Reviews

John Young

Support act John Young treated us to what almost amounted to a Sunday sermon. He usually has a band, but was on his own behind a keyboard/pulpit this evening.

When I arrived he congratulated us for coming to listen to an evening of progressive rock and berated "so few people on radio doing intelligent music." He may have a point, but it did sound like sour grapes that HIS music never gets played!

For a genre that prides itself on musicianship, it was a bit odd to hear pre-recorded guitar solos such as in his 15 minute epic The Unknown Soldier. For me the music didn't offer any great surprises - which is surely what the best prog rock always did?

BJH

While being one of the original prog bands of the late 60s/early 70s the Barclays aren't really mentioned in the same breath as the giants such as Yes, Genesis or Pink Floyd. Essentially, their music is a lot mellower - more at the Supertramp end of the scale.

This is very much the "featuring Les Holroyd" version of the band, although if you listen to the BBC Radio Suffolk interviews with Holroyd and his former bandmate John Lees there doesn't seem to be any antipathy that they have two versions of BJH doing the rounds (click on the audio links on the right).

I caught someone muttering on the way out that Lees was very much the original band's main singer, and that Holroyd taking over completely was akin to Ringo becoming the Beatles' lead singer. A tad unfair because his singing seemed fine to me, although in appearance it was more like Gimli from the Lord Of The Rings films or Harry Potter's Hagrid taking centre stage.

The band played a selection from across its history - Mockingbird, Rock & Roll Star, That Was Then This Is Now - to a three-quarters full stalls. As a fan of prog, but not being that familiar with BJH, I was hoping to be entranced, but the excitement levels never truly rose. Maybe it was playing to a semi-empty venue or the a lack of a lightshow and theatrics?

Ultimately, it was more of a middle-of-the-road rock show and I couldn't help thinking that it compared unfavourably with the Van der Graf Generator reunion shows I caught a couple of years ago - prog rock that was much more extreme and out-there.