WINTER’S END
VENUE THE DRILL HALL, CHEPSTOW
DATE 04-07/04/19
It’s interesting to note that talking at gigs is one subject that is usually guaranteed to send prog fans into a rage. Prog is more than aware that the majority of attendees at Winter’s and Summer’s End are those who expect to enjoy their live music unencumbered by chat. So it’s equally interesting to note that this year at Winter’s End, more so than any other, an abundance of chatter is evident when a band clearly not to the liking of the otherwise silent chatterers is on stage.
A little more distressing is to overhear one berk openly mocking the foreign accent of one of the artists. One would hope this especially is down to festival fatigue, being Sunday, and over-indulgence, and is not a reflection of the more insidious factors creeping into today’s society. Prog has always been the most welcoming of communities, despite the obvious snobbery that can exist in small pockets. But this kind of attitude is just not on. Fortunately, the general atmosphere of these welcome events is one of camaraderie, and is mostly what’s on offer, as well as some damn fine music.
FRIDAY
We’re thrown a slight curveball with the opening act on Friday, American Aaron Brooks. One man and a guitar isn’t your normal Winter’s End fare, but Brooks’ jovial demeanour and nods to The Beatles eventually wins healthy applause.
Midnight Sun are, however, a much better-known entity, featuring one of the festival organisers, Huw Lloyd-Jones, on vocals. With the band last seen at Summer’s End back in 2017, it seems like we’ve been waiting for their debut album for aeons. Fortunately, Dark Tide Rising is about to drop so it’s a fortuitously timed appearance and a set that throws hints of Marillion and Talk Talk together with some sublimely heavy guitar and adds to a fine performance overall. And if you thought German headliners RPWL were all about sounding like Pink Floyd, then you’d be partly right. But the quartet offer up their new album, Tales From Outer Space, in their impressive set, which is melodic, heavy prog, and a real crowd-pleaser in Chepstow, with an added Pink Floyd cover thrown in for good measure.
SATURDAY
With the festival defying the mythic ‘Winter’s End time’ (it largely runs to time all weekend!), Exploring Birdsong open the Saturday and are utterly charming and completely beguiling. They play piano-led progressive rock with just bass and drums, and two female backing vocalists as accompaniment to Lynsey Ward’s delightful vocal leading things from the front. A bright future, we’d say. French proggers Weend’ô are up next, and were also last seen at Summer’s End in 2017. And my, have they improved. Now with Time Of Awakening released, the band seem to be ever more finding the perfect balance between progressive themes and harder-edged grit. Laetitia’s vocal has clearly grown in stature, no longer lost in the mix as it seemed to be two years ago.
“Judging by the expressions on some people’s faces, Winter’s End hasn’t ever witnessed anything like ZIO.”
Cyril bring forth a deluge of “Nice one” jokes from the throng, although one suspects the honouring of a 1970s Tottenham Hotspur footballer might be lost on a bunch of Germans. They go down well with the audience, featuring as they do Marek Arnold who most here know from his work with Damanek, and although enjoyable enough, they don’t exactly blow you away. Alas, a family dinner overruns so we miss Scottish proggers Abel Ganz, but talk of them is mostly positive when we do get back to the Drill Hall for Threshold.
Threshold have such great potential. They cracked Europe early on and they’ve made some excellent albums, 2017’s Legends Of The Shires among them, but they’ve largely treated the UK and its prog scene as an afterthought, which is disappointing when one considers the standard bearers they could’ve been. Tonight they’re good, but veer towards the perfunctory.
The set, largely built around the latest album, is enjoyable, but doesn’t blow you away in the manner you might expect from a band of more than 30 years’ standing. And ultimately, there’s no way round the fact that returned singer Glynn Morgan,
