RADIANCE

I have never been into acoustic sets. So, it is with a bit of scepticism that I discovered "Radiance" a live acoustic set recorded at the mythical hall "De Boerderij" in Zoetermeer (The Netherlands). Arena is virtually at home there. It is not bad an album but the grandeur and might of the band is leaving the place to a more intimate and softer approach.

Both opening numbers "Breathe" and "A State Of Grace" come out from "The visitor" and are a good intro to this album.

Seven songs from their last studio album are featured : "An Angels Falls", "Spectre At The Feast" which is one of the best interpretation. "Skin Game", "Bitter Harvest", "The City Of Lanterns", "Mea Culpa" and "Ascension". They will be played in a row, to form a unity. Since there are some cuts in the recording, I guess that the full album was played that night (it makes sense actually) but was maybe a bit too much to put onto a record.

Some very old numbers to finish the set : "Crying IV and VII", "Jericho" as well as a more recent one from "Immortal ?" which features great piano from Clive : "The Butterfly Man". This is another highlight.

At the end of the song, the band will revert to "Crying For Help" asking the audience to "save" them as usual. The band will even stop playing with an hilarant passage; very funny. These really make these live performances very human. They are making fun one of each other, being really to difficult for Rob to concentrate.

During the intro of the first "Crying", we can feel that the trio has really having fun to do this exercise. The first part of "Jericho" is again very pleasant, while the end is as good as an acoustic version can get but a bit weaker than the original. Still another nice Arena acoustic moment with a good audience reaction.

The last encore will be introduced by ... the audience while the band will take it over with the traditional audience participation.

Two stars for this one as only die-hard fans can be interested in this effort (but I guess that it was intended for them, right ?). There are IMO no better version of an Arena song than the electric one. Arena fans will not need to wait for long to get the full electric live album that supported "Contagion". Soon, they'll get "Live & Life", but this is another story.