Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Gleisdorf / Forum – Kloster (Stadtsaal) / Austria
Concert date: November 17, 2013
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: €36.00
We caught Simon Phillips on tour with Protocol II. on November 1, 2013 at Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna – RockLine report HERE! But you can never get enough of Simon Phillips (luckily)! So we hit one more show, in Gleisdorf, Austria, not far from Graz.
Simon Phillips is considered one of the greatest drumming aces of our time and place. When it comes to mastering the drum craft, where he’s developed his own doctrine of drumming to elusive heights, there are quite a few fans of musical experimentation and innovation who’d put Simon Phillips ahead of every other drummer on the planet. In January 2013, Simon Phillips finally recorded a new Protocol album. He kept the one and only Andy Timmons (guitar) at his side, whom some of you might know from the first two Danger Danger albums. For the keyboard spot, Simon called up the outstanding Steve Weingart. He’s a true keyboard master, whom we’ve watched more than once sharing top-notch stage acrobatics with one of the best rock guitarists of our time and place. Mr. Steve Lukather, that is – Phillips’ great Toto colleague. Steve Weingart is a regular member of the crew that records »Luke’s« solo albums, and he and his partner, bassist Renee Jones, are regulars in Luke’s touring band! So the only mystery left was the bass spot, which was taken by the master Ernst Tibbs!
Simon Phillips first played Ljubljana with his band way back in February 1998. Andy Timmons was with him then, too. Back then Phillips was presenting his project and album »Another Lifetime« (1997). And as I hinted at the start, the new show at Cvetličarna on November 1, 2013 swept us away and enchanted us so much that the »craziest« among us howled in unison to the heavens: »Is there any other stop on this Phillips tour close to Ljubljana, so we can go catch at least one more Protocol II show?« We found our alibi pretty quickly. The date was November 17, 2013, and the location the little town of Gleisdorf, a few kilometers from the well-known Graz. Gleisdorf is a place that boasts a real rural idyll. It has barely 6,000 inhabitants, and in the middle of that modest population count stands a gorgeous temple of culture called »Forum Kloster«. It houses several halls meant for various art events. I can say it’s a bit of a shining »space« of culture and art. It’s meant, of course, for fully savoring the sometimes downright shocking beauty that music creates in its endless forms.
Who wouldn’t want Simon behind the drums? Everybody would have him! Everybody wants him. The great master has drummed everything there is to drum. He’s tried everything there is to try, and there haven’t been any secrets left for him for ages. He’s a great teacher, a great master. And he’s an inspiration.
Phillips is an artist who, when you run into his show and his one-of-a-kind display of drum craft, fills you with drive. He charges you with energy that awakens an unstoppable creative urge in you. Creativity. That’s how it was in Ljubljana, and Gleisdorf was no different! This time, though, the show wasn’t done as a »workshop« like in Ljubljana. The repertoire, however, was identical to the Ljubljana one. After the opening »warm-up exercise« with the song Protocol (taken from the first »Protocol« album, 1988), the musicians first really stretched their legs in Stern Crazy, where each member got his own little corner for the first real “shock exposé” of the improvisational chops running through their veins. As the title of that song suggests, Timmons grabbed a little more attention than the rest of the crew with his guitar »outbursts«. Interestingly, the famous jazz guitar guru Mike Stern played at that very same venue in Gleisdorf just a month before Protocol II. rolled in. After the third song, Out of the Blue (»Out of the Blue«, 1999), three songs in total, Phillips stepped up to the audience with a microphone in hand, just like in Ljubljana, introduced the three wizards in his backing crew and announced a full performance of the album »Protocol II«.
What makes this quartet special is the exceptional mix of demanding, well-studied musical figures and an extremely refined feeling for calming them down, with parts more heavily loaded with experimentation, with subtly delicate passages where more room opens up for melody! Jazz rock fusion »par excellence«! With every possible ingredient (really the elemental building blocks of music) from dixieland, swing and motown all the way to funk and progressive rock. On top of that there’s an unwavering strong world-music character, and we can’t skip the moments that astonishingly recall a rhythm or motif we hear in Toto. And where there’s Toto, Steely Dan is of course very close by, too. A special moment of the evening came with the performance of Upside In Downside Up! For a second at the start it looked like Simon Phillips and his crew had decided to play the famous Dream Theater tune Six O’Clock in an acoustic-instrumental arrangement. Definitely one of the highlights of the show, given the compositional success of combining the extreme complexity of the structures themselves with a captured »wacky, provocative punchiness« that awakens your own creative (»progressively« inclined) genius. Moments like that are literally contagious in an instant. They literally tease you. The quartet seems to be in a trance.
All four musicians are top-class. They’re outstanding in their versatility, in the sound that accompanies and builds their stage presence and puts each one’s instrument in a special spot in the whole picture. A spot that’s essential to Protocol II.’s very existence. For a moment it seemed as if the instruments had literally grown onto the members of the Protocol II. quartet. The driving wheel of exceptional positive energy and vibes on the concert stage was the gift of playful lucidity that accompanies all four musical aesthetes. Over a show lasting a good two hours, that never let up for a moment. They watch each other the whole time. Constantly. Along the way they pull all kinds of faces and deliberately tease one another and even try to throw each other off. It’s incredible how much relaxation and fun these four guys can generate during their show, despite all the tasks that are demanding on the ear and eye.
When a listener’s gaze lands on one of the four masters, he lures you in with his work, often into a state where you forget everything. You switch off the logical principle. Whether it’s commander Phillips, or Weingart, Tibbs and Timmons. When you’re lost in the work of one of them and then sober up halfway through, you come to a slightly unpleasant realization that you’ve missed and overlooked the whirlwind of improvisational goodies from the other three musicians. I can’t explain this well in a single sentence. It’s a feeling that you simply can’t keep up with the individuals. This time it’s better to leave the analytical approach to following music at home. The basic principle of listening to concerts like this is switching off your thoughts and fully surrendering to drifting on the wings of the one-of-a-kind majesty of musical magic. And there was plenty of that in Gleisdorf this time. An unsurpassed session of jazz rock fusion woven close to a stylistic ideal!
No obstacles for Protocol II. No obstacles for Simon Phillips. One-of-a-kind communication, one-of-a-kind chemistry. A full bag of juicy licks and an absolute feeling of ease and comfort. Let’s just hope this quartet makes another studio album soon and treats us to another concert tour of Europe before long. Protocol II. are a story you can’t easily get tired of! I’d listen to and watch them nonstop. And when two full hours of the show have rolled by, it takes a good while to sink in, and you ask yourself, bewildered: »Is it over already? That fast?« Yes, and that’s with the encore included, in which Phillips also touched on his two studio albums »Symbiosis« (the song Indian Summer) and »Another Lifetime« (Kumi Na Moja).
And next year? A new Toto album and a new Toto tour! So Simon Phillips will be traveling to our neck of the woods again very soon! As I said. A concert of superlatives. It’s a one-of-a-kind concert experience that, in all its freedom-loving beauty of creating soundscapes, keeps surprising you in the most teasing way, fills you with spirit through its originality, and for which you simply run out of the right words to worthily describe and record all its unique beauty. This time, with the musical experience called Protocol II., we truly gave our ears a serious scrub and cleared out our ear canals.
You can read the RockLine concert report on the Simon Phillips & Protocol II. show at Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna on November 1, 2013, by Peter Podbrežnik, HERE.
Setlist
1. Protocol
2. Stern Crazy
3. Out Of The Blue
4. Wildfire
5. Soothsayer
6. Gemini
7. Moments Of Fortune
8. Upside In Downside Up
9. First Orbit
10. Octopia
11. Enigma
—encore—
12. Kumi Na Moja
13. Midair Decision
14. Indian Summer
Photo gallery
