MUSIC REVIEW: Ayreon: Live Beneath the Waves
Recorded Live in Tilburg; September 2023
It goes without saying that I’m a big fan of Arjen Lucassen and pretty much everything that he does. Now, I’ve been to one of every one of Ayreon’s shows at this point, so I was of course at “01011001: Live Beneath the Waves” back in September 2023 and it was an absolutely brilliant experience! Well, it’s finally time for the live video package to be released, via Mascot Label Group on May 17th, 2024. With that in mind, you can get the full perspective on the live event by reading the live report I wrote, so this review will be focused on the live release, so as not to repeat myself too much.
This next paragraph is dedicated to my history with the band, so that you can compare your taste against mine. If you’re not interested, feel free to skip past this paragraph and head down to the review in proper!
I first got into Arjen Lucassen and his music back in the mid-2000s. I used to regularly visit my local music shop in Calgary and “01011001” stared at me every time I went in, until finally I broke down and bought it just so I would stop seeing it sitting there every time. I proceeded to get obsessed with the album and its concept for a window of time, ordered both “Universal Migrator” albums and “Into the Electric Castle,” and then completely forgot about the band after none of those albums really stood out to me (they have some incredible tracks, don’t get me wrong, and I love the stories, but they never grasped me musically in the same way). Fast-forward to 2010 in Finland: I kept hearing my former roommate singing something amazing in her room, which turned out to be “Voices” from “The Human Equation,” which reminded me of the band’s existence. I can’t remember what led to me eventually getting into that album, but it has ever since become what I consider to be the best album written by anyone, ever. As mentioned, I’ve been to (one of) each of Ayreon’s live shows (“Ayreon Universe” being my favorite-ever live show) and these days, what with the music media business I’ve been in for the past decade, I’ve actively been following Arjen’s career since “The Theater Equation” back in 2013. “The Theory of Everything” is, in my personal opinion, a half-super-brilliant-masterpiece with spectacular musicianship, half-too-much-dialogue-talk-singing; however, I loved “The Source” and enjoyed “Transitus” despite its very different vibe. I’m quite fond of all three Star One albums, though the first is probably my favorite, and Supersonic Revolution was okay but not what I feel is his best work, and I love a few of his solos songs as well! I also can’t wait for you all to hear the new Plan Nine album (review coming soon). I’ll toss my load of coverage links down at the bottom of this report, but hopefully that gives you a rundown, but suffice to say, I’m a fan—enough so that I hope to get him on my podcast one of these days.
The first thing that excited the hell out of me in this release was the first track, “Age of Shadows / We Are Forever,” simply because, when we were at the show, we hadn't found a prime spot in the venue yet, so I couldn't see the stage at all. That means I totally missed the musicians coming out and revealing the “01011001” print on their shirts. This was such a cool way to start off the show—I'm sorry that I didn’t see it at the time, but that’s what these live releases are for, right? This track is also spectacular for the way the stage comes to life as the industrial music kicks off. It’s great!
Another great moment is when Brittney Slayes (Unleash the Archers) appears. It's not hard to learn that she has a 4-octave range if you look her up, but casual fans surely don't know what she's capable of because she doesn't explore her full range in her own band very much. Here, she's doing Floor Jansen's parts, which are quite operatic and very high. I remain extremely impressed every time I watch her.
“Live Beneath the Waves” marks the fourth version of “Comatose” that I've heard and my partner and I get in an amiable spat about it every time, because he loves the version with Joonas Renkse from “Ayreon Universe” and thinks that Damian Wilson is overacting a bit; I think he's just excited and perhaps he did kick it up a little hard, but I still think he did a good job of it (my partner admits to being biased based per how much he loves the “Ayreon Universe” rendition). This video also makes me wish that Ayreon shows weren't the only place for me to see some of these artists! Damian, Maggie Luyten, and Jaycee Cuijpers are all pretty rare catches live, with many of them only rarely or never coming through Finland, and they're all outstanding singers and performers.
Another extremely special moment is when Arjen comes out for “Connect the Dots”—not his original part (that would be Ty Tabor), but I’m really glad they put so many crowd shots in this track, to show just how emotional and excited people get when Arjen shows up—they start going kind of bananas, and it’s not just young folks, but people of literally all ages. Before “Electric Castle Live,” he’s tended to stay backstage until the end of the shows, so it’s nice to see him taking the stage more and more, considering he’s quite legendary for having stage fright.
At this point I also feel like it’s worth shouting out this edition of the Ayreon band. Of course, we’re well-familiar with Joost van den Boeck (keyboards/synths/organs), Ed Warby (drums), Jeroen Goossens (flutes), Ben Mathot (violins), and Johan von Stratum (bass), who are all also the original instrumentalists from the album. We have to also appreciate Marcel Coenen (guitar), who was back after we missed him during “Electric Castle Live,” and newcomer Timo Somers (guitar), who was showing off his stuff with this group for the first time. This is truly an all-star cast of musicians and again, this is often our only opportunity to see many of them playing.
On that note, I feel like I should drop an extremely special thank you letter to Ed Warby, right here, right now…
Thank you, Ed. You are a total legend. The fact that you played five nearly-3-hour shows in 3 days is insane. You didn’t need to agree to do it. You didn’t need to add a second daytime show. But, the behind-the-scenes material says that they asked you first and if you hadn’t said yes, they wouldn’t have bothered asking anyone else. You, however, wanted to let fans have as many opportunities to see this incredible show as possible and (up to) three thousand people would have missed out if it wasn’t for you. And, they claim to have recorded the live shows for release on Sunday, which means these were your last shows and you still played flawlessly. Thank you, and, just… wow!
“Liquid Eternity,” I feel, found new life and energy after the release of “The Source,” and it felt so fresh and incredible live, especially as it gives a lot of space to the instrumentalists to show off their skills as well. “Beneath the Waves” is another song that we’ve seen during “Ayreon Universe” and it worked equally well this time around, benefiting from gorgeous lighting and atmosphere. “Newborn Race” is an easy highlight for those “listen to the warning” parts and group vocals, backed by swirling strands of DNA on the backing screens. Hansi’s parts are also deeply memorable.
“Ride the Comet” was also seen during “Ayreon Universe,” though it had a bit of a different flare with Brittney on vocals and it’s nice to be able to see the guitar flourishes and texture from Marcel and Timo—you miss a lot of these great details when you’re watching live. The use of props in “Web of Lies” was also great—I wonder where they found that ancient computer? It was nice, again, to see it up closer. It’s also worth saying that it was cool that Simone Simons came to this show, despite it being her only song on the album—I think it speaks a lot for how fun these shows are to be a part of, and how much people love working with Arjen.
Naturally, Arjen returned for his original song, “The Truth Is in Here,” which is also special for being the only song to feature Liselotte Hegt on vocals, another original singer, who does a spectacular job. Ambient, atmospheric build-ups are the name of the game in “Unnatural Selection,” which is particularly awesome for some vocal highlights and the creepy “listen to the warnings” parts… and also Mike Mills just being incredible and the bass lines being groovy as hell. Also, also, also, the fierce combo of Irene Jansen and Marcella Bovio is a very special treat. “River of Time” is another one we’ve seen live before, but last time Hansi was paired with Marko Hietala; this time he’s accompanied by Damian Wilson.
Naturally, “E=MC²” is a natural banger with extra bonus points for featuring its original vocalists: Marjan Welman, who is an absolute delight while also being eerie and haunting, and Wudstick, who had replaced Arjen in “The Theater Equation,” so it was really fun to see him again and see him doing his own part and adding a lot of high notes and flourish—what a bunch of great vocalists! Then, the album wraps up with “The Sixth Extinction,” which you’ve surely already seen as the first song teased from the album, what with its magnificent interplay of all of the vocalists. The disturbing, haunting feeling when Jonas comes in, warning us that 2085 is the cut-off point; Damian giving hope and heart; and Mike singing the album’s best (or at least most famous) lyrics, “the meaning of life is to give life meaning,” is just perfection; the crowd can be heard joining Jaycee in shouting, “prepare to die,” and it’s just chilling. When it builds to the big crescendo with all the vocalists? At least you should have head-to-toe goosebumps and at worst you should be in tears! It’s just too much awesome to be in one place, recorded for all to enjoy!
The selection of encore songs was extremely fun, as they gave Simone (who only had one part prior to this) another opportunity to sing in “This Human Equation,” and she’s just such an all-star performer that you know it’s great. Then, again, they gave Brittney another chance to slay us (hurr hurr, no one’s sick of those jokes yet), since she did come all the way from Canada, with her Star One song, “Fate of Man.” However, I recall the sheer overload of excitement I got when the first few notes of “The Day that the World Breaks Down” started playing, because that is truly a masterpiece work of art and one of my all-time favorite songs. I can’t say that I liked the live version better than the original—this is not a fault, just that the new singers all put their own spin on the song and, as a matter of taste, I like the original better—but I do want to shout out a few of the parts of this 13-minute behemoth: Hansi for sounding just like in the original, Mike for bringing a truly mind-boggling piece of musical art to life in a live setting that only enhanced it (also, bringing back the TH1 costume from “Ayreon Universe” was an awesome call-back), and the combination of Irene Jansen and Marcela Bovio in Floor Jansen’s part at the end—this gave us the fan service of Irene in Floor’s shoes, while still respecting her voice as something of its own, no matter how similar they sound.
Now, regarding the video overall, the quality and choice of the live shots are wonderful. They are incredibly well-selected and pieced together. If I have one complaint, however, it's the fast pacing of cuts and the use of what feels like completely randomized inclusions of slow-motion clips. These slow-motion moments aren't used optimally (most of the time) and because the whole show is extremely fast-cut (as in, almost every shot shot lasts a maximum of 3 seconds throughout most of the show), the slow-motion parts feel less stylish and more like there was some sort of lag in one of the clips. There are some incidents towards the end where they are used for good drama, but the fact that they feel like they're randomly spammed throughout the whole live set feels, admittedly, a bit amateur, because it really disjoints the overall flow of the video. Furthermore, I would’ve appreciated the cuts a bit more if the shots weren’t so fast. It creates a bit of an anxiety on watching when noticed, because the scene keeps changing before you have a chance to process. In the slower parts (like Arjen’s speech), there is more room for the video cuts to breathe, but during the show it’s a bit too much a lot of the time (it honestly seems like the video editor(s) did a little too much unnecessary work).
Overall, however, this is still a very nicely made live release and the behind the scenes interview clips were nice, if a bit simple/short. I might be disappointed by the 20€ increase in cost this time around for the deluxe edition… 50€ was quite manageable but 70€ is pushing it (I, personally, had to limit myself to the Blu-ray because of this), especially when the video editing doesn’t come across as very professional, so that’s a bit of a shame. However, if you’ve got the coins to spend and want to give them to a worthy cause, Ayreon’s “01011001: Live Beneath the Waves” is one hell of a good cause when it comes to music and arts. If this support and love for Arjen Lucassen’s space operas continue, who knows what the future may hold?! Fingers crossed that in 2025, we’ll be planning yet another trip back to Tilburg to see “The Source” or “Transitus,” or maybe even “The Theory of Everything”! It doesn’t matter which it’ll be, I’ll surely be there!
Setlist
March of the Machines
Age of Shadows
Comatose
Liquid Eternity
Connect the Dots
Beneath the Waves
Newborn Race
Ride the Comet
Web of Lies
The Fifth Extinction
Waking Dreams
The Truth Is in Here
Unnatural Selection
River of Time
E=MC2
The Sixth Extinction
Encore:
This Human Equation
Fate of Man
The Day that the World Breaks Down
READ MORE: (2004) Ayreon - “The Human Equation” album review // (2015) Ayreon - “The Theater Equation” live report // Playlist of My Life - Arjen Lucassen // (2016) Ayreon - “The Theater Equation” live album/DVD review // (2017) Ayreon - “The Source” album review // (2017) Ayreon - “Ayreon Universe” photo gallery // (2017) Ayreon - “Ayreon Universe” live report // (2018) Ayreon - “Ayreon Universe” live album/DVD review // (2019) Ayreon - “Electric Castle & Other Tales” photo gallery // (2019) Ayreon - “Electric Castle Live & Other Tales” live report // (2020) Ayreon - “Transitus” album review // (2023) Ayreon - “Live Beneath the Waves” live report
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