MEET THE FLOWER KINGS @ LIVE RECORDING 2003

I saw this limited edition of the Flower Kings 2dvd+ 2cd just browsing on lasercd, and ever since I ordered it, I've watched it a total of 6 times and listened to it everyday since I bought it. (In the course of 5 days of course) The music aspect of it is great, I mean, its The Flower Kings and their incredible virtuosity on DVD, plus Gildenlow's wailing, mixed in with Stolt's incredible guitar playing, Hassse's dynamic vocal ability, the Jazzy rhythmns of Zoltan Czorsz, Hasse B. and Jonas Reingold, mixed in with Bodin's great, tasteful keyboards. What more can we expect here?

Now, to the specific songs/bonus features of the dvd:

The dvd starts out With The Truth Will Set you Free, an amazing track that is perhaps the first The Flower Kings song I've ever heard. The live version of here is similar to the album version, except for Gildenlow's incredible backing vocals, those dynamic wailing along with Hasse's almost untouchable, unbreakable voice. Mixed in at times of course with Stolt's impeccable, emotional guitar playing and tender vocals. Mixed with the epic proportions of acoustic guitar playing, rhythmnic percussion done by Hasse, Daniel and Zoltan, definitely great. The typical epic The Flower Kings just magnified slightly bit, yep, just slightly a little bit more. It probably made it more emotional too, along with the energy that Stolt and Co. put on stage. But of course you can't see the magic behind this all.

The first documentary shows a short clip of the Flower Kings on tour in the US, beautiful Swedish language is spoken here of course and the brilliant production of Roine Stolt, yep just your typical Prog documentary Flower King style.

The DVD here is where it gets really interesting, Roine Stolt starts off Garden of Dreams with the usual great intro of a classic Prog 60 minute epic, but of course the DVD one isn't that long. Its divided into two parts and we hear the first part here, it is of course filled with the usual Flower Kings emotions, except that it is slightly shortened here, only a combined total of 45 minutes, instead of the 60 minutes from the album version. This song is of course the same as we hear on the album, except that I especially love the slightly improvised solos of the "Magic Genie from Sweden" as Neal Morse describes him as. (Minus the usual Flowery clothing and the TransAtlantic tour Parker Fly Guitar) In other words: This epic is MUCH better than the album version, because we can see it here.

Ah..... The craziness of touring Europe of being a smaller, underground band. The Flower Kings show their crazy backstage footage here with both European documentaries and the black and white( Unfold the Future anyone?) backstage material. Of course you are saying to yourself, how can this dude write so much about short 20 minute documentaries? Well, I can and that I love the Flower Kings so much that they force me so much to do so. In Short words: I love seeing the Flower Kings backstage and Roine with camera.

The Second disc kicks off with one of favorite epics Humanizzimo (As you can tell so far everyone is a favorite of mine), the great Flower King album epic, one that I consider the first "unofficial" The Flower Kings album, what a great epic, plus a great vocal section not heard on the "debut" Flower Kings album by no other than singer/musician/sex icon of mine extrodinaire Daniel Gildenlow. We of course know that we are human to the max, but what more obvious statements we can get from the voice of Roine Stolt?

Yep... The Flower Kings love to rehearse, they are also very interesting to watch. So much improvisation between the "so-called" best rhythmn section in Prog (Reingold and Czorsz). Highly fun to watch again...

The Circus Brimstone on this dvd is not "the Circus Brimstone" but an improvised version with of course the common theme heard on the Stardust We Are in the song though. Great improvisation piece here, Hasse is once again hilarious with all his gadgets. Let's not forget that Hasse is a crazy nut.

Ahh.... Czorsz drumming.... The studio documentary stars Czorsz drumming at the speed of light... Ahh.... How great. A couple of words on a documentary. I think the documentary here has to be 5/5, I mean it has to be given something like that.

The second to last song, Silent Inferno from Unfold the Future, is of course similar to the album version, but the most "Metal" (Which means it is not Metal at all) song on the DVD is done greatly, with almost no flops. Great to watch too.... Reminds me of something I used to quite commonly on the forums... Great song......

On tour in South America is perhaps the best documentary recorded on here, amazing epic proportions, we do love Brazil and Rio De Janiero, also ending it with the big, bright sun of the Flower Kings, yep, which is all great....

The final song that I'm reviewing right now at the moment is Stardust We Are. It starts with that noticeable Flower Kings intro chord, wow, what a good melody that I can sing along. So.... To conclude this review, I love the dancing of lady and the woman and the firebreathing is interesting too... Oh yea.... I need to finish this right now.... I guess, Stardust We Are is perhaps the best ending to ANY DVD I've watched, even more than Iter Impius or All of the Above.

This IS one of the best Prog dvds ever made, not boring at all.... Unless you are a dead rat or a pig. Have fun reading these 951 words!