I rarely listen to them anymore but just a few months ago I gave some albums a go. It’s still good stuff most of it. During ‘that time’ of my life when I was really into them it really meant something. Nowadays it all seems a bit too over the top emotional for me. But then again, when it comes to that sound, nobody really did that better.
I used to see them open up for Porcupine Tree quite often. They were a pretty good live band already around the A Fine Day To Exit / A Natural Disaster and I had listened to some of their music but I never became a fan.
Until years later when they released We’re Here Because We’re Here. I had listened to some tracks and I really liked it. Then I participated in a giveaway for a concert in Eindhoven. Won the tickets, and went to the gig with my brother. To this day we talk about this gig. I can still remember us standing at the front right beside the shaking subwoofer as the pounding outro of A Simple Mistake was taking place. It was as if their lives depended on it, such intensity.
Of course we were over the moon by this and wanted to share this ‘gift’ with others. So we took friends and family to a few subsequent concerts but it never reached that level again. Not at all actually. The Paradiso (Amsterdam) gig was laced with musical errors (I believe one song had to be restarted from the top twice). The gig for Distant Satellites in Utrecht was weird as well. It was as if all this emotional music was played but something was totally off in how it was presented. Danny’s stage presence even was kind of annoying. It was like their super emotional act was all about ‘getting that reaction from the crowd’ instead of them really enjoying it themselves.