Is It A Boy Or A Girl? Cage Listening Session Of Pepper’s Ghost
October 2004

I replied to an invitation from The Cage, in which they asked to give a good reason why they should invite you for a listing party of the new album (in other words, I could hear the new Arena CD months before its release). I could think of a reason so I e-mailed them. A couple of days before the ‘birth’ I got a phone call from Marcel (from the Cage) whether I could be there next Saturday. I was the winner of the competition! 

On Saturday October 30 I drove to the party and ended up in a house in the middle of the Netherlands. The mood was tense and Clive was almost behaving like an expecting father, making phone calls and maybe playing some games on his cell phone. On the TV the DVD from Arena’s Live & Life box set was playing to pass the time. 

Finally the moment came. Clive gave a short introduction in which he explained us the story of the new album, the characters in the songs and the artwork. Then he went off to the kitchen and left us alone with his new child…

OK, now comes the hard bit! I remember some highlights from the CD and those were: track three (The Shattered Room), track six (Purgatory Road) and track seven (Opera Fanatica). At the end of The Shattered Room I couldn’t resist and had to call for another go of that track, great guitars from John. The intro from the second song (Smoke And Mirrors) was breathtaking and of course Clive’s masterpiece (Opera Fanatica) was brilliant. He told us this track was written totally by himself. 

When the CD player had stopped, you could almost hear a deep sigh from the people attending. Some discussions started and a Cage co-worker took his time to interview Clive. When I left to head home, some parts of the album were still going round in my head and I kept saying to myself ‘it’s almost January.’

The main question that remains is, how does Pepper’s Ghost relate to the previous Arena albums? Well, it definitely has an Arena sound and it sounds innovative. The frustrating thing about this very special evening is to be left alone with for now nothing but memories… no chance to hear this ‘child’ again until January 2005.

Thank you Arena and The Cage for making this happen, a unique opportunity to hear Arena’s new album. 

Is it a boy or a girl… it’s up to you!

By: Aschwin Nagtegaal