Neal Morse Concert review

[Diff_Drummer]

Hi all, my Moonfriends!

I had the extreme pleasure to see Neal Morse live in Denver on Wednesday May 25. It was at a small club called the Soiled Dove, a great venue for shows as it is very intimate. (Same place I saw the Carl Palmer Band last year.) The place was sold out.

Neal had an 8 piece band with him that was a very tight squeeze on the small stage, but they managed. I can't tell you the names of everyone in the band, but he had his regular rhythm section of Randy George on bass and the amazing Mike Portnoy on drums. The rest of the band consisted of a father and son team, Dad played elec. guitar, elec. violin and flute - son played elec. and acoustic guitar, elec. cello and sang. Then there were two keyboard players, one who also played elec. guitar and sang, and a guy on sax and percussion. Neal played keys, guitars and of course lead vocals.

There was a guest vocalist who joined in for a few songs, Matthiew Ward. If you know Christian artists you probably know who he is. If you are just into prog, then you probably don't, but he was a good addition.

I know some people get turned off by Neals Christian message, but say what you like, the guy is an incredible prog musician. The show was 3 1/4 hours long with a short intermission. The 1st half was material from a variety of earlier albums. The 2nd half was his new CD, Testimony 2 in it's entirety.

I would estimate that more than half the show was instrumental sections highlighting everyone in the band. Portnoy is just fantastic and looks like he is having so much fun playing. The band is incredibly tight, making transitions to new tempos, time signatures as if it were an 8-headed single entity.

At one point in the 2nd half, there was a loud low hum in the PA system. Neal stopped the music and the sound man tracked down the problem as being one of the keyboard players rigs. While it was fixed, they were joking around with the audience and Portnoy grabbed one of his overhead cymbal mics and joined in with some very funny comments. Once the hum was gone, they jumped right in where they left off perfectly.

All in all, an incredible night of great music and musicianship that I will remember for a long time.