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Thijs van Leer’s Focus are back in the UK. Tonight they are promoting their brand new ‘Live in Europe’ double CD.
Just one personnel change since our last encounter with the band at The Borderline in 2005. Niels van der Steenhoven replaces Jan Dumee on guitar and makes quite a substantial difference.
It is
marvellous to see Pierre van der Linden back on the drums again too, albeit he had only just rejoined van Leer, at the time of that London show. Completing the line-up is writer and bassist Bobby Jacobs.
So
many highlights, the band are at their best when improvising. Take the jazzy, funky treatment given to the beginning of the Focus standard ‘Sylvia’. There’s a fabulous balance of light and shade too
particularly in the more expansive numbers like ‘Eruption’.
Van Leer is the perfect ‘mein host’, full of surprises but never ever taking himself too seriously. He may have lost a little of his
incredible yodelling antics of the 1970s but it doesn’t spoil a brilliant rendition of ‘Hocus Pocus’ which aptly rounds off the band’s secnd set.
First Set:
Focus I *
House of the King *
Tamara’s Move ++
Just Like Eddy +++
Aya Yippie Hippie Yee +++
Eruption **
Second Set:
Sylvia ***
Focus II **
Focus III ***
Harem Scarem +
Hocus Pocus **
Encore
Brother ++
In and Out of Focus *
Moving Waves **
Focus 3 ***
Hamburger Concerto +
Focus 8 ++
Focus 9 / New Skin +++
Catch our 2005 review from the concert at London’s Borderline here.
Focus Official Site here.
Niels van der Steenhoven mySpace
Bobby Jacobs mySpace.
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