Arjen Lucassen is a genuine God. His pace of producing gorgeous music is mindblowing. I only have to listen to it and I can't keep up with him. How does he do that? And the one song after the other hits you like a brick. If the goosebumps production of Arjen ever goes to the stock market, I will buy a lot of shares 😂. But no kidding. The guy is something special. And Damian is a super Gentle Giant with a voice from the heavens. And Joost, the genius guy behind the keyboards, is a topnotch producer from bands like Epica. Together with Arjen they guarantee that the sound quality is more than outstanding. These artists ( all of them in this video) make your life worthwhile and a happy place.
Prog masterpiece. The melodic composition of the music and vocals are sublime and sophisticated.
5 หลายเดือนก่อน +9
This one never gets old. Damian is perfect for Arjen's live shows with his musical theatre background. He is such a versatile vocalist, actor and storyteller. I could listen to him telling stories from his life on the road for hours. Regarding the audio mix: For the last show I am able to compare, and at least next to FOH the live mix was almost as good as the recording. Just a bit more ambience noise for obvious reasons. It was amazing how well the live surround mix worked.
Such powerfull lyrics. As i understand and read somewhere, written by Arjen`s partner. The entire performance is epic. Feels like Damien is outperforming himself.
Hi Ginx , the backing vocals are Jan Willem Ketelaers , Marcela Bovio (center) and Dianne van Gierbergen . If you ever get the idea to visit an Ayreon concert , you will have to make your way to the Netherlands , more precisely to Tilburg . The venue there is 013 Poppodium . I was there myself last year and can only recommend it to you . Greetings from Germany
You must be quite quick then. Once the ticket box opens you have about four minutes before the gig sells out. Then why only five concerts in a 3K venue? This has to do with the interaction between musicians and audience and Arjen's opinions about that. A 70K venue would be much more a burden for the artists, and a possible reason to decline. It takes about two years to get them together, they all have their own businesses too. And Arjen is very choosy and true to old friends. Remember that Damian already sung with him over twenty years ago. For solo projects, some singers like Simone Simons and Dianne van Giersbergen have Arjen's aid. Here in the Electric Castle, Dianne was in the backings and Simone played the doomed Indian. She is caught by death spirits played by her Epica bandmates. The circles are close. Simone had not so very much to sing in the 2023 concert Beneath the Waves, but she appeared anyway "meeting again my Ayreon family". And a song of hers from the Transitus album was inserted. Because Floor Jansen could not attend, Arjen asked Brittney Slayes from "Unleash the archers" in het place. He and she had worked on Fate of Man, and Brittney would sing it there.
I freaking love damian, his voice is so powerful. The original singer is amazing, but this is just 🤯 ❤ gonna see him with his solo /family show later this year.
You might want to listen to the whole original album titled On this perfect day by Guilt Machine (one of Arjen's many side projects). Lyrics by Lori Linstruth, Arjen's partner, who also plays guitar. The whole album is about depression, guilt, mental struggles etc. Its one of my regular listens.The singer on the original album is Jasper Steverlinck from the band Arid, who also has a great voice!
"This Dude" at 3:15 For me, I find it very interesting how they put the cello through a low pass active filter (maybe with a little distortion) and the result is a cello that sounds like a synth... such a great way to break down the walls of how we think about an instrument. "Play the microphone" at 7:00 Agreed. It keeps the compressors off the vocals, and saves the dynamics. ... and of course it leaves the post-processor more flexibility in adding their touches without having to work around a heavy-handed FOH compressor (which of course you wouldn't have to do if they'd remember to stem off the RAW VOCALS on their own recoding buss, but who am I to tell someone how to do their job, lol... after all, they do it for a living, not me... I'm just an armchair mixicologist.)
Enjoyed your reaction ! The Electric Castle Live and Other Tales were 4 concerts performed between 13-15 September 2019 and mainly consisted of a full playthrough of the 1998 Ayreon Into the Electric Castle album followed by a number of other songs from Arjen's other projects including The Gentle Storm, Ambeon, Stream of Passion, Guilt Machine, Star One, and his solo projects. This particular song is from his Guilt Machine project and features songs about "the destructive psychology of guilt, regret and the darkest form of secret -- the secrets we hide from ourselves." The ladies on the balcony are Diane van Giersbergen (ex Xandria and Ex Libris) and Marcela Bovio. I am a big fan of both ladies, especially Marcela. She is incredibly talented and versatile and like Floor can sing in many different styles. I consider her a close second to Floor in singing ability. Another great song from this concert with Marcela is Out in the Real World from Stream of Passion. Arjen created Stream of Passion as a project specifically to feature Marcela as the lead singer and co wrote the music with her. th-cam.com/video/Rtrkpxq3dOA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3B2_u4w0y10VLf-_. In addition to being the lead singer in Stream of Passion, she was the lead singer in Dark Horse White Horse, one of multiple lead singers in Mayan (side project of Epica founder Mark Jansen), backing vocals for multiple Epica albums, backing vocals for The Gentle Storm, and backing vocals for Vuur. Checkout Mayan's song Rebirth from Despair live from Master's of Rock in 2019 to hear all the different sides of her voice. In one song she sings in a classical soprano voice, powerful head voice, and death metal growls.
@@mandje2002 Well I don't mention him because i know nothing about him. Thanks for mentioning him and his other projects. His vocals are indeed excellent. I will check him out more deeply.
Arjen Lucassen is a genuine God. His pace of producing gorgeous music is mindblowing. I only have to listen to it and I can't keep up with him. How does he do that? And the one song after the other hits you like a brick. If the goosebumps production of Arjen ever goes to the stock market, I will buy a lot of shares 😂. But no kidding. The guy is something special. And Damian is a super Gentle Giant with a voice from the heavens. And Joost, the genius guy behind the keyboards, is a topnotch producer from bands like Epica. Together with Arjen they guarantee that the sound quality is more than outstanding. These artists ( all of them in this video) make your life worthwhile and a happy place.
Prog masterpiece. The melodic composition of the music and vocals are sublime and sophisticated.
This one never gets old. Damian is perfect for Arjen's live shows with his musical theatre background. He is such a versatile vocalist, actor and storyteller. I could listen to him telling stories from his life on the road for hours.
Regarding the audio mix: For the last show I am able to compare, and at least next to FOH the live mix was almost as good as the recording. Just a bit more ambience noise for obvious reasons. It was amazing how well the live surround mix worked.
Such powerfull lyrics. As i understand and read somewhere, written by Arjen`s partner.
The entire performance is epic. Feels like Damien is outperforming himself.
Hi Ginx , the backing vocals are Jan Willem Ketelaers , Marcela Bovio (center) and Dianne van Gierbergen . If you ever get the idea to visit an Ayreon concert , you will have to make your way to the Netherlands , more precisely to Tilburg . The venue there is 013 Poppodium . I was there myself last year and can only recommend it to you . Greetings from Germany
You must be quite quick then. Once the ticket box opens you have about four minutes before the gig sells out. Then why only five concerts in a 3K venue? This has to do with the interaction between musicians and audience and Arjen's opinions about that. A 70K venue would be much more a burden for the artists, and a possible reason to decline. It takes about two years to get them together, they all have their own businesses too. And Arjen is very choosy and true to old friends. Remember that Damian already sung with him over twenty years ago. For solo projects, some singers like Simone Simons and Dianne van Giersbergen have Arjen's aid. Here in the Electric Castle, Dianne was in the backings and Simone played the doomed Indian. She is caught by death spirits played by her Epica bandmates. The circles are close.
Simone had not so very much to sing in the 2023 concert Beneath the Waves, but she appeared anyway "meeting again my Ayreon family". And a song of hers from the Transitus album was inserted. Because Floor Jansen could not attend, Arjen asked Brittney Slayes from "Unleash the archers" in het place. He and she had worked on Fate of Man, and Brittney would sing it there.
I freaking love damian, his voice is so powerful. The original singer is amazing, but this is just 🤯 ❤ gonna see him with his solo /family show later this year.
You might want to listen to the whole original album titled On this perfect day by Guilt Machine (one of Arjen's many side projects). Lyrics by Lori Linstruth, Arjen's partner, who also plays guitar. The whole album is about depression, guilt, mental struggles etc. Its one of my regular listens.The singer on the original album is Jasper Steverlinck from the band Arid, who also has a great voice!
"This Dude" at 3:15
For me, I find it very interesting how they put the cello through a low pass active filter (maybe with a little distortion) and the result is a cello that sounds like a synth... such a great way to break down the walls of how we think about an instrument.
"Play the microphone" at 7:00
Agreed. It keeps the compressors off the vocals, and saves the dynamics.
... and of course it leaves the post-processor more flexibility in adding their touches without having to work around a heavy-handed FOH compressor
(which of course you wouldn't have to do if they'd remember to stem off the RAW VOCALS on their own recoding buss, but who am I to tell someone how to do their job, lol... after all, they do it for a living, not me... I'm just an armchair mixicologist.)
you need to listen to the sixth extinction live next, it is amazing as well
Enjoyed your reaction ! The Electric Castle Live and Other Tales were 4 concerts performed between 13-15 September 2019 and mainly consisted of a full playthrough of the 1998 Ayreon Into the Electric Castle album followed by a number of other songs from Arjen's other projects including The Gentle Storm, Ambeon, Stream of Passion, Guilt Machine, Star One, and his solo projects. This particular song is from his Guilt Machine project and features songs about "the destructive psychology of guilt, regret and the darkest form of secret -- the secrets we hide from ourselves." The ladies on the balcony are Diane van Giersbergen (ex Xandria and Ex Libris) and Marcela Bovio. I am a big fan of both ladies, especially Marcela. She is incredibly talented and versatile and like Floor can sing in many different styles. I consider her a close second to Floor in singing ability. Another great song from this concert with Marcela is Out in the Real World from Stream of Passion. Arjen created Stream of Passion as a project specifically to feature Marcela as the lead singer and co wrote the music with her. th-cam.com/video/Rtrkpxq3dOA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3B2_u4w0y10VLf-_. In addition to being the lead singer in Stream of Passion, she was the lead singer in Dark Horse White Horse, one of multiple lead singers in Mayan (side project of Epica founder Mark Jansen), backing vocals for multiple Epica albums, backing vocals for The Gentle Storm, and backing vocals for Vuur. Checkout Mayan's song Rebirth from Despair live from Master's of Rock in 2019 to hear all the different sides of her voice. In one song she sings in a classical soprano voice, powerful head voice, and death metal growls.
why does everyone always forget to mention Jan Willem Ketelaers (Magoria, ex-Knight Area), his background vocals should not be underestimated either
@@mandje2002 Well I don't mention him because i know nothing about him. Thanks for mentioning him and his other projects. His vocals are indeed excellent. I will check him out more deeply.
Such a powerful performance!