Marvellous gig, had a great time!! The new material sounded great, with some impressive moving lighting rigs during the track with the big wall of sound instrumental part .
The setlist as a whole was very refreshing, with only one epic which was a nice treat after a long time of absence (Valley Of The Kings), the rest was basically shorter songs with again many songs that haven't been played for a long time (or hardly/never at all if I'm not mistaken, Ghost In The Firewall). Great to hear Crying For Help IV and The Visitor again and Ascension is a great finale.
There were some comments afterwards that Solomon wasn't played, but I think the band should be applauded for playing a very different set then we've been used to and leaving usual suspects like Solomon, Butterfly Man and Hanging Tree out this time (and we did get the longer Hanging Tree solo anyway with The Visitor
)
Paul Manzi was great, more comfortable with the lyrics now and putting on a great performance with both old and new material. Very powerful voice and stage persona, more confident and natural on the stage than Rob I guess. The new stuff is especially written and suited for his voice of course, but the older songs sounded great too.
John Jowitt expressed a "good to be back" and was clearly enjoying himself, good to have him back indeed, at the same time it's regrettable that Ian Salmon is no longer in the band now.
Anyway, bring on the DVD!
