Saturday the 28^Th January 2006 was another day of first’s for this reviewer, My first visit to Rotherham and the Classic Rock Society and the completion of  a first “hat trick” for the site, i.e. review the album, interview the band and finally see the band live. It also happened to be the very first UK gig for Stream Of Passion.  

Opening this particular show was the Oliver Wakeman Band. Their gig consisted of a short sharp set of Prog/AOR style numbers. Opening with 'Don’t Come Running including a great re-arranged version of Mother’s Ruin which like all the tracks featured great vocals from Paul Manzi, who has a voice with great range and power. The entire set was punctuated with great keyboard & guitar work from Oliver Wakeman and David Mark Pearce respectively  and at times the interplay between the two was very much Deep Purple inspired. The set ended with excellent AOR sounding  Walkaway and I have to say that I enjoyed what was on offer and hope at some point to see the band do a full set with a better sound.

Next on stage was one Damian Wilson with a very short acoustic set. Wilson is obviously a favourite with Classic Rock Society members as he has been voted best vocalist six times in total in their annual polls and judging on the this evidence it’s easy to see why. Damian is blessed with a very strong, “ pure” voice and a good line in on stage patter.  After four or five Songs with just a acoustic guitar he was joined on stage by Oliver Wakeman for run through of “ Homegrown” which resulted in the obligatory audience sing along. The rest of the Oliver Wakeman band then returned to the stage for a riotous version of the Otis Redding classic  'Hard to Handle' with the two vocalist trading lines and the guitarist and keyboardist at each others musical throats. However as things were on  a tight schedule this ended all to soon but it certainly proved that Damian Wilson has to be the best “unkown” vocalist around at the moment. 

After a rapid set change the house lights dimmed, the purple veri-lights stared up into a sea of dry ice and drummer Davy Mickers kicked off the intro to the first song on the Stream Of Passion debut album, 'Spellbound'.  Slowly the rest of the band took to the stage as their respective parts dictated, bass player Johan Van Stratum, who looked about twelve years old, vocalist Marcela Bovio completed the intro of the song before the rest of the band joined the party, guitarists Lori Linstruth * Arjen Lucassen and pianist Alejandro Millian. Without a stop the band were off into their theme song, 'Passion', and having wondered how they were going to re-create the layered vocals featured on the studio recording, be it tapes, sequencers or vocal harmonizer the band went for the more organic option, introducing vocalist Marcela Bovio's little sister Diana on backing vocals, who proved every bit the equal of her sister in the vocal stakes.

The band had obviously put a lot of thought into the set list for this tour, the Ayreon tracks on offer fitting seamlessly into the Stream of Passion material, 'Waracle', 'Computer Eyes' and Valley Of The Queens sat perfectly alongside the likes of 'Wherever You Are', 'Haunted' and 'Calliopeia' and all sounding significantly heavier and better than their studio  counterparts. Rounding out the main set with an extended 'Out In The Real World', allowing introductions to be made and a stunning version of 'The Castle Hall' from the 'Electric Castle' opus that featured a returning Damian Wilson, Stream Of Passion were not going to get away without an encore. 

First up was another track featuring Damian Wilson alongside the girls on vocals, 'Into The Black Hole' with Wilson resplendent in his sliver Star One outfit and then followed, after  a short speech from Arjen about how all his favourite bands are English, was a run through of the Led Zeppelin classic 'When the Levee Breaks' which even featured a piss take outro of Kashmir with Lucassen picking up the bow from Marcela’s Violin that had been in use on and off all night and using it to play his guitar a la Jimmy Page.  The band returned for the second encore and after the Spinal tap joke this one goes to 11, it was 'Day 11' from the Human Equation album with Lucassen showing off his vocal expertise by handling the James La Brie part from the original  and thus a brilliant set was brought to a close.

 All in all a thoroughly enjoyable night with two good supports and a truly stunning headline band. The sound was spot on for Stream Of Passion and the light show was simply out of this world. The CRS could certainly teach one or two other venues a thing or two about running a successful show as, although this was only my first gig of the year,  I believe it will be a hard one to top.     

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