SYNDESTRUCTIBLE TOUR 2006 (DVD)

This time the present live DVD, witnessing the recent performance by the old Yes member - Mr Chris Squire, helped by the vocalist Steve Nardelli and Gerard Johnson at the keyboads, is a good representation of such a retro-prog and classic rock-oriented music genre!!

"Cathedral of Love" and "Golden Age" are the famous tunes taken from the album "Syndestructable", being quite convincing in the live format, but I missed the rhytmical approach of an intelligent drummer such as that one by Bill Bruford for instance, the perfect partner for Chris today in my opinion, even though Alan White on drums (Martyn Adelman in the credits?!) is not bad...the new project is far away from the job of Chris with Conspirancy (also featuring Bill Sherwood) and it's a sort of look into the past, the early days (pre- Yes era) moving from the psichedelyc to the post rock or space rock with elements of rock and roll, but remaining deep-rooted to a raw sound of a retro prog and classic rock sound!! In fact the singer is involved with the typical vocalism of a rock and roll band, but He's quite original. In comparison to the line up within the album "Syndestructable", brothers Jeremy Stacey(drums) and Paul Stacey(guitars) are not members of the band and that's strange, anyway the final output is quite memorable and close to the style of Dark Syde of the moon.Therefore something here reminds me of "Abbey Road" by Beatles, even though the synths (you know that for me keyboards are very important..) are not the best part of this project, which is good and worth checking out at least, but it's quite far away from the excellence!!

For fans of Chris Squire this DVD is essential, having his stamp all over it. You can very easily recognize his distinctive bass guitar sound and also his distinctive backing vocals. This DVD features a very intimate performance by The Syn, Squire's pre-Yes band which also features another Yes-man - Alan White - on drums. The Syndestructible album is performed here in its entirety as well as some songs from the mid- 60's that were only released as singles back then. The new material sounds not modern, but also not 60's, it sounds timeless really!

This concert is lovely. Watching it is like being there. Squire tells jokes and a long anecdote from his time with the Syn in the 60's.

This might be nostalgia for some, but for most of us this is something brand new. It is incredible that Chris resurrected The Syn after so many years despite them never having had any real success back then.

Highly recommended for fans of Chris Squire and early classic prog in general.