Ralphy's Concert Reviews

Saga - Concert at Spirit of '66 in Verviers (Belgium) 29-03-2001

For those who don't know them (shame on you!), let me first tell you a bit about the band Saga. They are a Canadian band, who started out in the second part of the 70's. Their music is generally considered progressive rock although they themselves might argue about that. I call their style and that of bands like them (Rush, Marillion, Genesis) symphonic rock. Although they originate from North America their biggest successes and following has been in Europe, especially Germany, where they were huge in the early 80's. There have been some changes in the band line-up through the years, nowadays they are back to the most proven 5 band members: Michael Sadler (vocals), Ian Crichton (guitar), Jim Crichton (bass), Jim Gilmour (keyboards) and Steve Negus (drums). From 1978 (Saga) to 2001 (House of Cards) Saga released 14 studio-albums, 2 live-albums and some best of CD's.

From left to right: Steve Negus, Jim Crichton (top), Michael Sadler (bottom), Ian Crichton and Jim Gilmour.

I got to know Saga through a close friend of mine, who owned their 5th studio-LP "Heads or Tales". Later on through a cousin of mine I got tapes of their first 3 albums ("Saga", "Images at Twilight" and "Silent knight") and another friend loaned me "Behaviour" (nr. 6), which is still, together with "Heads or Tales", my favourite Saga album. After that I myself bought the next 2, "Wildest dreams" on LP and "The beginner's guide to throwing shapes" on CD. These last 2 albums had been made without Jim Gilmour and Steve Negus and this might be the reason that I wasn't that enthusiastic about them. But Saga returned with a vengeance with "The security of illusion" in 1993, which I borrowed from the friend who joined me in visiting this concert, who is coincidentally a cousin of the guy, who originally put my attention on Saga. I have to admit that after that I lost track a little, until recently when I was surfing the net and found the official Saga-website (the link can be found at Ralphy's Links Page) . At that time this European tour was in the planning and as I had never actually seen them perform live, I followed the progress and when I read that they were coming within 40 miles of my hometown I immediately decided to go.

We hadn't visited the location, Spirit of '66 in Verviers, a town in the French-speaking part of Belgium, before, so we left at home around 19.00 hours. And it turned out to be a good idea to go so early. First we had to trade some Dutch Guilders for Belgian Francs and than we took the German autobahn in the direction of Liege. We had just crossed the Belgian border when we entered a major traffic jam and we stood absolutely still for about an hour. It turned out that a car had been massively hit by a truck, which caused a blockade of the highway. We had a CD of Saga's first live CD "In transit" (I borrowed that from my friend at the end of the evening) in the car, that helped us pass the time (and I heard some Saga-songs for the first time), but we were getting a bit worried whether we would make it in time. We arrived in Verviers around 20.30 hours and. after finding a parking place, we entered Spirit of '66 at quarter to nine. Just in time, because Saga started performing at about 20.50 hours.

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After the obligatory intro Saga started out with a new song, "The runaway", a new pearl in the history of Saga music and to me the best new song they performed (of the 5) and the main reason I decided to buy the new album "House of Cards" (a limited edition) after the end of the show. I had picked a set list of their first European gig from the internet and could therefore easily follow what they were playing. What followed were some relatively unknown songs (at least to me that is), you can find them in the set list below. The 6th song they played was "Careful where you step" and it is a song that I knew, but I never really had noticed before, but now I had started listening to it more at home, because I knew it was going to be played. The intro was very familiar, I think it has been used for some sort of TV-program or something like that, and I really rediscovered this beauty of a song, which Saga played very adequate this evening. After that they played the new single "Money talks" (the first single in 7 years), which featured some chorus singing of the band members, but was not exactly my cup of tea. Not that it's a bad song, but I would have preferred "The runaway" or the closing song of the evening "We'll meet again" as the new single. I will advertise the new single a bit though, because there's a duet with fellow Canadian Allanah Myles, a cover of "Don't give up" by Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush, on it too. I'm very curious how this sounds. After "Money talks" they played another new song, but in between Michael Sadler sarcastically remarked 'This must be the biggest gig I ever played". In Spirit of '66 there was room for around 400 people, so it might actually have been one of the smallest crowds for Saga since the early years, but it must be said that those who did attend were very fanatic and when invited to sing along (which happened maybe a bit too much for my taste) they did so admirably.

The Dutch Choice All Time Hot 100 (year 2002; version 31) with -links

In the meantime my printed set list had drawn some attention and I got to talking to a Flemish guy, who himself was a member of progressive rock band called Beyond The Labyrinth, I haven't checked them out yet, but if you click on the band name, you can get on their website and do so yourself. At this time the concert really started for me and for the band itself too it seemed, because it was just as if Steve Negus started hitting the drums more powerfully and Ian Crichton found the guitar strings more fluently after they began playing "Once is never enough" (a highlight of the evening), followed by "Time bomb" (to me a new song, that I immensely liked) and the Saga-classic "You're not alone" with a lot of crowd participation. What I noticed particularly about singer Michael Sadler were his mimics (which, I read in another Saga concert review and I agree with that, were very much like those of the late Freddie Mercury of Queen) and the thin beard and moustache he wore that reminded me of the Dracula role that Gary Oldman played in the latest movie made about the marvellous book by Bram Stoker.

What followed in the concert was a solo-effort by Jim Gilmour, the rest of the band left the stage. He played the instrumental song from the new album, followed by a very short version of his (vocal) song "Scratching the surface". Than he left the stage and Sadler and the Crichton-brothers (I think they are brothers?) appeared to do an acoustic interlude of "The security of illusion", after that Sadler again left the stage to be replaced by Gilmour (with his clarinet) once more to do "No regrets". Although these solo and acoustic efforts weren't bad, they also didn't particularly impress me.

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But now the whole band returned and the fireworks began again with "Catwalk", after which they deviated from the set list I had found by going on with "The flyer" (one of my favourites) and "Wind him up". They did not play the songs "Follow me" (and unknown to me) and "Mouse in a maze", the song voted for most on their internet-site by the fans, to be performed. So that was a tad disappointing, but I later read that they have to put more practice on that song to get it right and if they do, it will be played for the remainder of the House of Cards-tour. What ended the regular show was an amazing performance of another Saga-classic "Don't be late" (the second highlight of the evening). After that the band first didn't leave the stage but kept on to give some autographs, but when they finally did leave, the audience immediately and urgently requested an encore.

That encore came in the form of the biggest Saga hit up-to-date, "Humble stance". It was a very tight delivery. This seemed to end the evening, because they again started to sign autographs till at one point only Steve Negus was on stage. It looked like the crowd had won him over to again take place behind his drum kit (I think it was an orchestrated event) and he started an electronically enhanced drum solo and at the end of it his fellow bandmembers reappeared to give us yet another song, the very appropriate "We'll meet again", another beauty from the new album, to finally close the Saga-part of the night. All in all the guys gave quite a performance with a charismatic Michael Sadler, an eternally under appreciated guitar phenomenon like Ian Crichton, who seems hitched heavenly to keyboard-maestro Jim Gilmour, a very powerful Steve Negus and Jim Crichton, who did what a good bass-player most of the time must do, not draw to much attention, but be a backbone to the other band members. My biggest disappointment was, but I already knew in advance because of the set list I obtained, that they didn't play any song from their masterpiece-album "Behaviour". I rate this concert with an 8.5, it was indeed a beautiful acquaintance with Saga live.

The complete set list (which took about 2 hours):

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