I went to see Transatlantic on Saturday (22nd of May) over at the old manky Manchester Academy 1 in, er Manchester. My feelings regarding the venue notwithstanding, the conert was up there as being one of the best I have ever seen. They came on dead on 7.30pm and didn’t go off until 11.30pm – thirty minutes after the supposed 11pm curfew. They only had a 15 minute break during the whole 4 hour extravaganza.

Special guest was, of course, Daniel Gildenlow from the rather excellent Swedish rock group Pain of Salvation. He was sporting a new haird-do! Anyway, he played guitar, keyboards, percussion and provided some ultra excellent backing vocals, too
Neal Morse was the star of the show for me, though – which is not to take away anything from anyone else – particularly Roine Stolt whose guitar playing was scorching in every respect – but Neal’s voice was near perfect (mostly!). His 12 string bit before We All Need Some Light was outstanding, too. Never mind some cracking organ solos!
Anyway, they played all of the Whirlwind, with some great improvisation in parts, plus Duel with the Devil, All of the Above and another two, I think, the titles of which escape me!
I have to say though, that the sound was diabolical, especially for the first two hours. It seemed to be all bottom end: muddy and loud. It got better after the interval, though. And on the theme of moaning, why oh why were seats not provided? I mean, 4 hours is a long time for a concert – it’s not as though folks were going to dance the night away. The venue was almost a sell out and the crowd were superb – really enthusiatic: cheering, clapping, singing along and generally appreciating what was likely the last time that Transtalantic would perform together.