until you've been listening to him for a little while.  At least that was my experience. Get to know some of the Katatonia songs for a while, listen with headphones, read some of the lyrics, then you find yourself immersed and it's not in small part because of his voice. 

Too bad Hansi was mostly a chorus guy.  He has such a distinct voice and I really like his contributions to Ayreon.  River of Time is a great song.

Damian - have only seen him once (with Threshold) and he was on point the whole show.  I've only heard good things about him live in other situations, and of course thought he was excellent on the Star One dvd.

[Elite]

Well, they had 16 singers, so it's not like they could throw Hansi in there at every given moment.

Alright, I know we have a FB chat going for this, but just in case we missed anyone, here are the details for the DTF and extended friends Ayreon meetup:

Saturday, September 16, 3:00pm we will meet at the venue. From there we will wander together to a place to actually sit down and have a few hours prior to the show. Please let us know if you'd like to join.

Was really cool meeting you guys!

[Ben_Jamin]

I have a question...Did Age of Shadows include We Are Forever? If not, missed opportunity at an epic song.

[Cyclopssss]

No it did not and I thought it was indeed a missed opportunity. I guess they made the decision due to time, but seeing as both Renske and Anneke were there, I thought it a bit odd.

And what a damn Rockstar Magaly Luyten is! 

[Ben_Jamin]

No it did not and I thought it was indeed a missed opportunity. I guess they made the decision due to time, but seeing as both Renske and Anneke were there, I thought it a bit odd.

And what a damn Rockstar Magaly Luyten is! 

With those two being there, I thought We Are Forever would be a given and am kinda disappointed they decided not to do it due to time.

I saw a video of it live. Still rocked although the edit made it feel rushed. Of what I saw, I can't wait for the dvd, with good sound and the accompanying cd.

[Evermind]

Indeed, the omission of We Are Forever section was one of my few disappointments with the show, along with the omission of Waking Dreams solo.

The most interesting choice of singer for me was Tommy Karevik singing Into the Black Hole.

I can't write much from my phone, but it really was a great show.

Alright, I know we have a FB chat going for this, but just in case we missed anyone, here are the details for the DTF and extended friends Ayreon meetup:

Saturday, September 16, 3:00pm we will meet at the venue. From there we will wander together to a place to actually sit down and have a few hours prior to the show. Please let us know if you'd like to join.

Was really cool meeting you guys!

Indeed!

[MirrorMask]

I thought Damian Wilson would have sung Into the Black Hole. Looking forward to hear Tommy!

[Cyclopssss]

Well, what can I say? I knew it was going to be epic and it certainly was! I mean, just the line waiting to get in the door alone was about thrice around the block! Damian Wilson was walking along the waiting shaking hands, chatting to people, hugging them and taking pics with them. What a nice guy.
When the show started the visuals were stunning and we knew we were in for an unforgettable experience. Also, the pyrotechnics and smoke were so impressive, I was halfway down the venue and could feel the heat from where we were standing. The guys in front must have had their eyebrows singed! The band, as to be expected was tight and the vocalists were really one highlight after another. Mike Mills proved the perfect narrator and what a character he is. Edward Reekers sounds exactly the same as he did thirty years ago. Floor Jansen, ever impressive, so were Tommy Karevik, Anneke van Giersbergen, Jonas Renske, John Jaycee Cuypers (the guy replacing Russel Allen) and Magali Luyten, to name but a few. Wilson did an amazing version of The Druids Turned To Stone. Even Ed Warby had a little surprise part towards the end! Arjen came out and played on two songs with a little (about ten minutes worth) speech, very funny. The atmosphere thoughout was incredibly positive. I was surrounded by foreigners, from the enthousiastic little group of Mexicans (with one guy who kept sweeping his long hair in my face, thanks) to some Belgians next to me and some Norwegians behind me. There was said to be about 54 nationalities at the concerts. Already looking forward to the Bluray release! What a Show! Behold! We can hope for more of this in the future. 

[Ben_Jamin]

Indeed, the omission of We Are Forever section was one of my few disappointments with the show, along with the omission of Waking Dreams solo.

That makes me worried about Comatose. Saw Waking Dreams too, man those parts were reasons why I was excited about it.

It bugs me when bands dont play full versions. Which I have with queensryche not playing the middle part of Empire.

[Cyclopssss]

Well, to be honest the 1-0 etc. part would be hard to pull off in a live enviroment.

[Ben_Jamin]

Well, to be honest the 1-0 etc. part would be hard to pull off in a live enviroment.

It still couldve been done. Probably not enough rehearsal time for it. I wouldn't have minded if it was backing tracks with anneke singing the main melodies.

[Evermind]

Indeed, the omission of We Are Forever section was one of my few disappointments with the show, along with the omission of Waking Dreams solo.

That makes me worried about Comatose. Saw Waking Dreams too, man those parts were reasons why I was excited about it.

It bugs me when bands dont play full versions. Which I have with queensryche not playing the middle part of Empire.

I think Comatose was cut a bit too, but don't quote me for it, I can't remember right now.

Well, to be honest the 1-0 etc. part would be hard to pull off in a live enviroment.

Well, they had Jonas, Anneke and three people at the backing vocals, I think they could've done it if they wanted. I think it was mostly because of time constraints.

Actually I thought the setlist suffered somewhat from the lack of instrumental sections overall. It's understandable, I mean they had 16 singers to utilize, but still.

[ErHaO]

Several songs were shorter. And the Druids Turn to Stone, for example, was also shorter. I personally did not mind it for any of these songs in the context of the full approximately 2.5 hour setlist, but understand the feeling some of you have. As many songs have enough neat instrumental moments from themselves, I think the balance was good, but an extended solo here and there would've been nice.

My nitpicks is that Love was missing someone singing in a higher key in the harmonies of the chorus and I wasn't fond of the ending of Loser. And while I absolutely love Intergalactic Space Crusaders and liked Maggie's performance, I would've preferred a Star One song from Victims of the Modern Age.

[Cyclopssss]

I talked to a guy who works the production crew afterwards and he told me there were only two days rehearsal with the complete vocalists so I can understand them cutting parts here and there. I would have prefered some deep cuts from Migrator for instance, but the whole show was increddible as it was, with plenty of surprises.

[abydos]

Bummed out to hear that the binary sequence with Anneke was cut, it's one of my favourite parts of the album (even have it as my ringtone).

[Lethean]

Bummed out to hear that the binary sequence with Anneke was cut, it's one of my favourite parts of the album (even have it as my ringtone).

And mine is the "time, but a passageway" part that was also cut. Too bad they couldn't have made it work, but I totally get that they had choices to make and think it's a pretty amazing end result (based on YouTube) regardless.

[ErHaO]

Also, during his speech Sunday, Arjen said he will aim for early next year for the BR/DVD and that he would start working on it as soon as past monday. I hope he will remain on schedule this time 

And a technical question, can they mix recordings of the two shows? For example, looking at youtube, Hansi sings the first chorus of Everybody Dies out of tune on friday and on saturday it was Floor singing the last chorus out of tune (guess it is a difficult melody to sing?). Wonder if they can clean it up by using both shows. Anyways, for a show like this, very little (notable) mistakes were made and it are only brief moments. It happens to the best.

[Grappler]

And a technical question, can they mix recordings of the two shows? For example, looking at youtube, Hansi sings the first chorus of Everybody Dies out of tune on friday and on saturday it was Floor singing the last chorus out of tune (guess it is a difficult melody to sing?). Wonder if they can clean it up by using both shows. Anyways, for a show like this, very little (notable) mistakes were made and it are only brief moments. It happens to the best.

In general, yes.  When bands record multiple shows, they usually wear the same stage clothes for that exact purpose.  Songs, or even parts of songs, can then be mixed and matched and it becomes more difficult to notice those edits since it all looks the same.

So if the performers all wore the same stage outfits, then the editing will allow for situations where performances can be corrected with footage from the other show.

Recording the second show also lets them get additional footage for closeups or crowd shows that were not obtained in the first show.

[Evermind]

Also, during his speech Sunday, Arjen said he will aim for early next year for the BR/DVD and that he would start working on it as soon as past monday. I hope he will remain on schedule this time 

And a technical question, can they mix recordings of the two shows? For example, looking at youtube, Hansi sings the first chorus of Everybody Dies out of tune on friday and on saturday it was Floor singing the last chorus out of tune (guess it is a difficult melody to sing?). Wonder if they can clean it up by using both shows. Anyways, for a show like this, very little (notable) mistakes were made and it are only brief moments. It happens to the best.

They probably will, because Magali botched the lyrics for the first verse of Star of Sirrah on Saturday (she only noticed that when she looked at the screen with the lyric video behind her during the third line or something). I'm sure they'll fix some of the mistakes on the official release.

[Nick]

So I have a full review I'm going to work on shortly (as soon as my damn video card gets back from an RMA), so I'm not going to talk too much about the show here other to say I thoroughly enjoyed it, it may very well have been the best show I've ever seen for a variety of reasons, and it was worth every penny to take the trip.

Just need to say again how great it was to once again meet all the DTF folks from around the globe and how cool it was to share in the show! I will work now to see if I can get the photos online, but it might have to wait till tomorrow once my computer is back up and running.

[Nick]

Ah, most excellent, here we are:

[Nick]

And here we have the photo dump of some of the amazing talents I got to meet during the weekend. And yes, I totally passed on a chance to talk to Soeterboek to get a picture with the happiest man in the world, Peter Vink.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Watching clips and hearing all the praise from people attending the show i'm seriously bummed I didn't go since it wasn't that far from where I live. Atleast i'm having the Blu-ray to look forward too with all the behind the scenes goodies, can't wait!

[Cyclopssss]

Just a little taste from Saturday night:  The Theory of Everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsq45clHf8