Kingston Wall - Tavastia Club, Helsinki 7/29/92
Kingston Wall - Rock Tattoo Bar, Helsinki 6/3/93
Kingston Wall - Tavastia Club, Helsinki 1/10/94
Kingston Wall were apparently legendary in Helsinki in their day and some of these shows tell part of that story. For the most part, especially early on, Kingston Wall were a cover band and the two earliest of these shows show them in those mode, although amazingly enough, with two different repertoires. Obviously July 29th was Hendrix night at the Tavastia and while Petri Walli does a remarkable guitar impression, his vocals are definitely not up to snuff, leaving one with the opinion that they’re missing something. Well, of course they are! (and to be honest, it wasn’t really a great night). The 93 show was at the Rock Tattoo Bar and with a name like that, I’d wonder if they hire anything OTHER than cover bands. This time around Kingston Wall pull out a repertoire of 70s rock hits, every example of which I’ve forgotten in the interim between listening this and writing this. Except for Whipping Post, but I’d figure that’s a gimme! By 94, we’re getting onto the band’s actual repertoire although I wouldn’t swear to there being no Hendrix covers on this one (like “Fire” probably). Much more to my liking and definitely the best sounding of the three (live Kingston Wall is nothing to write home about, even Real Live Thing is dogged by reports of bad sound quality).
Present - Festival Les Tritonales, Triton 6/17/05
The Present juggernaut steamrolls the Triton! A decent audience recording to be sure, if not super great, at least you can hear most of what’s going on, over 100 minutes of sheer terror, darkness and gloom. I think the last time I heard live Present was a video tape of one of the bay area gigs when they toured the US (same tour the live CD on Cuneiform came from). By that point I felt they were a little monotonous and definitely not up to the snuff of the original band, but by this Triton show I’d have to say they got the mix nicely.
Anabis - Wer Will?
Anabis - Heaven on Earth
Let’s go from being honest to full candor, when I get a chance to sound off on a couple of albums this poor, I do so with an eyetwinkle or two. That is, it’s fun. Anabis were one of several late 70s/early 80s German outfits with a thing for Genesis, which means no matter the inspiration this is a band whose gonna get the neo prog tag and have to live with it, even if they’re more akin to Machiavel with the lineage than Marillion. Anabis have a vocalist who you’re going to have to at least tolerate for there to be any chance of liking anything this band does. He sings and sings and when he shuts up you begin to realize that the band is as innovative as a used pair of tires. It’s not just that the music has too many lyrics to be comfortable and they’re generally high concept stories like a lot of Genesis. And it’s not that he sings in English, because while he does on Heaven, it’s German on Wer Will and neither is a clear winner in the race. The vocals exists somewhere between actual singing and talking and there are lots of bad notes and emotional sustains that go off the tracks fairly often. Musically it’s mostly late 70s and early 80s Genesis, until the singer relents and then we get those clumsy Eppingwood forest start/stop themes, except played without any feel or sense of realism at all. We like Gen-e, we like Gen-e-sis, we like Gen-e, we like Gen-e-sis. sis. sis-sis-sis. Need I go on? I dropped Wer Will a point to a 5 and Heaven to a 4, because the lyrics on Malleus Maleficarum insist on doing anything you can to turn them off. I must say here that since these were some of the earliest obscure prog I remember ever hearing that I used to have a soft spot for them. Such spot is long gone.