Just discovered Ayreon, anyone else?

We really like James La Brie’s voice. He along with the whole of Dream Theater are amazing live.
They finished with an INCREDIBLE version of Count of Tuscany at Wembley in April last year. Surprisingly, James was pretty much drowned out by the fans at the end. Great show, can’t wait for February when we will see them at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham.

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Ayreon had another band/project called stream of passion which put out a few albums. This was more like a proper band than his normal projects with different singers. I was lucky enough to see them live in the uk, as well as playing that band’s material they also did some Ayreon tracks and had Damien Wilson (who was the support act) on stage to sing them. It was a really good gig.

I really enjoyed the live electric castle dvd, that was a lockdown purchase and it was a really fun gig to watch whilst unable to watch live music.

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Right! that’s on next!

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Not HEAVY enough for me today I think…

Star One then?

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That should be Heavy enough… :crazy_face:

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Did you get the Blu-Ray ordered young man?

I haven’t yet Nick, just waiting for some post Christmas funds to hit the bank account.
Then I’ll be getting a few things purchased and that BluRay will definitely be one of them, unless it comes on my birthday next week😊

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Post Christmas funds? ah yes I remember those! hope you had a nice Christmas and an enjoyable new year to come I hope!

Had to tap my pension pot for a top up this year as things have got expensive around car and house repairs🤦🏻‍♂️
I hate doing it at this time of year as my tax allowance is all used up, so a chunk has to go to the bloody HMRC🤬

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You know, some of that rings a bell! HMRC though! Stinks!

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A YouTube Vocal Coach ‘reaction’ to Ayreon’s Valley of the Queens - live, featuring Anneke van Giersbergen, Marcela Bovio and Floor Jansen. The poor coach only knew Floor… :astonished:

But I think she liked it - and Marcela liked her reaction…!!

[Footnote - Anneke was Floor’s inspiration as a singer.)

Original YouTube -

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Thanks for posting this Ian, this has just started me down another rabbit hole with Marcela: Floor & Anneke I am well aware of but I didn’t join the dots for Marcela & Stream of Passion and MaYan. Down I go…

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Sorry… Not…!!! Lols… :crazy_face:

There is also The Gentle Storm…

Ooops…!!

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Expanding my Ayreon education this afternoon :blush:

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You could go into Encyclopedia Metallum and to the Ayreon page; from there click the “Similar Artists” tab and there will be 20+ similar artists for you to try and all of whom have their own pages and their own ‘similar artists’ tab (wormholes galore).

It’s an incredible resource.

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Thank you young man, I shall definitely be giving that a look at, thanks for the heads up!

aka Metal Archives.

Its new to me, but it gives you a Top 20 of Similar Artists - which includes the obvious candidates from Arjen’s other 'projects (so, Star One, The Gentle Storm, Stream of Passion).

One I have used is Music Map, which presents the results as a 2d ‘map’ - nearer being most similar.

Music Map / Ayreon

If you click on another band, the map is redrawn around them.

And its not just Metal… :grimacing:

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Thank you so much when I get home I’ll take a look.

Warning…! In nether case are the signs for Rabbit Holes obvious. In fact there are no warnings at all…

Personally (YMMV… etc), I tried Music Map with limited success. I have found more success in following specific singers or players. Like this -

Nightwish - Floor Jansen - Ayreon - Arjen Lucassen - Star One - The Gentle Storm - Anneke von Giersbergen - The Gathering - and so on…

Finding someone like Arjen is a huge bonus… :crazy_face:

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