Another epic "full life journey" song, accompanied by insanely masterful and extremely intoxicating musicianship...the Focus love just keeps getting deeper.... Thanks for watching! 🥰
FOCUS is all at once KING CRIMSON, YES, GENESIS, GENTLE GIANT and JETHRO TULL; all at once Cartesian and mystical to the point of trance. So, disappointment is almost impossible. Akkerman and van Leer, dazzling! Thank you.
The organ work is stupendous, almost jazz at times, rock at other times. The organ work is enough to recommend the song, but--The guitar is solid, The bass and drums were doing just enough to keep the song going. Forgot about the piano part leading into the flute solo. The song goes into masterpiece mode with that, along with the chanting vocal, which makes me think of Jethro Tull's " My God " briefly Well written/performed. Epic? Yes, of course
When this record was released, the novelty song (IMO) was Hocus Pocus. It brought attention and recognition and a HIT, for Focus. However, little did listeners know that beyond that first song, was a world of creativity and musicial exploration. The gem in this recording is "Eruption," as you've discovered. Soooooooooooooooooooo good... Thank you for taking the time to listen!!
...absolutely deserved your rating... it stands tall in the line of early 70s Prog masterpieces, like 'Supper's ready', 'Snow Goose', 'Pictures at an Exhibition' and 'Thick as a Brick' 🌈 ...my suggestion would be to do a double of that album, with the tracks 'Moving Waves' and 'Focus 2' - their prelude leading towards 'Eruption' 🧡 PS. excellent choice of background wall again!
Wow! From 1971. This was mind and heart blowing! I heard some shades of ELP, Genesis and Jethro Tull in a somewhat spiritual manner. Organ is one of the main instrument, but so much more is happening. I liked also these many soft transitions, with some middle age moods. It's like Gandalf sending Bilbo to an adventure, this music is a great journey. Loved it! Merci
I've been a fan of Focus since the late 70s, buying all their albums and branching out into their solo works. Last year Focus came to my home town and I was psyched up to see them for the first time... but I discovered that I'd updated my Google calendar incorrectly, discovering late in the evening that I'd missed the gig two hours earlier. Gutted! The show must have gone well as they booked the same venue this year. Ticket in my sweaty hand, I have triple checked the date and will be going to see them next month. I've been familiarising myself with their latest album but am particularly hoping we're going to get songs from Moving Waves and Hamburger Concerto. They've done a truncated Eruption live so fingers crossed. I had a go at transcribing La Cathedral de Strasbourg (from Hamburger Concerto) as a piano solo using the MuseScore program (it's on their site) and gained even more appreciation of their musicianship.
I feel such a connection because of our mutual love for Renaissance and Focus 😊 Regarding focus, three albums are stellar: Moving Waves, Focus 3 and Hamburger concerto. I'd love a reaction to Answer? Questions! Questions! Answer? and the ultra long epic Anonymous 2.
I muchly agree! 🙌 Moving Waves, Focus 3 and Hamburger Concerto are their three finest albums IMHO as well! 👌 "Answer? Questions! - Questions? Answer!" is a great piece, more of a framework for a jam with solos? While I like the studio version I prefer the Live At The Rainbow version a lot more, something about the energy and atmosphere of the live stage seemed to work better? Here's a video that is pretty well sync'd up, both video and audio taken from the same performance I believe?: th-cam.com/video/FMSBvMAD6kU/w-d-xo.html Anonymous 2 I absolutely love the beginning and end but the solos in the middle aren't my favorite as they seem sort of meandering and not as "focused" 😁as I wish they were?! Somewhat the drum solo and especially the bass solo IMHO. Anyways, my selection for next month will be more Renaissance so I hope you like what I selected. 😎
I would add the live album "Focus at the Rainbow", which is AWESOME from start to finish. I believe that Brandon should definitely react to the live "Hocus Pocus" version in it, which is FAR more elaborate and impressive than the studio version from "Moving Waves". But I agree that those three studio albums are really the best of Focus and the core of their work. The first album was still immature, and later albums are disjointed ("Focus con Proby" is TERRIBLE!). Unfortunately, Focus always suffered from the tense and uneasy relationship between Akkerman and van Leer, who agreed on practically nothing. It started as a Waters-Gilmour sort of thing and ended up as a Waters-Wright open enmity. Time and age mellowed them both, and they made a Focus revival in the 1990s, but it was merely okay, far from the brilliance of their early 1970s work, and it didn't last long. Now van Leer tours with a new Focus band (some band members could be his grandsons) playing old and new music. His aged voice can't do the yodelling in "Hocus Pocus" anymore, so he still does the lower-pitched part, but the high-pitched one is done instrumentally. Still a very competent band. Akkerman is still a legend in the Netherlands and part of the national Dutch heritage, but he has shifted almost completely to jazz and blues (which were always a significant influence on his rock work anyway). I also love Thijs van Leer's solo album "Introspection 3", where he plays classical flute. Absolutely beautiful! In particular, his rendition of Albinoni's "Adagio" brings tears to the eyes.
So great! I didn't know Focus were also doing an Orpheus based track and this jazz fusion long track sounds phantastic, thanks for sharing it and reacting on it. Last year I was writing a rock opera "Eurydice", but it is more of a mix of styles from folk to rock to classical. This here is for a big part developped from jam sessions as it seems. Wow! I hear a bit of the first album by Supertramp out of i, which was recorded in 69 (they were sponsored by a Dutch millionaire, maybe no coincindent there). You would like also some songs from it like Maybe I'm a Beggar or the long track Try Again.
I met Thijs Van Leer after seeing them at Holmfirth in Yorkshire, England and I don't think I've ever met a more humble man! He enjoyed talking to me and loved that I held them in such high esteem since buying their albums from the early 70's onwards. The first and for me the best of the 70's European bands.
I agree he is so open to people discussing him and his band. Saw him In New Brighton Nr Liverpool 5th Nov '21. Pierre Van Der Linden still has it and such stamina still. My introduction to them was Focus 3. What an album!!
From 16:19 to 18:00 and 23:09 to 24:26, the sounds by Focus are so, so peaceful! When I purchased the first Focus album and played Hocus Pocus in my room at the fraternity house, everyone would gather at my door to hear the amazing Focus. When Thijs Van Leer started yodeling everyone was so shocked, yet it was a good funny! Unfortunately Focus went off in so many different directions in many songs such as this, that it distracted from following the melodies of most songs. Try Sylvia it is a lot more focused!
Fair retort from those who only prefer "normalized" styled songs, not that HP was normalized but we get it. We love this style of "different directions" as you put it, awaiting with awe to where and what they were/are able to create. Suggest you do not check out Gentle Giant Bob, but "Kayak" might be a group that you do not know that you would enjoy. Try "Ruthless Queen" as a starter and go from there if you like it.
@@retroreactions.... "Sylvia" is a great tune and their other "hit" song, at least here in the US. (I remember hearing it a few times on the radio) Their version of Sylvia from the Live At The Rainbow album is quite good and I like the fast strumming Jan does at the beginning that he didn't do on the studio version. Here's a live video although quite dark: th-cam.com/video/d8_meNbDRRQ/w-d-xo.html
And to think that back then we took this kind of music for granted, believing rock bands would always be this creative. Little did we know... As for Focus, I always hear classical influences in their music (“Eruption” is a good example). Maybe that is why it tears at my heartstrings so easily. What a ride this track is! Btw, on one of his solo albums Steve Hackett reprises part of the song, the part Brandon calls "intoxicating" (starts at 6:51 in this video). It suits Hackett's wailing guitar style well. What an honour it must be for Focus band members to have such an endorsement!
Good evening! Great point. I suppose almost no one in the 70s could anticipate the future directions of music! Ah, so this one gets you emotional too.... Wow, a Focus-Hackett connection. Yes please!!! Another insanely great gift for me today... 💙
@@JohnLRice Hi John: the exact name of the track is "Eruption: Tommy". It's actually one of the bonus tracks from a double CD/double LP edition of the album "Beyond the Shrouded Horizon" (2011). You can find the song here on TH-cam.
excellent review, I expected nothing less from you. after Hocus Pocus from the same album - And Now for Something Completely Different, Eruption. Along with ELP, Van Der Graaf Generator, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream (with Peter Baumann), Focus is my favorite group. IMHO, Eruption, Anonymous 2 and Hamburger Concerto are the best from Focus, but still listen to everything from "In and out of Focus" to "Mother".
@@retroreactions.... And from Moving Waves "Le Clochard", "Janis", and "Focus II" are all awesome, beautiful, and not to be missed! Brandon, maybe listen to "Le Clochard" for your own pleasure? (unless you want to save it for a reaction sometime?) It's only two minutes long and just nylon string acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and Mellotron strings . . . so absolutely gorgeous and peaceful! 💖
WOW….what a masterpiece!! John…thanks so much for your selection!! I had the privilege to see this live just three weeks ago! It was amazing watching from my ninth row seat! I know why Focus only played four songs in their set….”Hocus Pocus” was nearly a quarter of an hour. The highlight though was getting to meet Thijs Van Leer and getting a signature and a selfie with him!!
Thought you might like today's video 😏 John done did my soul well today! I'm glad it was you meeting Thijs recently, because after hearing this and Hamburger and Strasbourg and Pocus, I'd probably have acted a fool meeting him LOL...
My extreme pleasure! Focus is a top favorite band of mine and "Eruption" is one of my top favorites by them! And wow, so awesome you got to see them live recently and meet Thijs Van Leer! Both he, Jan Akkerman, and especially Pierre van der Linden (because I'm a drummer) have long been musical idols for me! 🥰
So awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🤗🥳 I've had a VERY long love affair with Focus! I initially learned of them from hearing Hocus Pocus played on the radio (it was in my top 5 songs I prayed would come on the radio while riding in the family car! ;-) but once I got the Moving Waves album it blew my mind and I soon came to the conclusion that there was even far greater music on the album! As a budding drummer/keyboardist/electronic musician I impressed with the musicianship and compositional skills from the band! And it was almost mysterious how I stumbled on subsequent albums because they didn't get radio play much at all but it seems like once a year or so when shopping with my folks at a department store (often Sears) I'd find a Focus album I didn't have yet and my excitement was too overwhelming for my mom to resist and she's always buy it for me! 🤩🥰🤗😘 Thanks mom for feeding my Focus fire! One of the things about Eruption that really perplexed and fascinated me was that melody at the very beginning because I couldn't tell what instrument it was, it sounded like a cross between a trumpet and a violin and it took a guitar friend of mine to explain it was just a guitar with volume swells! While most people might use a volume pedal to do this Jan just used the volume knob on his guitar controlled by his pinky finger. (takes a bit of practice as you need to have the volume all the way off and then pick the note BEFORE it needs to be heard and then pull up the volume and then bring it back down before the next note needs to be picked). And of course the other things that baffles me even to this day somewhat is Pierre's drum solos as he get SO much going at once to the point where I'm not sure how he did it! 🤯💖🔥🥰 Did you remember that I commented a couple months ago on your reaction to Gustavo Cerati- "Bocanada" th-cam.com/video/Xpg04Tb2XRM/w-d-xo.html It uses that part that was one of your most favorite of Eruption, that totally beautiful section with the lovely guitar solo (one of my favorites as a teen to listen to while I though about girls I had a crush on as it totally induces feelings of love in me! 😊) I also found out and posted the following: "The part Gustavo Cerati used in "Bocanada" is the very beginning of the "Eruption" section titled "Tommy", and that section and Jan Akkerman's resulting guitar solo were originally written by another Dutch band called Solution. It's from Solution's track "Divergence" and was titled "Tommy" by Focus in honor of Solution saxophonist Tom Barlage. They were friends and played gigs together and Focus loved the part so they used it." Here it is, and there are other parts similar to Eruption in it and I don't know how much Focus borrowed from Solution and how much Solution borrowed from Focus since they were local friends and gigged together etc.? th-cam.com/video/V2YAG2mhp-0/w-d-xo.html And one last little thing I like to do is at the very very end I slowly turn up the volume as the drums fade out, close my eyes, and image fireworks in the distance because that's what the drums and cymbals sound like to me. 🔥 I wonder if that was Pierre's intent since it makes sense to finish off this epic piece with fireworks! 🎆🧨🎇
A shame I just discovered them at 48 years old. But as I always say, better late than never! Thanks for sharing some of your Focus journey. Yes their music is unbelievably inspiring. Wow, so cool how that melody was used by 3 different bands. Kind of like a musical "pay it forward". I bet you were very happy when you first heard the song to find that it ends with drums.... Thanks again for guiding me to a great musical treasure today...😊
You are welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🥳 Be sure to check out Brandon's reaction to "Hamburger Concerto" by Focus, it's another 20 minute magnum opus and one of their best! Here's a link: th-cam.com/video/Xmn7z0OQQlI/w-d-xo.html
Hocus Pocus should have been banned until people had listened to the real Focus.. so much good music missed by just hearing that song and having a laugh.
I can see your point, but it was hearing Hocus Pocus on the radio and loving it that lead me to get the album, and subsequently becoming blown away by their excellent wide ranging music. 😎👍
Another epic "full life journey" song, accompanied by insanely masterful and extremely intoxicating musicianship...the Focus love just keeps getting deeper.... Thanks for watching! 🥰
Gotta do Focus 3.
....i'm back in my teenage bedroom...1979.... attempting to play these dreamy riffs on my first guitar....failing badly... annoying the neighbours....
I bought this when it came out and am still blown away and moved when I hear my remastered copy. My favourite band of all time.....
Awesome! They are one of the best band discoveries I've made on this channel!!
Absolutely one of the best piece of music ever.
How can the 4 bandmembers remember this all?! Some so fast, some so melodious… overwhelming.
FOCUS is all at once KING CRIMSON, YES, GENESIS, GENTLE GIANT and JETHRO TULL; all at once Cartesian and mystical to the point of trance. So, disappointment is almost impossible. Akkerman and van Leer, dazzling! Thank you.
The organ work is stupendous, almost jazz at times, rock at other times. The organ work is enough to recommend the song, but--The guitar is solid, The bass and drums were doing just enough to keep the song going.
Forgot about the piano part leading into the flute solo. The song goes into masterpiece mode with that, along with the chanting vocal, which makes me think of Jethro Tull's " My God " briefly
Well written/performed. Epic? Yes, of course
Great analysis my friend!
When this record was released, the novelty song (IMO) was Hocus Pocus. It brought attention and recognition and a HIT, for Focus. However, little did listeners know that beyond that first song, was a world of creativity and musicial exploration. The gem in this recording is "Eruption," as you've discovered. Soooooooooooooooooooo good... Thank you for taking the time to listen!!
...absolutely deserved your rating... it stands tall in the line of early 70s Prog masterpieces, like 'Supper's ready', 'Snow Goose', 'Pictures at an Exhibition' and 'Thick as a Brick' 🌈 ...my suggestion would be to do a double of that album, with the tracks 'Moving Waves' and 'Focus 2' - their prelude leading towards 'Eruption' 🧡 PS. excellent choice of background wall again!
Since you immersed yourself in Eruption, you must now listen to Hamburger Concerto which is another long song!!!!!
Simply amazing!!!!!
Brandon reacted to it about 7 months ago! 😎👍 th-cam.com/video/Xmn7z0OQQlI/w-d-xo.html
Great news....I've already reacted to Hamburger Concerto! It's up on the channel. Thanks for watching!!
and Anonymous 2 from Focus 3, of course
I had completely forgotten about this! Brings back all sorts of memories, what an amazing piece of music. Thanks
Wow! From 1971. This was mind and heart blowing! I heard some shades of ELP, Genesis and Jethro Tull in a somewhat spiritual manner. Organ is one of the main instrument, but so much more is happening. I liked also these many soft transitions, with some middle age moods. It's like Gandalf sending Bilbo to an adventure, this music is a great journey. Loved it! Merci
Love your recap! A very special song/adventure in many ways...
I've been a fan of Focus since the late 70s, buying all their albums and branching out into their solo works. Last year Focus came to my home town and I was psyched up to see them for the first time... but I discovered that I'd updated my Google calendar incorrectly, discovering late in the evening that I'd missed the gig two hours earlier. Gutted! The show must have gone well as they booked the same venue this year. Ticket in my sweaty hand, I have triple checked the date and will be going to see them next month. I've been familiarising myself with their latest album but am particularly hoping we're going to get songs from Moving Waves and Hamburger Concerto. They've done a truncated Eruption live so fingers crossed.
I had a go at transcribing La Cathedral de Strasbourg (from Hamburger Concerto) as a piano solo using the MuseScore program (it's on their site) and gained even more appreciation of their musicianship.
I feel such a connection because of our mutual love for Renaissance and Focus 😊
Regarding focus, three albums are stellar: Moving Waves, Focus 3 and Hamburger concerto.
I'd love a reaction to Answer? Questions! Questions! Answer? and the ultra long epic Anonymous 2.
I muchly agree! 🙌 Moving Waves, Focus 3 and Hamburger Concerto are their three finest albums IMHO as well! 👌
"Answer? Questions! - Questions? Answer!" is a great piece, more of a framework for a jam with solos? While I like the studio version I prefer the Live At The Rainbow version a lot more, something about the energy and atmosphere of the live stage seemed to work better? Here's a video that is pretty well sync'd up, both video and audio taken from the same performance I believe?: th-cam.com/video/FMSBvMAD6kU/w-d-xo.html
Anonymous 2 I absolutely love the beginning and end but the solos in the middle aren't my favorite as they seem sort of meandering and not as "focused" 😁as I wish they were?! Somewhat the drum solo and especially the bass solo IMHO.
Anyways, my selection for next month will be more Renaissance so I hope you like what I selected. 😎
@@JohnLRice looking forward to it! I am a fan of the solos. To each their own :-)
absolutely rigft
@@willem-janageling3907 Absolutely, friend! 😎👍
I would add the live album "Focus at the Rainbow", which is AWESOME from start to finish. I believe that Brandon should definitely react to the live "Hocus Pocus" version in it, which is FAR more elaborate and impressive than the studio version from "Moving Waves". But I agree that those three studio albums are really the best of Focus and the core of their work. The first album was still immature, and later albums are disjointed ("Focus con Proby" is TERRIBLE!).
Unfortunately, Focus always suffered from the tense and uneasy relationship between Akkerman and van Leer, who agreed on practically nothing. It started as a Waters-Gilmour sort of thing and ended up as a Waters-Wright open enmity. Time and age mellowed them both, and they made a Focus revival in the 1990s, but it was merely okay, far from the brilliance of their early 1970s work, and it didn't last long. Now van Leer tours with a new Focus band (some band members could be his grandsons) playing old and new music. His aged voice can't do the yodelling in "Hocus Pocus" anymore, so he still does the lower-pitched part, but the high-pitched one is done instrumentally. Still a very competent band. Akkerman is still a legend in the Netherlands and part of the national Dutch heritage, but he has shifted almost completely to jazz and blues (which were always a significant influence on his rock work anyway).
I also love Thijs van Leer's solo album "Introspection 3", where he plays classical flute. Absolutely beautiful! In particular, his rendition of Albinoni's "Adagio" brings tears to the eyes.
So great! I didn't know Focus were also doing an Orpheus based track and this jazz fusion long track sounds phantastic, thanks for sharing it and reacting on it. Last year I was writing a rock opera "Eurydice", but it is more of a mix of styles from folk to rock to classical. This here is for a big part developped from jam sessions as it seems. Wow! I hear a bit of the first album by Supertramp out of i, which was recorded in 69 (they were sponsored by a Dutch millionaire, maybe no coincindent there). You would like also some songs from it like Maybe I'm a Beggar or the long track Try Again.
I met Thijs Van Leer after seeing them at Holmfirth in Yorkshire, England and I don't think I've ever met a more humble man! He enjoyed talking to me and loved that I held them in such high esteem since buying their albums from the early 70's onwards.
The first and for me the best of the 70's European bands.
I agree he is so open to people discussing him and his band. Saw him In New Brighton Nr Liverpool 5th Nov '21. Pierre Van Der Linden still has it and such stamina still. My introduction to them was Focus 3. What an album!!
From 16:19 to 18:00 and 23:09 to 24:26, the sounds by Focus are so, so peaceful! When I purchased the first Focus album and played Hocus Pocus in my room at the fraternity house, everyone would gather at my door to hear the amazing Focus. When Thijs Van Leer started yodeling everyone was so shocked, yet it was a good funny! Unfortunately Focus went off in so many different directions in many songs such as this, that it distracted from following the melodies of most songs. Try Sylvia it is a lot more focused!
Fair retort from those who only prefer "normalized" styled songs, not that HP was normalized but we get it. We love this style of "different directions" as you put it, awaiting with awe to where and what they were/are able to create. Suggest you do not check out Gentle Giant Bob, but "Kayak" might be a group that you do not know that you would enjoy. Try "Ruthless Queen" as a starter and go from there if you like it.
Actually Bob, maybe Starlight Dancer by Kayak would be better it is more uptempo, Ruthless Queen is a ballad so...
Thanks for sharing Bob! Great memories. Will add your vote for Sylvia and thanks for being first today! 🥇
@@retroreactions.... "Sylvia" is a great tune and their other "hit" song, at least here in the US. (I remember hearing it a few times on the radio) Their version of Sylvia from the Live At The Rainbow album is quite good and I like the fast strumming Jan does at the beginning that he didn't do on the studio version. Here's a live video although quite dark: th-cam.com/video/d8_meNbDRRQ/w-d-xo.html
And to think that back then we took this kind of music for granted, believing rock bands would always be this creative. Little did we know... As for Focus, I always hear classical influences in their music (“Eruption” is a good example). Maybe that is why it tears at my heartstrings so easily. What a ride this track is!
Btw, on one of his solo albums Steve Hackett reprises part of the song, the part Brandon calls "intoxicating" (starts at 6:51 in this video). It suits Hackett's wailing guitar style well. What an honour it must be for Focus band members to have such an endorsement!
Good evening! Great point. I suppose almost no one in the 70s could anticipate the future directions of music! Ah, so this one gets you emotional too.... Wow, a Focus-Hackett connection. Yes please!!! Another insanely great gift for me today... 💙
What is the name of the Hackett song that has that beautiful part in it please?! 😎
@@JohnLRice Hi John: the exact name of the track is "Eruption: Tommy". It's actually one of the bonus tracks from a double CD/double LP edition of the album "Beyond the Shrouded Horizon" (2011). You can find the song here on TH-cam.
@@lilybee2955 Awesome, thanks much! 😎 Listening to it just now, I "might" have heard it before because that album cover looks really familiar?
DANG!! It's like the greatest jam session EVER! So much to love about this. Each instrument gets there own time to shine. Brilliant!!
Right?? Knew you'd love it! I can't believe how much amazing music I get here 🥰
excellent review, I expected nothing less from you. after Hocus Pocus from the same album - And Now for Something Completely Different, Eruption. Along with ELP, Van Der Graaf Generator, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream (with Peter Baumann), Focus is my favorite group. IMHO, Eruption, Anonymous 2 and Hamburger Concerto are the best from Focus, but still listen to everything from "In and out of Focus" to "Mother".
Those who only know Hocus Pocus, will get a big awakening not expecting this more on point Focus classic.
Yes, so much variety. La Cathédrale de Strasbourg is also a thing of beauty! Thanks Todd..
@@retroreactions.... And from Moving Waves "Le Clochard", "Janis", and "Focus II" are all awesome, beautiful, and not to be missed! Brandon, maybe listen to "Le Clochard" for your own pleasure? (unless you want to save it for a reaction sometime?) It's only two minutes long and just nylon string acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and Mellotron strings . . . so absolutely gorgeous and peaceful! 💖
Thanks for the guidance! SO much Focus to get to....I better start Focusing LOL....
@@JohnLRice "Le Clochard" is way too short indeed for such a beautiful, moving song.
From the Netherlands :👍👍
So many great, great tunes here. They remind me of Yes, Genesis, Camel, and on some parts of polish prog supergroup SBB. It's all greatnes 🙂
SBB is great! It's been a while since I've listened to them or even thought about them, thanks for the reminder! 👍
But Almost exclusively instrumental.
@@JohnLRice no probs! 😉
@@rogerhennie8939 correct, they are "focused" just on music, you could say 🙂
WOW….what a masterpiece!! John…thanks so much for your selection!! I had the privilege to see this live just three weeks ago! It was amazing watching from my ninth row seat! I know why Focus only played four songs in their set….”Hocus Pocus” was nearly a quarter of an hour. The highlight though was getting to meet Thijs Van Leer and getting a signature and a selfie with him!!
Thought you might like today's video 😏 John done did my soul well today! I'm glad it was you meeting Thijs recently, because after hearing this and Hamburger and Strasbourg and Pocus, I'd probably have acted a fool meeting him LOL...
My extreme pleasure! Focus is a top favorite band of mine and "Eruption" is one of my top favorites by them! And wow, so awesome you got to see them live recently and meet Thijs Van Leer! Both he, Jan Akkerman, and especially Pierre van der Linden (because I'm a drummer) have long been musical idols for me! 🥰
@@retroreactions.... 🤗👍
So awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🤗🥳 I've had a VERY long love affair with Focus! I initially learned of them from hearing Hocus Pocus played on the radio (it was in my top 5 songs I prayed would come on the radio while riding in the family car! ;-) but once I got the Moving Waves album it blew my mind and I soon came to the conclusion that there was even far greater music on the album! As a budding drummer/keyboardist/electronic musician I impressed with the musicianship and compositional skills from the band! And it was almost mysterious how I stumbled on subsequent albums because they didn't get radio play much at all but it seems like once a year or so when shopping with my folks at a department store (often Sears) I'd find a Focus album I didn't have yet and my excitement was too overwhelming for my mom to resist and she's always buy it for me! 🤩🥰🤗😘 Thanks mom for feeding my Focus fire!
One of the things about Eruption that really perplexed and fascinated me was that melody at the very beginning because I couldn't tell what instrument it was, it sounded like a cross between a trumpet and a violin and it took a guitar friend of mine to explain it was just a guitar with volume swells! While most people might use a volume pedal to do this Jan just used the volume knob on his guitar controlled by his pinky finger. (takes a bit of practice as you need to have the volume all the way off and then pick the note BEFORE it needs to be heard and then pull up the volume and then bring it back down before the next note needs to be picked). And of course the other things that baffles me even to this day somewhat is Pierre's drum solos as he get SO much going at once to the point where I'm not sure how he did it! 🤯💖🔥🥰
Did you remember that I commented a couple months ago on your reaction to Gustavo Cerati- "Bocanada" th-cam.com/video/Xpg04Tb2XRM/w-d-xo.html It uses that part that was one of your most favorite of Eruption, that totally beautiful section with the lovely guitar solo (one of my favorites as a teen to listen to while I though about girls I had a crush on as it totally induces feelings of love in me! 😊) I also found out and posted the following:
"The part Gustavo Cerati used in "Bocanada" is the very beginning of the "Eruption" section titled "Tommy", and that section and Jan Akkerman's resulting guitar solo were originally written by another Dutch band called Solution. It's from Solution's track "Divergence" and was titled "Tommy" by Focus in honor of Solution saxophonist Tom Barlage. They were friends and played gigs together and Focus loved the part so they used it." Here it is, and there are other parts similar to Eruption in it and I don't know how much Focus borrowed from Solution and how much Solution borrowed from Focus since they were local friends and gigged together etc.? th-cam.com/video/V2YAG2mhp-0/w-d-xo.html
And one last little thing I like to do is at the very very end I slowly turn up the volume as the drums fade out, close my eyes, and image fireworks in the distance because that's what the drums and cymbals sound like to me. 🔥 I wonder if that was Pierre's intent since it makes sense to finish off this epic piece with fireworks! 🎆🧨🎇
A shame I just discovered them at 48 years old. But as I always say, better late than never! Thanks for sharing some of your Focus journey. Yes their music is unbelievably inspiring. Wow, so cool how that melody was used by 3 different bands. Kind of like a musical "pay it forward". I bet you were very happy when you first heard the song to find that it ends with drums.... Thanks again for guiding me to a great musical treasure today...😊
Thanks John for this top masterpiece suggestion!
@@sagitt1856 😎👍
Hamburger Concerto is a great album from Focus. So is Focus 3.
Brilliant - I’m not at all familiar with them. Thanks John 👍🏼
You are welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🥳 Be sure to check out Brandon's reaction to "Hamburger Concerto" by Focus, it's another 20 minute magnum opus and one of their best! Here's a link: th-cam.com/video/Xmn7z0OQQlI/w-d-xo.html
@@JohnLRice Thanks 👍🏻
Hocus Pocus should have been banned until people had listened to the real Focus.. so much good music missed by just hearing that song and having a laugh.
I totally agree.
I can see your point, but it was hearing Hocus Pocus on the radio and loving it that lead me to get the album, and subsequently becoming blown away by their excellent wide ranging music. 😎👍