Roine Stolt : vocals, guitars

Mike Portnoy : drums, vocals

Pete Trewavas : bass, vocals

Neal Morse : vocals, keyboards

Guests :

Daniël Gildenlöw : guitar, keyboard, backing vocals

www.transatlanticweb.com/

Although I don’t have any firm proof about this I dare to say that this live recording dates from november 12^th 2001. That night everything was set up to film the concert for a possible DVD release. The place was the O13 venue in Tilburg, Holland. Hoping all would go well on the night the tour manager suddenly got the information that a plane had crashed in New York. He didn’t know what to do but decided to inform the band after all. Although we all know it wasn’t a remake of the disastrous september 11^th that particular night the guys in the band weren’t feeling comfortable at all. Especially Mike Portnoy started to phone family and friends to be 100% certain all of them were OK. In the end the band managed to deliver an unforgettable show and after fifteen minutes of nonstop clapping (yes FIFTEEN minutes) the audience was treated to a superb version of the Floyd classic ‘Shine on your crazy diamond’. This song you can now only find on the DVD version of this “Live in Europe” set although the version of this Floyd classic included has been recorded at the NAMM fair in California so the “Live in Europe” DVD set should in fact read “Live in Europe … and a little bit in America” ! In fact there are three different versions of this long awaited live set. First you have the 2CD set, then you have the 2DVD set and to make the ideal christmas gift you can also get your hands on a lavish 2DVD + 2CD set.

When Transatlantic released their “Live in America” set in 2001 they had just released their debut album “SMPTe” so in order to have sufficient material for a complete show they delivered some coversongs as well. Next to some Beatles and Genesis covers the band also did a medley in which they included parts of Flower Kings, Spock’s Beard, Marillion and Dream Theater. When they toured Europe they had released two studio albums so this time around there was plenty of own material to chose from so they cut down on the covers. With three songs from “SMPTe” and three songs from “Bridge across forever” they only needed to treat ‘Suite Charlotte Pike’ in order to get something really special. As we all know both Mike Portnoy and Neal Morse are huge Beatles fans so they decided to turn their own composition into a huge medley featuring tons of Beatles material. In fact what they did was include an entire side of the famous “Abbey road” album (the B-side if you’re thinking in vinyl terms !). Later on, as most of you know, Neal, Mike, Paul Gilbert and Greg Bissonette teamed up as Yellow Matter Custard to pay tribute to their heroes. Some Beatles tracks have been omitted but you will hear Transatlantic’s renditions of ‘You never give me your money’, ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’, ‘Polythene Pam’ (which almost sounds like authentic punk here !), ‘She came in through the bathroom window’, ‘Golden slumbers’ (featuring superb vocals from Daniël), ‘Carry that weight’, ‘The end’ (including a short drumsolo from Mike) and finally ‘Her majesty’ which due to the inclusion of Portnoy sounds rather appropriate.

When I listen closely to this recording I do however miss the ambience. I know for a fact that all of the instruments were miked but that there were no ambience mikes present. I know because I was there, remember ? As no other live recordings were made during this tour, the audio edition of this live set has to be the same as the one used for the DVD thus also containing few cheers from the crowd. If you know that no less than 1800 people were present then this recording does not live up to it’s expectations. When you consider the fact that no ambience mikes were used you understand that the only ‘noises’ you hear have been recorded through the individual microphones which were linked to the various instruments in other words : weak and way in the distance. You could give these recordings to anyone as long as the material has not been recorded properly there’s little you can do in the studio unless you would use overdubs of course. However it sounds silly to not overdub any instruments but to overdub the noise of an audience. What audience then ? Surely not that of another gig ? Knowing this entire gig was recorded at the O13 venue in Tilburg, Holland, the quality of the recording sounds more as if the entire show was recorded in a tiny club. For those of you who have visited the O13, you know that this is one of the best venues around with a wonderful acoustic so the endresult should accordingly be brilliant. Instead it’s more like a testament of time rather than a proper recording and if the audio version is like that then I’m afraid the DVD (which I haven’t seen !) will be the same. The DVD sports a 5:1 surround recording but as said before if the actual recordings were not 100% you will still hear the difference. With the Transatlantic story now definitely closed and considering the long delay this release had to encounter, “Live in Europe” remains a great souvenir from one of the alltime prog superbands. If you have to chose between audio and DVD then go for the latter one unless of course you have won the stakes in which case the audio/DVD issue is your best investment.