Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Date: Tuesday, 03.03.2020
Riverside, Polish progressive rock luminaries, have in the years since their formation — nearly two decades now — become a highly regarded and respected act within the circle of music connoisseurs devoted to the progressive rock genre. Their body of work is marked by constant artistic progress and organic evolution, which to this day has yielded a dozen outstanding studio albums on which Riverside have continuously raised the bar of expressive standards to ever higher artistic levels, steadily uncovering new musical horizons along the way — all of it so vividly absorbed into the band’s musical message. It’s clear that Riverside have their own wholly unique musical identity and profile, one rooted in a great affinity for electronic experimentation on one hand, and an enthusiasm for the work of progressive rock acts on the other — a broad spectrum that comfortably spans Pink Floyd, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Marillion (especially the “H” era). Given that Riverside love to dwell on multiple repetitions of a given motif when building rich atmosphere, layering it with ever wider sonic colours with each pass, a band like this can also win over fans of the post-rock label — which is great, as it makes it even easier for them to grow their fanbase.
The band’s seventh album, titled “Wasteland” (RockLine review HERE) and their first without Piotr Grudzinski, represented a major test of the band’s artistic resilience — one that Riverside passed very, very successfully. It’s a new and exceptionally strong album that met all the sky-high demands of the quality standard that is not merely expected from the Riverside name, but flat-out required.
The band had already been making their way around Europe’s major concert stages since last spring, promoting the 2018 album “Wasteland”. Given the extraordinary success of that tour, as well as the success the album itself brought them, Riverside decided to head out on yet another promotional tour for it. The album also received a new pressing with a refreshed cover and two CDs — the first containing the “Wasteland” album, the second featuring five tracks (Vale Of Tears, Out Of Myself, 02 Panic Room, River Down Below, Wasteland) arranged and performed in acoustic guises. Incredible — but possible! A progressive rock outfit thus played Ljubljana for a second time in fewer than 365 days, and for the third time overall (RockLine review of the concert HERE). Yes, that too is possible. In Slovenia — seemingly impenetrable to progressive rock, where you have to search for shows in that genre with a lantern in broad daylight — this feat was pulled off by none other than Riverside. And three times at that. Fortunately, it turned out that we Slovenes are equally immune to the coronavirus, and Riverside arrived in Slovenia for the third time having leapfrogged “hygienically suspect” Italy (cancelling shows in Milan and Treviso) for health and safety reasons, coming to us straight from Spain.
Riverside, in their lineup with Maciej Meller, have matured further as a live act compared to meeting them a year earlier. They are a band driven above all by exquisitely refined sonic perfectionism, and one whose artistic gestures are devoted first and foremost to building an extraordinarily rich and dynamic atmospheric theatre of gripping proportions — with vast room for the melancholy that has always accompanied the band’s expressive character. Adding to this is the stage backdrop of countless lights, hazes and lasers, which amplifies that element and grows richer year by year. The new concert of superlatives — only slightly shaken at the very opening by a weaker sound mix, which the technicians quickly sorted out — confirmed once again that Riverside, in terms of live performance, are simply one of the best rock entities around right now and a guaranteed great night. They just astound you. Two hours and five minutes of full-throttle playing, performed with the commitment of a band in front of a packed house of a good 800 — the official capacity of CUK Kino Šiška — rather than the mere two hundred souls who were actually there for this particular show. They played hard, focused, and dedicated. Passionately, surrendering to the emotion. They revelled in everything they put their hands to, and that energy simply spilled over instantly to the audience, who greeted the end of each number with thunderous applause and salvos of enthusiastic cheers.
With a few comments, bassist and vocalist Mariusz Duda also encouraged the audience to get more involved — above all, one of his questions to the crowd about how they were doing stood out: “Are you okay? Do you need a coffee or tea, or anything like that?” To which someone in the audience cleverly flipped the word “tea” and quipped: “Yes! I need a T-shirt!” The dig was aimed at the fact that Riverside had arrived at CUK Kino Šiška once again without official merch, leaving fans with nowhere to buy their official tour shirts or similar….
Riverside gave “Wasteland” another very generous showing. The repertoire was much the same as a year ago, with tracks shuffled around a bit. There were some nice gems in the refreshed setlist, though — for instance Conceiving Me from the second album “Second Life Syndrome” (RockLine review HERE), preceded by the brilliant back-to-back pairing of two “Anno Domini High Definition” (RockLine review HERE) standouts Hyperactive and Driven to Destruction. The opening and closing sections of the concert’s repertoire were devoted to tracks from “Wasteland”.
Mariusz Duda’s excellent — and above all fascinatingly beautiful — vocals were accompanied by some tonal effects, and Riverside showed their strength above all in the extremely contrasting shifts of mood: from tender, dreamy and intimate passages where Mariusz’s voice speaks almost in a whisper, they would suddenly expand into sweeps of hyperexplosive sonic phrasing, keeping the audience in constant theatrical suspense. The sensation of sweetly yearning suspension was brought back to earth by those contrasting surges. Above all, Riverside are masters of mood escalation. They can dwell on a motif for a very long time, but as they play it, they build the atmosphere by constantly adding new layers of sonic colour, ramping up the moment of drama — and bombast. Meller proved himself more than a worthy successor to Piotr Grudzinski, while Michal Lapaj — who was celebrating his birthday that very day at the Ljubljana concert — is the true king of the keyboards, making full use of his performative agility while also skilfully and deftly exploiting the sonic character of the theremin. Mariusz stepped on the wah pedal several times, his bass consequently taking on a more prominently accented, rattling edge. None of it would have worked without the brilliant Piotr Kozieradski, who astounded with his drumming subtlety and versatility. Riverside are an incredibly tight unit, in complete command of every detail of development and attainment — vibrant climaxes, sudden leaps in mood, and the unfolding of vast expanses of rich sonic landscape. The Depth Of Self-Delusion, a standout track from “Shrine Of New Generation Slaves” (RockLine review HERE), announced the final atmospheric crescendo, further raised by the transition into 02 Panic Room (album “Rapid Eye Movement” — RockLine review HERE), and then the tender acoustic turn into the extraordinary new River Down Below, with which Riverside closed the main set. At that point, Lapaj was set just a touch too quietly in the mix when harmonising Mariusz’s vocals. A minor note, hardly worth mentioning.
The band returned for the obligatory encore. Mildly surprising was the inclusion of a cover of the Pink Floyd original Wish You Were Here, which Riverside tackled in their own way — with Meller making no changes to his guitar sound setup, his PRS guitar ringing out with distortion (even in the opening solo, which is acoustic in the original). The band’s sound technician stepped on stage and picked up the bass, while Mariusz played acoustic guitar for this one. The band dedicated the song to the memory of Piotr Grudzinski, and the concert then concluded theatrically with the opening track of “Wasteland”, the brief The Day After — and the circle was complete.
All in all, a brilliantly good concert spectacle that kept you gently swaying in the atmosphere it created for quite a while, firmly holding you in a trance before you finally “snapped out” of it. Simply. Riverside remain true masters of their craft and prog rock diamonds of the first order. Abroad — especially in the Benelux countries, Germany, and Scandinavia — they’ve already broken through to genuine big-league status, filling large venues. The band’s third Ljubljana show stands as their finest Slovenian performance to date. A year ago we made no secret of our great enthusiasm when they played at CUK Kino Šiška, asking ourselves whether it could get any better. The answer is yes. It can get better. Given all the perfection and performative brilliance the band has accustomed its fans to, the answer is a resounding yes. Let’s hope a fourth visit to Slovenia will follow.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photographs: Aleš Podbrežnik
You can read the RockLine interview with Riverside and their frontman Mariusz Duda HERE!
Setlist:
1. Wasteland Soundscape
2. Acid Rain
3. Vale of Tears
4. Reality Dream I
5. Lament
6. Hyperactive
7. Driven to Destruction
8. Conceiving You
9. Second Life Syndrome
10. Left Out
11. Guardian Angel
12. Lost (Why Should I Be Frightened By a Hat?)
13. Egoist Hedonist
14. Wasteland
15. The Depth of Self-Delusion
16. 02 Panic Room
17. River Down Below
—encore—
18. Wish You Were Here
19. The Day After
