bogmusic

I'm a little bit late with the blog entry, but I enjoyed watching Dutch prog-rockers Focus when they were in town a few weeks ago.

The gig was postponed from September, when my brother and I spied a poster saying "Focus: Hocus Pocus" while driving through the city. Assuming it was a Focus tribute band, we thought it could be a good laugh to go along. Checking it out on the web we were surprised to find it was no tribute band, but the real thing... albeit without 2 of the original members. But organist/flautist/strange-vocalist Thijs van Leer and drummer Pierre van der Linden would be there, joined by a relatively youthful guitarist and bassist. Tickets were duly purchased and we looked forward to the following evening.

A few hours later we were disappointed to find that the concert was cancelled due to illness, and was rescheduled for November. No use to my brother, who would have returned home by then.

The November date came around and I went along, wondering how many songs I would recognise, and if I'd like any of their newer stuff... as it was I recognised probably about half the material, even though I only own 3 albums (cassettes, all of which are hidden away in boxes somewhere in my flat, and which haven't been played for years). Sylvia, Hocus Pocus, La Cathedrale de Strasbourg are ones that spring to mind several weeks after the concert; they didn't play House of the King though (unless it was at the very beginning - we arrived a little bit late).

An excellent evening, a full house, quite a spread of ages in the audience - not as elderly as I had expected - and the band (apparently) stayed behind afterwards to chat to the audience, flog them CDs and what not. It was a little tempting to stick around for a while, but it was 1am on a weekday evening, and bed beckoned. Very happy that we stumbled across a poster for the relatively poorly advertised gig.