PROGFARM '99 PROGFARM '99 DURP e-zine CD-Review New Sonic Architecture
PROGFARM '99 Review New Horizons PROGFARM '99 Review Stewart Goldring
PROGFARM '99 REVIEW

Bakkeveen, November 6th, 1999. Author: Leo Hoekstra.

Because of certain Saturday-morning commitments (soccer), your author arrived, after having won the match, during the second Lady Lake song named Cornwall. The trio managed to rectify their Uden-performance of last year when one of the keyboards broke down. Keyboard player Leendert Korstanje has bought new gear containing a perfect bass (the band still plays without a bass player).
Ford Theatre was the only new piece being played. (Not correct actually: another new piece named 'Jan Thijs' was premiered that day- FR) Although their instrumental music never became boring, not even for a second, the final piece accompanied by the twin brothers Stewart and Colin Goldring (from the second Gnidrolog-lp Lady Lake) was one of the best, if not the best song.

After this excellent performance by Lady Lake it was the Swedish guests Sinkadus' turn. This band appeared without their cello player Lena Pettersson who exchanged band life for family life. Lena has two children with bass player Rickard Bistrom. While the band is still desperately seeking a new cello player, this show was played without one. Linda Agren, the only female band member left, was able to give the band's rather complex music a playful twist through her flute playing. Together with Bistrom she took care of a few pleasantly sounding duets. This was Sinkadus' first gig in Holland and they played 4 of the 5 tracks from the new album Cirkus. The other two tracks played were from the first album Aurum Nostrum.

Flamborough Head, the organizers were the third act. After the first song Legend of The Old Man's Tree the power broke down. Fortunately the lights could be mended right away so that the 2-hour break we were forced into could be used for social contacts with all other fellow believers. Flamborough Head cut down their set to the new composition House of Cards and the already well known Garden of Dreams. It's a shame that the band was not able to play more at their own festival.

What followed was an unplugged performance by the already introduced twin brothers Stewart and Colin Goldring: the core of the progressive band Gnidrolog, formed in 1969. Though already 49 years of age, they made a very fit impression. While playing songs from Gnidrolog's glory period the brothers proved to be true showmen having no trouble at all entertaining the crowd. The audience in the crowded venue was able to enjoy a welcome interlude between all the prog violence of the day. It's almost unimaginable that in the early seventies these guys were playing with legendary names like Genesis and Jimi Hendrix.

Then the stage was set for the English band Janison Edge. This past summer the band had done a few acoustic sessions performed by Ian Salmon (Shadowland) guitar, Mike Varty (Shadowland/Credo) keyboards and Sue Element on vocals. Bakkeveen was the first gig played by the complete band. Sue Element supplied great vocals to the songs of the debut album The Services of Mary Goode. Sue's flawless voice leaves an important mark on the group's music. Occasionally Varty let himself go in a keyboard-solo thereby positively influencing play. Alas the band was forced to skip the encore due to the lack of time. All in the entire band made a good impression.

The ReGenesis fans were put to the test because of the late hour of the band's performance. But it was all worthwhile. Tony Patterson played his perfect Gabrielesque part with his dressing up, his vocals and his flute-playing. If you shut your eyes it was not difficult to imagine the original Genesis faces. Many classics were played: Firth Of Fifth, The Musical Box, Supper's Ready and Los Endos. Just like the previous bands ReGenesis had to shorten their set as well. The Cinema Show and The Knife were deleted from the set. The concert was best described by one of the spectators who said: "I had almost forgotten how great this music was."

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PROGFARM '99 - REVIEW DURP MAGAZINE
Author: © Markus Weis Editor of DURP - eZine from the progressive ocean.

PROLOGUE - It's November again ... time for a nice and sympathic venue to attract 260 progmaniacs from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the U.K., France and some other countries in order to enjoy great progrock, a nice and peaceful atmosphere, to share the night (and snores) in sleeping bags and to meet one day after for breakfast ... it's PROGFARM time.

REVIEW - At first I'd like to thank the organizers of this festival, the dutch band FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, for the great time we had among all those progmaniacs in that cosy atmosphere. Although it rained throughout the entire Saturday and the nights were cold it again was a very nice time with lots of nice people, good musicians and good catering. Congratulations to the hard working kitchen staff ... they really gave all they had to give to provide fans and bands with nasi, chili, great hamburgers, frikadels and drinks.

The first band, LADY LAKE (NL) entered the stage at 15:00 o'clock in the afternoon. The history of this band reaches back far into the 70ies. The name of the band is taken from the album title of second album of the british 70ies prog legend GNIDROLOG. In 1982 the band decided to stop playing in the public because of the declination of prog and thinking, that nobody wants to hear this kind of music anymore. After the french label MUSEA had contacted them in 1995 for a re-release of their Album "No pictures", the band came back to strength and back into the public, as they made a gig in early 1998 (25th anniversary of the band) together with the Goldring twins of GNIDROLOG.

LADY LAKE played for about one hour and during a very few parts it seemed that they still have not enough life experience, but it did not matter at all. These three nice guys performed their Gentle Giant / Focus / Camel / Gryphon - influenced instrumental progrock in an astonishing and exciting way. Compact songs without useless breaks, sensitive guitar-melodies, developing structures and effectful blues/jazzrock influences. The highlights of their perfomance: 48 cm and the great new song Ford theatre. It's great that this band is on the streets again !

Lady Lake (© Markus Weis)
(Photo © Markus Weis)
After a very short break the two GOLDRING twins (STEWART AND COLIN GOLDRING) of the 70ies cult progband GNIDROLOG entered the stage (electric guitar & acoustic guitar). These two very sympathic and experienced brothers were the special highlight of the PROGFARM 99. As you might know, they founded GNIDROLOG in 1969 (!!!). In the early 70ies this band released two milestone albums for prog music. Their experience reaches from classical musicianship to producing albums, playing prog in the early 70ies, touring with Yes, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Gentle Giant and so on. Even present reviews state, that GNIDROLOG's music has been "ahead of it's time" in the early 70ies. Because of RCA's decision (in 1999) to rerelease the GNIDROLOG albums, the GOLDRING brothers decided to return to making progressive albums again and here they were ... 24 years after their last GNIDROLOG-gig in Europe.

Supported by LADY LAKE on keyboards, keyboard-bass, drums and e-guitar the GOLDRINGS Stewart and Collin performed the GNIDROLOG classic "I could never be a soldier", one of the most essential anti-war songs ("dedicated" to the Vietnam war) of the hippie-period. I can't desribe that lucky and satisfying feeling to see these two brothers on stage ... The entire room could feel their dedication and joy to play in front again and as the song was over loud, respectful and deeply honest applause forced the two brothers to nearly fall into tears as they lay in their arms and left the stage so that even some of the fans had more water in the eyes as usual (including me).

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'NEW SONIC ARCHITECTURE' ALBUM REVIEW

NEW SONIC ARCHITECTURE is a highly specialised online prog shop based in Huntington, NY, USA. Needless to say that we are very pleased and flattered by their stimulating review... (Note: NSA seems to have disappeared from the net. Anybody knows what has happened to them? FR)

LADY LAKE (The Netherlands) NO PICTURES ('77+'97/Musiphyle) An awfully pleasant surprise, this. Now, I'm not at all certain why Musea felt it necessary to lauch yet another imprint for this release, since re-issuing classics from the seventies, both acknowledged and unheard of, is one of the label's main orders of business, but whatever. The principal difference between this and Musea's other reissues is that it has a rather better designed and written history of the band than usual, with well laid-out graphics and an amusing text courtesy of current Lady Lake drummer Jan Dubbe. Did I say current? Why yes I did, and that's because, hearteningly enough, the band appears to exist again (now in trio form), even contributing six brand new recordings to serve as this CD's bonus tracks.

The new tracks are excellent instrumental pieces for guitar/keyboards/drums, with the keys usually taking the bass line. Like the 1977 material, the mode is a vaguely Camel-esque one, with beautiful acoustic guitar, exploratory electric leads, wistful melodies and sudden shifts into power-drive. Two of No Pictures' songs are marred slightly by blah vocals, but only for short durations. The great bulk of the action here is instrumental, and damn good. Having taken their name from Gnidrolog's storied Lady Lake LP, this quintet now has the opportunity to have its own album recognized beyond the collector circles' lucky enough to have heard their very scarce (1200 copies were pressed) LP. Recommended. -MM

REVIEW FROM THE NEW HORIZONS WEBSITE
Author: Simon Hill

LADY LAKE - Setlist: Magic Twanger; Cornwall; No More Gentle Treatment; 22CM; 48CM; Must Have Been; Ford Theatre; Do the Dubbe: Thank You; I Could Never Be a Soldier (Gnidrolake).

Lady Lake are a Dutch band who took their name from the second Gnidrolog album and they have been around since the 70's. They are a three piece outfit, made up of guitarist, keyboard player and drummer who play very fluid instrumental pieces with real emotional flavour. The music has a very European style and my initial impression was that it was was comparable, in its approach, to that of Focus. Talking to the keyboard player afterwards I discovered that a conscious effort had been made to emulate them.

I found the music to be instantly likeable with a good balance between guitar and keyboards. The sound is very melodic and manages to take a symphonic approach without ever falling into the trap of going too over board. Material was, for the most part (I believe), taken from the band's only album 'No Pictures', although at least two of the songs, 'Ford Theatre' and 'Do the Dubbe', were new numbers. Particularly memorable songs that stuck in with me afterwards were 'Magic Twanger' and 'Must Have Been'.

The highlight of the set was when the Goldring twins joined Lady Lake on stage to perform the Gnidrolog song 'I Could Never Be a Soldier'. This was the first time that the song had been performed by a full band for some 27 years - and the result was a piece of pure magic. Although all the musicians performed impecabbly, special mention must be made of Colin Goldring's amazing recorder playing during this song which made a very powerful impact.

The entire performance was very smooth and gave no clues to the fact that Lady Lake and Gnidrolog had only had a brief period the night before to rehearse the piece, never having played together before! The obvious enjoyment of all five musicians was infectious with emotions running very high. I have to say the resulting applause was well deserved.

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REVIEW FROM THE GNIDROLOG WEBSITE
Author: Stewart Goldring, founding member of Gnidrolog

Colin and I had a great time at Progfarm this weekend and we seemed to be well received. Everyone made us extremely welcome in Holland and special thanks go to Fred and 'Lady Lake' and Edo and the guys from 'Flamborough Head.' There was an extremely supportive atmosphere there and everybody worked hard to make the event go smoothly. I was especially impressed with the lack of histrionics and competitiveness usually to be found amongst musicians. The Dutch especially have a relaxed and laid back way of including everybody, and the beer is terrific! Sadly, the weather and food were not quite up to the standard of the playing but you can't have everything!

GNIDROLAKE PERFORMING 'I COULD NEVER BE A SOLDIER'
I'll let others review our performances but I thought I might say something about the other bands. In general, I haven't heard much of neo-prog music, being steeped from a previous age, so it was interesting to compare these newer bands with music and bands I know from the 1970's. LADY LAKE were on first and we joined them at the end of their set for a rendition of 'I Could Never be a Soldier.' They are a 3 piece, guitar, keyboards / bass pedals and drums. They play a brand of Dutch progressive rock music that is extremely musical and melodic. I especially like the way they use long chord sequences and they have an extremely mature approach to their musicianship. Fred Rosenkamp uses the guitar and outboard to create a broad sound vista and exploits his superb skills in playing and composition to create an interesting performance. They have toughened their presentation and play with a somewhat harder edge than when we saw them last year. I am looking forward to a follow up album from their excellent 'No Pictures' album, let's hope it won't be long until they are in the studio again.

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