By: Chris McGarel
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The Dome | September 18, 2014
To lose one front man may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness. For all the care that Spock’s Beard put into their intricately-crafted heavy symphonic prog, they have indeed been unfortunate with major line-up changes over their 20+ year career. The departure of main songwriter and spiritual totem, Neal Morse, heralded a new chapter with Nick D’Virgilio stepping out from behind the drums in Phil Collins style to front the band for a decade of further critical and sales success. Ted Leonard from the much-missed Enchant filled the vacancy and, judging by last year’s superb Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep, fortune is again smiling on the band.
Day For Night’s anthemic synth brass is a triumphant fanfare and immediately the years and personnel changes melt away. The Beard is in here! Leonard’s distinctive voice simultaneously recalls Morse’s timbre and pitch while imbuing those melodies with his own style. His not inconsiderable talents on rhythm and lead guitar are an added bonus, bringing extra crunch while opening new avenues for melodic and harmonic interplay with guitarist Alan Morse and clown-prince-of-the-keys, Ryo Okumoto (whose rude keyboard patch names are on full display, ‘My Ass Is So Wet’ being a personal favourite).
Another trip down memory lane comes with Beware of Darkness, but tonight is no mere exercise in nostalgia. The set has been immaculately chosen to please the long-term fan while promoting the current opus. New track Hiding Out sounds fresh, vital. Spock’s Beard are riding a wave of creativity and this is best demonstrated by a frenetic Something Very Strange. The disparate lead styles of Leonard and Morse complement one another – the former’s fiery sweep-picking responds to the soulful wail of the latter.
The biggest cheer of recognition of the night is rightly given to Made Alive, the opening track from the epic double album Snow. A medley ensues, including a concatenated version of the two ‘Snowvertures’ and a raucous rendering of The Devil’s Got My Throat, replete with much throwing of the devil horns from (Ronnie James) Ryo. Drummer Jimmy Keegan takes the spotlight for a frankly stunning lead vocal on the ballad Carie. A sought-after voiceover artist, he will later reprise the track in a cartoon style. That’s the kind of night this is – for all the technical wizardry and brain-melting time signatures there is a party atmosphere. The band ham it up and are clearly having as much fun with their shtick as we are witnessing it.
The Healing Colours of Sound constitutes a half-hour long encore and a distillation of everything that is so good about Spock’s Beard past and present: dazzling musicianship, consummate compositional skills but with huge singalong hooks and always an eye on Vaudevillian entertainment.
If tonight has been any indicator of how the next chapter is going to read then let’s hope they can hang on to their current front man for a while longer.
