ProgCity Festival, Musicon Den Haag, 14 November 2015

You wouldn’t tell this was just the first edition of ProgCity Festival. Once I entered the venue the ambiance was great. Everything was well organized and the sound-checks between the bands were smooth and fast in my opinion. A big thumbs-up for Gert-Jan van Middelkoop and everyone who worked at Musicon that day. Three Dutch bands were scheduled for this evening: Infinite Mind, Armed Cloud and Cartographer. I’ve seen Armed Cloud during ProgFrog Festival not so long ago and really enjoyed their performance back then (you can find the review of ProgFrog Festival here). I was extra curious about Infinite Mind and Cartographer because I had never seen them perform live.

Infinite Mind:

First band that played during the evening was Infinite Mind. It was very dark on stage, the lights were very dim, which helped to improve the atmosphere of the band’s performance. Their music is dark and alternative, it reminds me of Tool, a bit of Oceansize and early Amplifier. I really enjoyed what I heard, this band played very good and tight. Francis doesn’t only play drums but also plays on a synthesizer. What I also noticed was that there were a lot of effect pedals on stage. Singer Sven is a very good singer and he used special effect pedals that were connected to his microphone. He made a joke about his effect pedals and told the audience that everyone can be a good singer by using those special pedals. Sven also thanked Wouter van Hal for making it possible to perform here on stage. Their performance was short (less than an hour) because the other two bands also had to play before midnight. I really hope I will see this band live again in the near future.

Armed Cloud:

Well, what can I say? This band is great to see live, just like their performance at ProgFrog. This band leans towards symphonic progressive rock with divergence to metal, which is a contrast to Infinite Mind. The band also shows a lot of energy, mostly because of singer Daan Dekker. He uses the complete stage for his performance. After playing the track Obsidian Desert Daan spoke to the audience and started talking about the terrible terroristic attack that happened in Paris the day before (13 November). After playing a couple of tracks again, Daan pulled out a shirt (no, not his shirt, sorry ladies and gents) and showed it to the audience. It was a shirt with the logo of The Dutch Treat on it, Wouter van Hal’s radio show. He thanked Wouter for all his efforts, not only for Armed Cloud but for all the bands he worked for/with. The next song they were going to play was Meltdown which they played as a special ‘thank you tribute’ for Wouter. The audience demanded more songs when the band announced that they would leave the stage so Cartographer could play. This band deserves more than just an hour. I hope they will tour a lot in the near future and get more than just an hour to play!

Cartographer:

I thought that Infinite Mind had a lot of effect pedals on stage, but this band has even more. The band also has 3 guitarists in the band, which is also quite extraordinary. Sound and keyboard effects were triggered by a laptop which was operated on stage. This band is a real instrumental post-rock band with progressive influences and even ambient-like moments. During the louder parts of the music the band showed a lot of energy, the band members jumped all over the stage. Just as Infinite Mind’s gig the lights were very dim during their performance which enhanced the dark atmosphere. Some people in the audience started to sing the birthday song (and the rest of the audience soon followed) because it was bassist Desmond Kuijk’s birthday. Desmond was surprised and thanked the audience for singing. It was also the last gig for drummer Bart den Ouden. The band made a joke about him going to ‘retire’ because he was getting older. The band’s performance was great, I really enjoyed what I heard from them.

Too bad I had to catch my last bus so I couldn’t stay too long and missed the last tracks from Cartographer. I really need to find a solution to make sure I will never miss the last bits of gigs again. I hope there will be more editions of ProgCity in the near future because I had an awesome evening!

Infinite Mind are:

Tijmen Molengraaf – Bass guitar
Jim Meyer – Guitars
Richard Schnabel – Guitars
Sven Schuurbiers – Vocals
Francis van Dijke – Drums, synths

Setlist Infinite Mind:

7

How You Fell

Other Arms

Healers

We Fall Slowly

The Arrival

https://www.facebook.com/Infinite-Mind-306043387791/

Armed Cloud are:

Wouter van der Veen – Guitars/Backing Vocals
Boris Suvee – Bass guitar
Remco van der Veen – Keyboards/Backing Vocals
Daan Dekker – Vocals
Rico Noijen – Drums

Setlist Armed Cloud:

Intro

My Own Kind

Wounded Healer

Obsidian Desert

This Dream

Helping Hand

Meltdown

Morning Star

Jealousy With A Halo

Tyrants Destiny

Aftermath + Wasted?

http://www.armedcloud.net/

Cartographer are:

Bart den Ouden – Drums
Desmond Kuijk – Bass guitar
Milan Roerdink – Guitars
Marvin Roerdink – Guitars
Yoep de Ligt – Guitars

Setlist Cartographer:

Intro

Revision

We’ve Come A Long Way

[…]

A Sea Of Sunshine

Built with Blood and Fears and Tears

17:04

Anger

Acceptance

http://cartographer.nl/

You can read my review on Background Magazine:

http://backgroundmagazine.nl/Gigreviews/20151114ProgCity.html

All photos made by me.