Last night's performance was awesome. Opening with The Healing Colors of Sound was, for me personally, a great way to start the show. The band was very enthusiastic and Eric crushed the solos. He captured Alan's style but also shredded a bit, of course, and it all sounded great. He is just so good - both on guitar and vocally. Neal also nailed the vocals. This is one of my favorite SB songs, so it was really great to hear it. Some dude directly behind me was belting out the lyrics, so it was great to have other folks there who knew the song.
It was cool that they did the entirety of Seeds of Gold - it was a crowd pleaser for sure. It's easy to forget how great that track is.
The band brought a lot of energy to T2, and the vibe in the room was very good. Lots of great solos by the band, Neal was super energetic, and the strings once again sounded good. This album is more streamlined and modern than T1 (which isn't a knock on T1) so the concert was, to me, a lot of fun. They added a bunch of inserts, like an extended version of The Water bit with vocals, and a bit of Bridge Across Forever.
I am pretty sure they didn't do all of Reunion, and instead just clipped it short and went directly into King Jesus. I remember these tracks being played as past encores and the crowd always loved it, and last night was no different. It was a great choice as the encore.
This was one of those rare shows that had multiple moments that brought the crowd to their feet - without MP or Neal having to urge it!
The ending to THCoS and Seeds of Gold both did it, IIRC. As well as lots of others.
I think this really may be the last year of Morsefest unless they think of something totally different next year. I'm not sure they'd use this venue again - they apologized to the crowd for how cramped and hot it was (the AC lost the battle again tonight about 45min in). And then the big thing I noticed that worried me was how winded Neal got at times. There were a few times where he seemed to totally lose his breath (ex. - the acapella section during Time Changer) and had to power through it. He gave it 110% like he always does, but it seems like maybe his age is catching up to him. Maybe I was being overly analytical though and it isn't as much of an issue as I thought.
I was also reflecting more on Night 1, and I think one of the things that made it less than five stars for me was that it felt like a slimmed-down version of the 2014 Testimony show - due to the size of the venue, stage, and overall-repetitive feeling. So it was weird that they brought it back, and yet did a "smaller" version of it. It wasn't as epic, so it seemed a bit stale to me. That said, the fact that folks like axeman weren't able to make it in 2014, but got to see this one, is really cool.
Overall, this year was different, but great. Night 1 was a tiny bit of a letdown for me, but Night 2 more than made up for it - just an incredible performance, and I'm glad I was there to see it.
Topic: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread (Read 554899 times)
