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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
» LIVE REVIEWS
» SPECIALS
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MARCEL COENEN & FRIENDS - COLLEEN GRAY
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De Bosuil, Weert (NL)
January 28th 2006
http://www.marcelcoenen.com
http://www.colleengray.com
The extremely talented guitarist Marcel Coenen has released his second solo CD, which not only shows his incredible playing skills, but even more his also incredible songwriting capabilities! There are many guestmusicians on the album, to give each song the specific sound it needs. Most of those musicians came together for this one time event, the CD release party! Esp. the fact that that means having 7 singers on stage, some of which traveled all the way from Sweden and the USA to be part of this, promised to make this a very special happening! And indeed it was!
The lovely Californian singer/songwriter/pianist COLLEEN GRAY had the honour of opening for Marcel, which she did very well. The volume wasn't very high, so it was a bit disturbing to hear people in the audience chatting with each other, while she was performing her acoustic (piano only) songs, but the performance itself was definitely good! Her warm and at times also powerful voice did get praise from the audience. In Kansas' "Dust In The Wind" she was spontaneously supported by Sun Caged singer Paul Adrian Villarreal, as well as in "Only I" where Joyce Dijkgraaf of Elleanore joined them as well. Most of the songs were her own compositions, but she also did two covers, the abovementioned "Dust In The Wind" and Journey's "Faithfully" where we had to help with the oh-oooh's :) Colleen was captured standing behind someone else's keyboard that was a bit too low for her and standing in the back of the stage, between the two drumkits. It probably
would've helped if she was closer to the public, it would've made the  contact easier, but the "shockingly nice" Dutch people enjoyed her show anyway. Colleen's a very talented girl that you should check out (e.g. on myspace/shadesofgray or colleengray.com) if you like piano songs with a strong, warm voice!
setlist Colleen:
Winds Of Change
Isn't It? (part I - Innocence)
Dust In The Wind
Shades Of Gray
Hold On To Love
Rain (Instrumental)
How Can I Be So Blind
I Will Always
Faithfully
Only I
The whole show was captured by several cameras of Lowlife Media for a DVD to be released around October. Unfortunately MARCEL COENEN decided to announce most of the songs in Dutch, because most visitors were Dutch, but I don't think that's wise if you're recording the show. But ok, it's the music itself that counts the most and of course the whole party feel of having so many guests involved. They played all songs from the "Colour Journey" album and also a few from Marcel's first solo album "Guitar Talk". As a bonus we got two covers as well:)
Marcel opens the set with the instrumental "Abstract Impact" with Richard Ritterbeeks and Hans in 't Zandt of Time Machine on bass and drums and ex-Symmetry guitarist Frank Schiphorst on second guitar. 
Frank's a great choice (great player as well as cool stage presence!) and already in this first song he takes on a duel with Marcel that promises a lot for the rest of the show. One of my favorites came second, the song with my old pal Hans Reinders: "V(erbal) D(efense) M(echanism)". Great grungy song and great performance! Sun Caged' Roel van Helden took over the drums and Arabesque keyboarder René Ubachs joined the band as well (he 
didn't play on the album and learned all this in a week!). Hans in 't Zandt took his place behind the drumkit again for the instrumental song he wrote with an American guitarist, "The Shrink". When "La Bella Mira" started,
Marcel's girlfriend of course came to the front (she had been selling merch in the back) to enjoy this instrumental dedicated to her from up close. For the heavy thrasher "Traumatized To The Bone" the grunters came on stage,
Menno Corbeek (ex-Chemical Breath) and Dennis Schreurs (Severe Torture). Complimented by Colleen and backed up by Paul and Joyce it was quite a spectacle!! "Still Bleeding" puts the soprano singer Joyce Dijkgraaf in the spotlight. A type of vocals I usually don't like much, but her voice is so warm, it was really beautiful. For the Sun Caged-type song "Patron Saint" several members of that band joined Marcel 
and it was followed by the instrumental "Moyra" from his debut "Guitar Talk". "That Moment" was performed by Colleen Gray on vocals and keyboard, accompanied by Frank on acoustic guitar and of course Marcel. For the funky "Skill Factor" there was another drummer change (Roel) and it was instrumental, like "Inner Alchemy" of "Guitar Talk" after that. "Shoreline" is also from "Guitar Talk" and featured Stormrider drummer Spike and Engine Of Pain bassist Maurice Brouwers. Back to instrumental with the fast "New Race" and then it was finally time for the energetic "Waiting" with a singer who's so powerful that he wiped all other singers away (regardless their respective talents!), Mike Andersson of Cloudscape! He and his 
guitarist Patrick (who was Marcel's grou... errrrm roadie for this gig!) traveled from Sweden to be a part of this. We saw Mike again for another song, but the first encore was Alice In Chains' "Rooster" that was of course performed by Hans Reinders. The second encore was again so powerful that I headbanged the whole time (I might even make it on the DVD hehehe). The song is great, but the performance even better: it was again Mike Andersson who is
absolutely perfect for immitating David Coverdale in Whitesnake's "Still Of The Night", as we already saw at Cloudscape's show at the last ProgPower edition!! That's where Marcel said, hey I want that in my show as well! It was the grand finale of a great party, although we continued at the bar for a while. I'm sure Marcel will never forget this night, but neither will any of his guests nor visitors!
setlist Marcel Coenen:
Abstract Impact
(V)erbal (D)efense (M)echanism
The Shrink
La Bella Mira
Traumatized To The Bone
Still Bleeding
Patron Saint
Moyra
That Moment
Skill Factor
Inner Alchemy
Shoreline
New Race
Waiting
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Rooster
Still Of The Night
submitted by Marlies 05.02.2006
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