Venue: Mean Fiddler, London            Date: 14th November 2003

Setlist: Testimony (whole album), June, Stranger In Your Soul.

This gig was downsized from the Astoria to the Mean Fiddler obviously due to lack of ticket sales. I suppose there could be a number of reasons for this. First the Morse/Spock's split has divided the audience.  Second there's been a lot of other prog gigs in London over the last weeks. Third I imagine the religious theme of 'Testimony' has put some people off.  Whatever the case I'd like to say to all those who didn't come what a great show you missed.

When Neal Morse left Spock's Beard I was greatly disappointed and without any announcements for ages it seems like we'd lost him for good. Of course once the new Beard had got their album out the way, the stage was set for Neal to release what I think is his greatest achievement to date.  'Testimony' may not be as 'full on' prog as some of the early Spock's albums but to my ears there's not one bad track on it. Personally I couldn't say that about 'Feel Euphoria' or even 'Snow'.

Originally I had my doubts regarding the religious message that 'Testimony' is all about, but to an open minded non believer such as myself I don't think it goes over the top at all. Essentially this is Neal's life story. It's the story of his struggle to make it as a musician, of the disillusionment, the realisation that his life was going nowhere and then the transformation that came to his life via Christianity, his marriage and the success of Spock's Beard. We've all read various interviews with him over the years and to now hear his story set to this wonderful music makes for a poignant and emotional ride.

And so back to the gig.  Neal was joined by 7 other musicians on stage including Mike Portnoy on drums, Eric Brenton on guitar, violin, flute & vocals, Rick Altizer on guitar and vocals, Mark Leniger on sax, percussion & vocals, John Krovoser on cello plus a bass player and keyboardist whose names I can't remember.  The show was split into the two halves of cd1 and cd2 with a short break in between.  The band wore black shirts for the first half and white for the second.  There were a few technical problems like with Neal's headset and the sound wasn't that great but I've heard worse.

It's often the case that sad songs are the most memorable and tonight that was certainly the case.  'Wasted Life' is a beautiful and emotional song and Neal did indeed have tears in his eyes during this one and by the end of 'It's All I Can Do' he was completely choked.  The most emotional moment came however during 'Oh To Feel Him' when the band played on quietly as Neal related the story of his daughter Jayda.  She was born with a hole in her heart and faced the prospect of open heart surgery until Neal's wife prayed so hard and the hole closed up on it's own to her doctors disbelief.  I'm not ashamed to admit there were tears in my eyes too.

As the story moves on into the second half things become more joyous with Neal's life having turned around.  'Sing It High' and 'Moving In My Heart' are great songs with the former going down a storm with Eric Brenton's violin and Neal's country flavoured guitar solo. Likewise 'I Am Willing' and 'Rejoice' were very uplifting and at the end after the reprise of 'The Land Of Beginning Again' the cheering from the audience went on forever.  'June' came as a welcome relief with it's simpler structure and everyone singing along and then we got the full blown prog of Transatlantic's 'Stranger In Your Soul' which was quite brilliant, Mike Portnoy was particularly good on this one.  At the end the whole band took a bow together to more ecstatic cheering and then it was over.

I wonder that having completed his 'Testimony' if Neal will rejoin Spock's Beard once again, but whatever the case  Morse is undoubtedly one of the most talented songwriters and musicians of our time, long may he continue.

Steve  16/11/03