THE PENDRAGON FORUM

[Nick]

Merry Christmas..huh huh huh....well the festive season....well no bollocks, the Christmas Season! I don't care how politically incorrect that is , It's CHRIST----MUS!!!! Always has been always will be..yes the birth of sweet baby Jesus ...and that's final!



So it all went without incident, or did it? The shows at the Boerderij in Holland and Christmad in Leamington were legendary...there was love in the building those two nights. The Boerderij sold out about 2 months before the show and Leamington was seriously packed out too, 600+ attendees. Leamington sold around 450 tickets in advance which is probably the biggest advance tickets sales we've ever had in the UK.
Both gigs were incredible , the audiences were really up for it and the split set thing seemed to work really well with the first half being all of Pure in order of the album and then over two hours of back catalogue material, which included recently wheeled out tracks Oh Divineo and If I Were The Wind, the latter proving itself to be a monster live track riddled with emotion at the end. The break after Pure seemed just enough for everyone to get a ciggy break and a quick drink, 3 hours straight through is a helluva long time to be standing in one spot!
Also nice to bring out some Christmas turkeys, Saved By You [Holland only] , Solid Heart, Red Shoes and fun filled rendition of Fairytale Of New York in Leamington with Tina from Magenta...utter magic!

We did get one strangely crud reaction from someone called Michael Morris on the Prog Archives forum who seemed to think that I take myself too seriously......

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=63532



The one thing I try to be careful not to do is take myself too seriously if I am talking to the crowd, yes I give my opinions on stuff, but I hope to God it doesn't come across all preachy and Bono esque...I'd hate myself for that [hee hee], but I get passionate about stuff, I like to talk about "things" and explain some of the songs, yes there's a message but I want it to be humourous as well sometimes. In the Eraserhead intro, I'm fascinated about the possibility, and I mean the possibility that climate change is not man made, because I cannot stand this new religion that people immerse themselves in without much questioning. There are some brilliant You Tubes out there and Brasscheck TV that will show another side to the "official" version of the World-as -we -are- told- to- believe- and -if-you-don't-you-are some-kind-of-heretic.[remember anyone who spoke out was automatically "enemy of the people" in communist Russia?] Did you know that only in the last 30 years Galileo was officially forgiven by the Catholic church for claiming that the world wasn't flat?.........fear of being ostracised is so powerful don't you think?



Also M Morris's mate thought Pendragon were like a good school band playing to their mates........well the one thing we do is be ourselves and I'm sorry if chatting to people and just enjoying the moment seems a bit amateurish, but that's who we are, personally I hate it when bands don't say anything or their song intros are whineing [and start sounding Irish for some reason?]and moan on forever.........it's so frikkin dreary and the audience feel obliged to shout "hooray" when their sorry arsed hero says "fuck!" or, "yeah I was smokin' a joint right" !.........Sad

Anway like I said...so as not to take myself too seriously Michael Morris and friend...NOB OFF!.......JUST NOB OFF! [yes I know, amazingly childish of me, but I've got a ton of snow right now outside my door and I'm feeling a just a little cabin fevered....geez I need to go surfing]





OK, gigs , this is the first draft of some shows next year......SOME DATES MIGHT CHANGE, but I just wanted to let you know what to expect to whet your appetites

April
Fri 2nd Spain La Coruna Finisterrae festival
Fri 30th Rosfest PA USA confirmed!

May
Fri 7th The Subscription Rooms Stroud UK confirmed!

Sun 16th The Robin 2 Bilston UK confirmed!
Tues 18th Spirit of 66 Verviers Belgium confirmed!
Wed 19th Bergkeller Reichenbach Germany confirmed!
Thurs 20th Colosaal Aschaffenburg Germany confirmed!
Fri 21st Z7 Pratteln Switzerland confirmed!


Fri 28th The Ferry Glasgow UK
Sun 30th The Musician Leicester

July
Sat 24th High Voltage Festival Victoria Park UK confirmed!


As you can see we are doing a whole load more gigs, including the pinch-me-I-must-be-freakin-dreaming, High Voltage. This is surely the festival that you only dream of playing,........ even though I am not a big ELP fan, this is going to be a really major event and a great opportunity for us to show the world what we are capable of.

Just check out the poster!

http://www.highvoltagefestival.com/home.htm


Also Pendragon are coming back to America, Scotland, and doing a bunch of shows in Europe and UK. We are only doing a small tour in May as we cannot do a big tour without a new album, this is just a stop gap till the new album is out. And Holy smokes...a gig in Stroud! Yes after some 25 years we are going back to play in our hometown at the Sub Rooms,[ my school did Joseph's Tech Dreamcoat here where I was about 6.....I was in the chorus] hopefully we'll get a good turn out and reaction. I have been in contact with a guy we used to call Major Tom, who promoted one of our first ever shows in Stroud when he was a loud mouthed orange haired 20 year old punk from Canada, his name is Tom Lodge and he's now a DJ at radio Caroline and lives back in Canada.
The Sub Rooms show is being co promoted by our old and long suffering ex manager Greg Lines from 20 years ago, ya can take the man outta the music biz but ya can't take the music biz outta the man! We're really excited about getting back to Stroud and all the shows coming up this year.



Geez , we're doing so many shows at the moment with Steve Hackett..I have to keep reminding myself that this is real..Hackett was such a huge influence on me and stuff like Voyage Of The Acolyte changed my life, and there he is...on the same bill as us. It's a bit of a dream.
Also heard Andy Latimer is getting better which is fantastic news and Camel were asked to play High Voltage..I just hope he is well enough to make this happen. Andy used to say how lucky Pendragon were to have a coherent band "on tap" we could go out and play live with. I still love Camel, I got Breathless and Nude for Christmas, I know some people think Breathless is a bit poppy, but it's an album that many of my non prog mates grew up with and Camel managed to appeal to a lot of different types of people. Echoes, Summer Lightning, Breathless and Rainbow's End are truly brilliant and take me right back to 1978 when I used to play this album on a cassette recorder in my tractor on the farm.




A couple more albums to check out...Steve Thorne Into The Ether, fantastic record, it's got everything and Steve's voice just gets better and better. The Incident Porcupine Tree - the thing about PT is that they always interest you enough to want to listen again and again. I am curious about the lyrics on this album, and initially thought it was very "bitty", but there are some great songs Time Flies being the obvious first love. I generally like what SW does and it's always imaginative
but this album takes a bit more getting into..and that's no bad thing!



As for new Pendragon material, bits and pieces are shaping up, I have a couple of very rocked out sections, in fact the beginning of the album is quite different as it starts with a kind of sample fast hip hop rhythm with some nice atmospheric guitar, bass, keyboards and melodic vocals, before thundering into a driving guitar riff.
I've been working on it this afternoon [Sun 10th Jan] and it's got some killer power sections that are just gonna kill live! Very excited.
I also found a sound which is Uber early Genesis, resplendant with 12 string guitars, finger cymbals and mellotron, very very very retro but gorgeous which I adapted with a hot chord progression, so we have the extremes, hip hop [ha ha. don't worry!] - and classic 70's prog .....the mixture works like hell , and will blow yer socks off, as the main Pendragon ingredient "melody" will be the key to its success.
I have a lot of fragments of chord progressions, keyboard sounds and riffs but not much in the way of a cohesive direction. At the moment I don't know where the hell the new album will take me, safe to say it will be another step on from Pure, with a lot of rock, a lot of energy and some gorgeous melodies.

Ok, really looking forward to seeing you all on tour again...we're working in a set list change or two, just a bit , but expect an epic that hasn't been played for a few years and a few songs from Pure and Christmad set lists!

Happy New Year

Nick