LIVE AT THE NOORDERLIGHT

In 1990, Quasar were touring on the basis of their second album, The Loreli', which had been released the previous year. The line-up at the time was Tracy Hitchings (vocals, keyboards), Toshi Tsuchiya (guitar, keyboards), Dave Wagstaffe (drums) and Keith Turner (bass, 12-string) and this recording finds them at The Noordelight in front of a very keen audience. This line-up would not last much longer with Dave joining ex-Quasar members Steve Leigh and Uwe D'Rose in the new band, Landmarq, and Tracy recording a solo album and working with Clive Nolan. Keith has continued to keep Quasar going with different musicians, both in the UK and America, and I can only hope there will be more new music soon as this is a delight.

Tracy is probably one of the finest British female singers to never truly make the big time, although she was certainly highly regarded within the progressive scene and worked with Clive Nolan for years until she moved to Australia. It was there that we got back in touch again, nearly 30 years on from when we first came across each other, and had lots of laughs together. Her death way too young impacted me a lot, so do I think this is a great release as it features rare live recordings of Tracy in her prime, and she was my friend, or is it genuinely that good?

Here we get all five tracks from the most recent album, two from the debut, plus "White Feathers" which would not appear in a studio version until the third album in 2016. I never did get to see Quasar play live, something I truly regret as this was/is a dynamic neo prog band who have always had great material, wonderful musicians and superb singers. Over the years they have had both female and male vocalists, but due to the quality of the music and songs, they can be sung by either and while this line-up was arguably hampered by not having a separate keyboard player and guitarist (Tracy was not truly what one could call a keyboard player, with Clive famously refusing to let her play live), Toshi was able to command the sound whatever he was playing. Dave is still an in-demand drummer, able to play lots of different styles, while Keith is a great bassist, fully understanding the need for different styles of attack to create emphasis, and then at the front is Tracy.

One can only wonder what would have happened if this line-up had stayed together and produced another album in short order, as this live recording is a delight from beginning to end, and something I have enjoyed immensely.