Review by Erwin van Dijk

Stream of Passion started as the new 'project' of Arjen Lucassen from Ayreon. They were quite succesfull but, being a side project nobody expected Stream of Passion to last. However, Stream of Passion was never centred around Mr. Lucassen solely. A lot of the songwriting was done by the singer, Marcela Bovio from Mexico who played in the band Elfonia before she got in touch with Arjen Lucassen (during the recording of his The Human Equotation record.

Het Kasteel (The Castle) is a mid level venue in a rather boring city between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague (believe me, I live there). Het Kasteel has always been a difficult venue for bands to play. It is really in the middle of nowhere and when you want to get home by public transport you will never see the headliner. A lot of famous bands have played there like one of Epica’s first gigs (under the name Sahara Dust), After Forever (the air conditioning broke down during that gig and the overcrowded venue turned in a real Finnish sauna but Floor was really metal, being all sweaty in a thigh leather stage outfit) and Lana Lane one of the best female prog-metal singers from the USA who has worked a lot with Arjen Lucassen on his Ayreon project. Coincidence or not but a one month ago another ex band from Mr. Lucassen (Vengeance) did a gig here.

Like Stream of Passion, Annatar (See 'The Silmarillion' for the meaning of that name) has a lot of line up changes during the last year or so.Gone is drummer Bram who plays now in Ugly Sin (with best female grunter from Holland Janneke). Also gone is guitarist / grunter Micha (who plays in Metatron now) and singer Madicken de Vries (no family of Piter de Vries from the Dune saga I hope) Madicken left Annatar the Nightwish / Tarja Turunen way and while all the other line up changes did not change Annatar’s music much, her departure did. A real loss. Her replacement is Liesbeth Cordia who happened to be the very original singer of Annatar, way back around the turn of the century or so.

It is not the first Annatar gig at Het Kasteel. Their first one was at the end of 2005. Three bands were supposed to play that night (Eric Hazebroeks other band Trisomy was one of them actually) but due to a freakish snowstorm that wrecked havoc in the Netherlands only Annatar showed up. And they did a double gig, earning a lot of goodwill in Alphen aan den Rijn. They are regular visitors of the Archeon Midwinter Fair and their last Kasteel gig was less than 6 months ago.

Alex used to be the bass player who stood always behind the other guitarists on stage but now he is the man with the grunts. The special guest is Misha, who must have been at every Annatar gig since he left. While Madicken was more an ice queen on stage, Liesbeth appears a little bit more down to earth. And while the band does a solid gig with an enthousiastic audience something is missing today. The stage is overcrowed, it’s do dark to see a thing and Annatar looks like a bit unsure in their new line up. They will need to do a lot more gigs to return to their former glory.

Annatar 2008

Line up:

• Liesbeth – Vocals
• Bart – Guitars
• Johan – Guitars & Back Vocals
• Alex – Bass & Grunts
• Daniel – Drums
• Wietse – Synths

Setlist:

• My World
• In Nomine
• Twisted by events
• Perception
• Mazes in a mind
• As darkness binds them
• Inner strength
• Our embrace
• My darkest nigthmare 

The first incarnation of Stream of Passsion was very succesfull in the gothic and prog metal scene and the big question tonight is: how will the new line up do without godfather Arjen Lucassen? It is Stream’s first gig after all. Like with Annatar the audience is very enthousiastic when they finally show up. They play a mixture of old and new songs and even an Ayreon song (Computer Eyes) I would have preferred ‘Valley of the Queens’ but that’s my opinion. My all time favorite “Out in the real world” is still one of the highlights of the show and the new songs do not diver to much from the older work.

Some things haven’t changed: Johan (one of the original members) still has no sense for fashion (the only men I can accept in dresses are drag queens and wildmen from Scotland) But he is still a great bass player. Just as two years ago the light engineer cannot decide between too dark and too much smoke. It doesn’t work on a big stage and definitely not on a small one like Het Kasteel. If you have seen the 'live in the real world' DVD you know what I mean. Maybe the band should have used the light engineer from Het Kasteel because he is very good.

And like Annatar Stream of Passion lacks something tonight. Lori and Arjen were very visual on stage while Eric and Stephan stay in the darkness (literally) Marcella has to carry the entire gig. She does a good job and the band does a solid performance but remember: this is clearly their first gig together and things can only get better during this tour. And, being honest, Het Kasteel is way too small for Stream of Passion.

Stream of Passion v2.0

Line up:

• Johan van Stratum – Bass
• Davy Mickers – Drums
• Marcela Bovio – Vocals & Violin
• Jeffrey Revet – Keys
• Eric Hazebroek – Guitars
• Stephan Schultz - Guitars

The official Stream of Passion website and MySpace doesn’t even bother to mention who the background vocalist is. (It ain’t Diana Bovio, that’s for sure.)

Setlist: 

• The Flame Within
• Passion
• In The End
• Now Or Forever
• Deceiver
• All I Know
• Wherever You Are
• When You Hurt Me The Most
• Games We Play
• Calliopeia
• This Endless Night
• Far And Apart
• Out In The Real World
• Run Away
• The Art Of Loss
• Haunted
  ...... 
• Computer Eyes
• Embrace The Storm