L-1VE

I finally got my hands on Haken's new live DVD called "L-1VE". I am a huge fan of this band and I've really been looking forward to getting some proper live footage because they have barely any videos and most of their music is so weird and unusual that I simply couldn't imagine what it looks like played live. I did see them once but it was a short set during a festival. A full headlining show is something else entirely.

This new release contains their last show of the Haken X Anniversary tour in Amsterdam as well as a shorter set at ProgPower USA 2016. There is no song repeated in both shows and that is the first thing I really appreciate about this because you basically get nearly three hours of fantastic live footage with amazing sound and image quality with NO redundancy. And it is all flawless. You see, it's really hard to imagine what Haken's music would sound and look like on stage because when hearing it on the studio albums it almost sounds like it's not made to be played live. It is flawless in production and recording and so intricate and complex that you almost don't think it can be reproduced in a live performance. They have all sorts of duels between instruments and voices overlapping one another that you'd think they need at least another 5 people to come on stage with them in order to reproduce the whole thing. But they don't. They do it all by themselves. Every single member of the band does vocals quite consistently, Richard Henshall switches between guitar and keyboard all the time and even Diego Tejeida has a full mega-construction of keyboards, effects and synthesizers surrounding him that he handles like a true master. So they can actually make it all happen and it's not just that. They make it absolutely amazing. From such nerdy prog professionals you would expect that they just get on stage, play, and get off stage. You wouldn't expect much Zing and energy and burst and shock.

Well, you'd be wrong again. Although it's not the most bombastic live show in the world, they are very good with their stage appearance and interaction with the crowd and even Diego, steps away from the sci-fi super-station every now and then with just a keytar and fingers that you'll have trouble locating. The whole Amsterdam show is a gem. You need to hold your breath through it. The playing is impeccable. They simply can't play anything wrong. It's as precise and crystal clear as the studio recording. But it doesn't sound like the studio versions at all. Doing it right all the time doesn't mean doing it the same all the time and seeing this show is the perfect example of that. It's very much a live show. The setlist is amazing too. It goes through all four Haken albums promoting mainly "Affinity" but there's also a good dose of songs from The Mountain like "In Memoriam", "Atlas Stone" and the must-play "Cockroach King". The first two albums come in a different way. Aquarius is played as a whole in a roughly 20 minute long blend of parts from all the songs from the album, telling the story and they're put together unbelievably well. That is Aquamedley and it's probably what will keep you stunned the most from the whole set. But it is not the most epic. After the band appears to close their show with "The Endless Knot" it is however obvious that one critical piece is missing. A few shots of the band from backstage stand for the anticipation building up as the crowd keeps asking for more. The screen turns black, and the beginning of Visions starts playing. It really is the ideal ending to their show. But they didn't just make it an amazing performance, they also placed it beautifully in the DVD footage with the blurred lyrics from that robotic voice filling the screen before the image of the stage fades in again. The attention to detail is fantastic. They caught all sorts of key moments throughout the show that you can actually see a lot better from your couch than many people that were actually there could. They even fiddled with the image and made the song "1985" and a few other retro 80's sounding parts of their songs appear in the image quality that you would see in disco music videos from that time.

Everything about the Amsterdam show is flawless. But if you feel it's not enough for you, dig in the ProgPower USA as well. There are only four songs from this one but hold your horses before thinking that's not enough. Two of them are over ten minutes long and one is nearly twenty minutes so that actually wraps up another 45 minutes. In fact, this set contains the main key components missing from the other show. The two longest and most epic songs from the mountain, the one important missing part of Affinity which is Earthrise and the Restoration EP. Yep, this one ends with Crystallized and that last song brings a very special someone on stage. If you know the band, you know who I'm talking about and if you don't, well... find out. Here the performance and the stage presence are once again way above expectations and the festival atmosphere is very different from the headline show. It all feels very complete and near perfect. And just in case your Internet isn't working or worse... it's really really slow (don't you hate it when that happens), they also give you the videos they had on YouTube from their latest album. I guess they really thought about everything and made this truly special. However, the glory of this release may be massive but it is also short lived because very soon after it came out, they announced their fifth studio album coming up this fall. Could this live release be planted at this time exactly to increase hype and make people want more studio material? If they've got the brains to make such music they certainly have what it takes to put together a conspiracy. But I'm glad to be their victim. Who's ready for Vector?

Haken fans have been pleading for a live release for ages, and while the band seemed unresponsive, there was a lot going on behind the scenes. Just a few weeks before the release date, the news came out of nowhere. I was shocked as well. It was good news and this release promised to be everything that the fans wanted. But would it live up to the hype that it created?

Well… YES! “L1-VE” is as complete as live releases get. You receive a full concert in audio and video DVD format alongside a festival performance and 3 official video extras from the band’s latest album Affinity. That’s a lot to fit in to a single release and while Haken are one of these very elaborate, intellectual prog bands, you don’t expect them to be the so awesome live. There will be no moshing, no desperate screaming fans and not that much crippling emotion. But they do get the jaw-drop effect with the simply outstanding performance and not a single song is repeated in the two sets.

The first footage is almost 2 hours long and shows us the final concert of Haken’s 10th anniversary European tour. It is a set that focuses on the album Affinity but also brings a tribute to every album in the band’s discography. The performance is really impressive sounding very close to the studio versions (except for the vocals) and played with an incredible accuracy. I find it quite astounding how much team work is put into this music and how, despite having so many layers, the guys stay honest and play everything themselves. This means that even Ray, the drummer, is part of the backing vocals, as is everyone else. Apart of the complex and intricate instrumental performance, I find the voicing in Haken’s music to be terribly difficult to do live, but they nail it and then some. There’s so much multi-tasking involved that you become so grateful that Ross is solely a vocalist. Otherwise there would be nobody left to interact with the crowd.

The set flows nicely through lots of “Affinity” tracks and a few from “The Mountain” but the highlights are the “Aquamedley” (that brings a mix of all the songs from the debut album “Aquarius”) and the encore “Visions”. “Aquarius” was a concept album with a very intriguing story, and they puzzled pieces of it together to go through every essential bit. It is also where Richard Henshall drops the guitar to join Diego for a double-keyboard performance. And in the end of the show, the title track from the second album “Visions” serves as a monumental closer for this epic show.

This is already a lot, but the band also included songs from their performance at ProgPower festival USA from September 2016. Not a single song from the Amsterdam show is repeated and another 40 minutes of exceptional live music take the release to an even higher level. A bigger stage also allows for a better interaction with the audience and the crown jewel of this show is the full performance of the song “Crystallised”. Talk about extreme voicing… and at the very end of this song that concludes the festival set, comes yet another surprise that I will let you discover on your own. If that wasn’t enough, the second DVD also has the official videos from “Affinity” as extras. For fans of progressive music, Haken is pure gold and I highly recommend you check them out. And their live performance exceeds all expectations, so if you like this genre or any intellectual and intricate music, I consider this release to be a great investment for you! Give it a go!

Enjoy!