The Flower Kings in Oberhausen (DE)

[lotus]

The gig was in an old, small industrial building. Aprox 200 ppl attending. So an excellent ambiente for a prog gig (for my taste).

TFK presented a large number of the Paradox Hotel tunes, but also from other, former CD's. Beginning with the more "rocky" songs continuing with some more ballade ones. Specially I would like to mention their stage variation of the "Pioneers of Aviation", which gave the opportunity to Markus Liliequist and Jonas Reingold to show their viruosity on drums and bass respectively. This was a really highlight of the 2 hours 30 min gig, which really superb. The only very little weak point in the group is (IMHO) Hasse Fröberg, whose roots from Heavy Metal were always present, although with his voice he did a really decent job, only his guitar playing is not at the level of virtuosity of all the other TFK members.

All the family had an excellent time (Mrs Lotus with some ear protections.. ) and we decided to go again when TFK is nearby...

[Rick and Roll]

I love them live. I've seen them twice in VA with only 30 others, once at Nearfest, once Progday, and once more in VA with about a hundred. Never disappoint!

Hasse is a great singer. He makes no pretenses about being able to play the guitar...he can ham it up, but he's needed for the soft songs too. There's so much talent in the band that he gets lost. I could watch Jonas and Tomas all show (when they did Garden of Dreams I watched his keyboard the whole time )

So much more to say..but I'm happy to hear how they are in Europe, where they play so much more (and rightly so).

I'd venture to say they are the greatest prog band since they began.