Blasted Away For 53 Minutes – Cage Listening Session Of Pepper’s Ghost (October 2004)

On Saturday October 30, there was a special gathering at the picturesque village of Soesterberg in the Netherlands. Here, Clive would play the new Arena album Pepper’s Ghost to the people who make the Cage happen. Who would have thought a few years ago that I would be present at that listening session?

I can remember very well how Erik Beers of the Cage kept on harassing me for years with this music of his called ‘progressive rock’: manic synthesizers that want you to believe that you are either fighting with King Arthur or that you are chasing princess Leia; guitar players that want to fit as many notes in a bar as possible; impossible measures and lyrics about barbarians, trolls, knights on a quest for treasures, dragons on a quest for knights, flying saucers and the end of the world. Preferably, all of these together.

‘That’s great music’, me and my friends said to Erik, ‘for chasing people away who stay too long at your party when you want to go to bed. This music is just insane. How can you listen to this without ending up in a madhouse?’

However, Erik is a persistent fellow. Year after year, he kept playing me new albums of bands like Arena and Ayreon. Lyrically, I found it interesting. I have always liked stories about knights, kings and gods. The artwork looked stunning as well. But that music was just too much. Over the top.

One day, after having heard the latest Arena album for the millionth time at Erik’s, it finally grabbed me. ‘That music is actually quite nice.’ He gave me a promo CD of Contagion and I took it with me when I went to South America for three months in 2003. [The winter of 2003 in the southern hemisphere that was: I had better done that the other way around.] I must admit, it was one of the few discs that I could listen to for so many times without boring me in the end. In December 2003, I went to the fan club meeting at the ‘Boerderij’ in Zoetermeer where I saw Arena live for the first time. That was a great experience.

Almost a year later, there I was at the special Cage listening session of Pepper’s Ghost. At five a clock, I arrived at Marcel Kolenbrander’s place where it would all happen. ‘Is everybody in? Let’s spin that disc! What? We have to wait until 7.30? Ah, no! Come on!’

For two and a half hours, we were waiting impatiently. What is the new album going to sound like? Are we going to like it? Clive was there as well, waiting impatiently. ‘Are they going to like it?’

In the meantime, Clive handed out some booklets with the lyrics and a small preview of the artwork. Comic-style characters look at us from a dark, Victorian city background. They are the five band members dressed in distinct outfits. This cover is completely different from the previous Arena albums. What is even more surprising than this complete new look of the cover is the preview of the pages inside the booklet: you see the characters of the front page again, as can be expected. What I did not expect was that they came back as characters in a comic. The artwork will consist of twenty pages of a superhero type comic book.

At 7.25, Clive gave us a short introduction. ‘The album is about madness. It is not a concept album. Every song deals with a different aspect of insanity. It contains seven songs. Songs two until six deal with one of the characters in the booklet but those characters are not linked directly to the lyrics. They just add another layer. In the first and the last song, the characters all team up. You will probably be wondering what the title Pepper’s Ghost is about. Well, in Victorian times, a man called Pepper created illusionary persons on stage using light en mirrors. On stage, you saw the reflection of a reflection. It is all about illusions. And that is all you need to know.’

After ‘play’ was pressed, I got blasted away for the next 53 minutes. There was an introverted song somewhere in the middle but the rest seemed to be loud and fast. After the first song, Bedlam Fayre, someone commented ironically: ‘That’s a nice and quiet opening song’, and after the third track, The Shattered Room, someone said ‘Again!’ Those were the only comments heard during the album. I had heard about the last song, Opera Fanatica, that it ‘features some fairly extravagant instrumental work.’ It was not difficult to understand these words after having listened to that track. It was busy and baroque. A wall of voices and sounds swirled around. Opera voices; a manic guitar-synthesizer theme; a choir. After this song, there remained just one question: ‘How in the world are they going to perform this live?’

When the album had ended, I did not know what to think of Pepper’s Ghost. I could not really relate to the first songs. I felt overwhelmed by the unknown, massive sounds. After having heard the album just once, I liked the last two songs best. Maybe that was because I had gotten used to the new sound a little by then. When you realize that Erik had to bombard me for years with his Arena albums before I started liking them, you will understand that it takes some time for me to get used to new music. Give me the album and a week in solitary confinement and I will be happy to give you my opinion about Pepper’s Ghost. At this moment, I really cannot.

By: Niek Hermsen