Focus at The Scene Swansea 2016

I was able to catch Focus one again at The Scene in Swansea last night. The set list was fairly typical in that we started with the oldest material (Focus 1 with Anonymus and House of the King from the first album) followed by a very long and varied exposition of the Eruption theme (Eruption appears on the second album). We then had the famous Sylvia (from Focus 3) and (more unusually) excellent renditions of All Hens on Deck (from Focus X) and Hurkey Turkey 2 and Le Tango (from Focus 8 - the first not a track I recall being covered in a long while). We then had La Cathedrale and Harem Scarem (I am still not convinced about all that goes on under this heading but Menno Gootjes' violining was of a high order). We finished with Hocus Pocus, introduced by some excellent solo Bach flute. Pierre van der Linden appears to have another new  drum kit and somehow he was able to notch things up even further once again in an amazing solo that beggars belief. (How it happens that a piece surely made for the guitarist to show us his skills in becomes a drum tour de force I have complained about many times in the past). As so often in the past this was familiar but excellent stuff and certainly not a simple rehash of past glories. Several songs had been worked on afresh. I had never heard the recording of the bells of Strasbourg play as they were last night, for example. Thijs may not be able to reach the high notes any more but he gets deeper and deeper with those low notes as the years go by. For a 68 year old he is pretty remarkable. As ever he was a good showman and full of self-effacement in his presentation. It was good to shake his hand after the gig and get him to sign my copy of Focus 8.5 on sale at the gig. (I had bumped into Bobby the bassist earlier in the loos!).