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Shadowland were one of the best prog bands of the 90s
and I have distant memories of spray painting jigsaw peices
black, and sticking them onto black video cases for the
first Shadowland vhs release, way back in 199-something.
Their joint-headline tours with Jadis are near legendary,
and it was a shame when they fell to the wayside as Arena,
Pendragon andThreshold took off.***
So it was good to see them back earlier this year.
I caught them at Riff's back in February. After that they
headed off across Europe, including a night in Katowice,
Poland, where the Metal Mind Productions crew caught up
with them.***
A Matter Of Perspective opens the show, with Clive
Nolan and Mark Westwood alone on the stage, until the stage
light up for The Hunger, and the rest of the band - Mike
Varty on keyboards, Karl Groom on guitar and Nick Harradence
on drums - come into focus. The camerawork captures the
band perfectly, it seems that every member of the band is
given equal airtime via a varitey of close ups, swoops,
pans and long range shots. The Whistleblower is the perfect
song to give Clive a chance to stomp his way around the
stage.***
As Clive says in the introduction to the next track,
Mephisto Bridge, the short tour they did this year finally
gave them the chance to play songs from their third album,
Mad As A Hatter, and it sounds good. I didn't even know
they had a third album until I saw them at Riff's this year.
Or maybe I had just forgotten, I was fairly busy back then.***
The band whizz thru Kruhulick Syndrome and The Waking
Hour before playing Painting By Numbers. In the introduction
to this, Clive talks about his hero, Dorian Grey, before
uncovering a painting of him done by one of the crowd. This
will his Dorian Grey. At this point, I thought they would
lunch into Dorian Grey, a track that Shadowland did for
an SI Magazine compilation album back in the 90s.***
The Ring of Roses epic Hall of Mirrors shimmers its
way in next, its 14 minutes of twists and turns keeping
the crowd on their toes, or at least on the edge of their
seats. This is followed by a new song, The Edge Of Night
(available on the Matter of Perspective compilation album)
and a couple from the third album, U.S.I and The Seventh
Year.***
The classic Jigsaw follows along next, evoking memories
of the dark and dank Marquee gigs. Clives gives a great
introduction the closing number, Dreams of the Ferryman
before the band leave the stage, only to return for an excellent
Ring of Roses, sans dance unfortunately!***
An excellent show, excellently captured!***
The extras on the DVD include another concert, filmed
at the wonderful De Boerderij in the Netherlands. Here you
can see the band bounce their way thru The Hunger, Whistleblower,
Mephisto Bridge, Kruhulick Syndrome, Waking Hour, Painting
by Numbers, Hall of Mirrors and Edge of Night in front of
a packed and lively Dutch audience***
Also on the DVD is a 17 minute interview with Clive
and Karl, talking about the history of Shadowland, and the
ubiquitious Biography, Discography and others***
The DVD is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and
comes as a standard DVD or as a Limited DVD+2CD edition,
which includes 2 bonus audio live CDs recorded during the
gig.
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