Arjen is such a genius musician! Michael Mills, Toehider Tommy Karevik, Kamelot Hansi Kursch, Blind Guardian Maggy Luyten, Nightmare Floor Jansen, Star One, Ayreon, Nightwish Marcel Coenen , Sun Caged, Lead guitar Sir Joost van den Broek, Keyboards Ed Warby, Star One, Ayreon Drums Johan van Stratum VUUR Bass guitar Ferry Duijsens , VUUR Rhythm guitar
"Does every song have like 15 million singers on it?" - no, there are songs with one or two singers, up to TDTTWBD which has 11. This song has a relatively large number of singers too, higher than average for an Ayreon song. Every song he writes is part of a story, and every story has characters, which - in Ayreon music - are all portrayed by different singers. Some beautiful / kick-ass songs from a single character's perspective: - Dawn of a Million Souls - Into the Black hole - My House on Mars - And the Druids Turned to Stone "Is that Floor's thing? Does she just show up at the end of every track?" - Arjen likes setting her off like a bomb from time to time, yes. She's been featuring on Ayreon albums since 2000.
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. 'The Source' (the album which this song is from) is technically the start of the story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Somewhere in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
This show was the first after 21 years without live concerts, so Arjen Luccasen (the man behind and in front of Ayreon) brought the best of his work to the scenery. This show (3 nights if I'm not wrong) had 16 singers and 11 musicians. Oh dear, I wish I had been there! The dude with wires on his head is the android TH1, the same as the binary language. And actually, Mike Mills is like an android since, in his band, Toehider (the inspiration of the name TH1) it's only him who does all the musical stuff, literally. Mike Mills is amazing
Can you imagine the background singers are world class on there own. Irene Jansen ( correct sister of) Lisette van den Berg and Marcela Bovio. Michaels Mills Tommy Karevik Maggie Luyten Hansi Kürsch And our Floor
That lead guitar player dude is Marcel Coenen. He's one of the best in the world, right up there with Romeo and Petrucci. Check out his work with LEMUR VOICE and SUN CAGED. He has a channel here on U2B. Here is a link to one of his songs: ruclips.net/video/Q-zd9bYiOW8/видео.html
Arjen likes to have Floor swoop in and give the song a big finish, I think. Arjen doesn’t appear onstage very much…he has stage fright. For these live performances, the keyboard player…Joost Van Den Broeke (who used to play in Floor’s first band After Forever, by the way)…handles the other musicians and stage production. Arjen comes on at the end of this Ayreon Universe show, and appears more in the Electric Castle Live show.
It does seem like Arjen uses Floor like a tactical nuke, doesn’t it? Arjen only plays on a couple of songs in this show. One of those is “The Castle Hall” (see MisterJ56’s link). He plays the part of the Hippie in the “Electric Castle Live” show., so he sings on several songs there.
It's not Floor's thing to always appear at the end, but Arjen's. She is his secret weapon and the best always comes at the end. 😁 Arjen has the greatest possible stage anxiety. That's why others do it for him, so to speak. 😉
This was a special performance in which most, if not all of the singers were able to come for the live performance. Arjen tends to be shy on stage and gets some of the best instrumentalists he can find for live shows. He does make an appearance in a few of the videos, for example, The Eye of Ra. Because Aryeon is not a band, per se, all the parts are variable. Think about the logistics of getting singers from 11 different bands to appear for a performance like this, not just the band timing, but all the contracts with the various promoters and record labels.
With Ayreon, the more serious the topic, the more upbeat the song. Also, Arjen only appears on a few of the 'Universe Live', songs - If you want to see him play Live, check out 'The Castle Hall' from Ayreon Universe. He plays a role on the whole of 'The Electric Castle and Other Tales' concert, but that's a vocal role. The next song in the story, from the Universe Concert is - 'The Star of Sirrah'
In general I think the majority of Ayreon songs feature either 2 or 3 singers with certain key songs on the album going to 4 or 5. "The Day the World breaks down" was a bit of an extreme example.
My favourite one singer track is Twisted Coil (at electric castle live). There are backing singers but its really all Damian Wilson. He is completely amazing, like floor Jansen amazing. It has the same build up as Ghost Love Score does, and his vocal at the end gives me the same feeling.
Cool fact. Ross from Haken is on the next Star one album and yes its Arjen Lucassen that make it sot, even if its not the same thing as Ayreon its very close :) Btw Ross sings that track with de binary dude 😉 check it out, the singel is online on youtube :)
This song is from Ayreon ninth studio album "The Source", prequel to album "01011001" . This DVD is awesome , absolute fire performance by everyone 🤘🔥🤘. And to see Floor with her younger sister Irene ( one of the backup singers , close to the drums ) on the same stage , is absolutely magical 🥰. Instrumentalists • Ed Warby - drums (Star One) • Johan van Stratum (VUUR, ex-Stream of Passion) - bass • Marcel Coenen (Lemur Voice, Sun Caged) - lead guitar • Ferry Duijsens - guitar • Sir - Joost van den Broek (Star One, ex-After Forever) - keyboards Vocalists • Mike Mills (Toehider) • Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) • Tommy Karevik (Kamelot, Seventh Wonder) • Maggy Luyten (ex -Nightmare) • Floor Jansen (Star one, Nightwish, ex-After Forever, ex-ReVamp) Backup Vocalists • Irene Jansen (Star One) • Lisette van den Berg (Scarlet Stories) • Marcela Bovio (Star One, MaYaN, ex-Stream of Passion, ex-Elfonía) I believe it was I who left you the Whole Universe Concert List 😉 ruclips.net/video/hPcDLWsRX04/видео.html Just in case NWSU/Ayreonaut ✌😁🤘 And new subscriber for that !!!!!
There is a difference between the studio albums and live (Universe/Star One) performances. Where Arjen plays keys and guitar parts himself for the studio albums, he can't play all those instruments himself live, so multiple instrumentalists are the way to go for live shows. On top of that Arjen is notoriously shy and doesn't like to be on stage. A nice example is 'The Eye of Ra', one of the few times he does appear on stage. As soon as the song is finished, he storms off stage. You can see Floor pointing at him to get the audience's attention to Arjen, but he's long gone. You can just see him leave the stage at the left side 😁
Not just based on PF but very much on seventies prog rock in general. The Keyboard player sure gives of vibes of a Rick Wakeman and Michael Mills reaches into the vocal ranges Jon Anderson was known for. Arjan also likes to use the flute in his compositions, a throwback to Jethro Tull , Camel or Focus.
Ayreon is something else. The single greatest sci fi audiobook series out there. Arjen has a way of painting the landscape in sound. If you like getting taken somewhere, there is no deeper and wider rabbit hole than this, one might even call it a Universe ;)
Arjen himself doesn't appear on many of the songs in the concert but the ones he does appear in are too good to pass up. Try the song "Amazing Flight" or "The Eye Of Ra" to see every singer and musician on the stage at one time.
Arjen does show up in some of the songs but when he writes these songs he imagines what singers would go well for the parts and tries to really them up. Not all of them can show up so he uses a replacement because the show must go on right? Did you know he has had Joe Satriani Perform for him. Infact here's a shortcut to a list of Singers who has performed for him and see how many you recognise. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ayreon_guest_musicians Also are you aware one of those three back up singers is Floors sister Irene Jansen? Here's a link to a song they both did together. ruclips.net/video/GkiF1UddMMw/видео.html Happy Watching.
Hey, you should definitely check out The Electric Castle album live shows featuring John de Lance the actor who played Q from Star Trek the next generation series as a live narrator, awesome thanks requesting 😎
On a completely different planet, have you tried the Japanese band Ningen Isu? Here;s a link to Heartless Scat... ruclips.net/video/CbI79e5iZKs/видео.html
![[Reaction] Ayreon - Everybody Dies Feat. Floor Jansen (Head is about to EXPLODE)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3tl62zylTAw/mqdefault.jpg)
Backing singers: Lisette van den Berg (Scarlet Stories), Marcela Bovio (MaYan) , Irene Jansen (ex-Karma) and sister of Floor
Arjen is such a genius musician!
Michael Mills, Toehider
Tommy Karevik, Kamelot
Hansi Kursch, Blind Guardian
Maggy Luyten, Nightmare
Floor Jansen, Star One, Ayreon, Nightwish
Marcel Coenen , Sun Caged, Lead guitar
Sir Joost van den Broek, Keyboards
Ed Warby, Star One, Ayreon Drums
Johan van Stratum VUUR Bass guitar
Ferry Duijsens , VUUR Rhythm guitar
"Does every song have like 15 million singers on it?" - no, there are songs with one or two singers, up to TDTTWBD which has 11. This song has a relatively large number of singers too, higher than average for an Ayreon song. Every song he writes is part of a story, and every story has characters, which - in Ayreon music - are all portrayed by different singers.
Some beautiful / kick-ass songs from a single character's perspective:
- Dawn of a Million Souls
- Into the Black hole
- My House on Mars
- And the Druids Turned to Stone
"Is that Floor's thing? Does she just show up at the end of every track?" - Arjen likes setting her off like a bomb from time to time, yes. She's been featuring on Ayreon albums since 2000.
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. 'The Source' (the album which this song is from) is technically the start of the story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Somewhere in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
This show was the first after 21 years without live concerts, so Arjen Luccasen (the man behind and in front of Ayreon) brought the best of his work to the scenery. This show (3 nights if I'm not wrong) had 16 singers and 11 musicians. Oh dear, I wish I had been there!
The dude with wires on his head is the android TH1, the same as the binary language. And actually, Mike Mills is like an android since, in his band, Toehider (the inspiration of the name TH1) it's only him who does all the musical stuff, literally. Mike Mills is amazing
Next: "Eye of Ra", you will see Arjen and all vocalists on stage at the end!
Can you imagine the background singers are world class on there own. Irene Jansen ( correct sister of) Lisette van den Berg and Marcela Bovio.
Michaels Mills
Tommy Karevik
Maggie Luyten
Hansi Kürsch
And our Floor
If you want to see Arjen, look at the second live concert: the electric castle live and other tales. Arjen sings and plays in several songs.
That lead guitar player dude is Marcel Coenen. He's one of the best in the world, right up there with Romeo and Petrucci. Check out his work with LEMUR VOICE and SUN CAGED. He has a channel here on U2B.
Here is a link to one of his songs: ruclips.net/video/Q-zd9bYiOW8/видео.html
Arjen likes to have Floor swoop in and give the song a big finish, I think. Arjen doesn’t appear onstage very much…he has stage fright. For these live performances, the keyboard player…Joost Van Den Broeke (who used to play in Floor’s first band After Forever, by the way)…handles the other musicians and stage production. Arjen comes on at the end of this Ayreon Universe show, and appears more in the Electric Castle Live show.
The keyboardist is Joost . He is helping Floor with her solo album. Joost is from The day the world breaks down
The Source is one of my favourite albums and certainly my favourite Prog album. Nice reactions!
Yes, Arjen likes to reserve the Floorbomb until the end. It's his thing. :)
It does seem like Arjen uses Floor like a tactical nuke, doesn’t it?
Arjen only plays on a couple of songs in this show. One of those is “The Castle Hall” (see MisterJ56’s link). He plays the part of the Hippie in the “Electric Castle Live” show., so he sings on several songs there.
Great reaction. Cheers from tha Low Countries.
It's not Floor's thing to always appear at the end, but Arjen's. She is his secret weapon and the best always comes at the end. 😁
Arjen has the greatest possible stage anxiety. That's why others do it for him, so to speak. 😉
This was a special performance in which most, if not all of the singers were able to come for the live performance. Arjen tends to be shy on stage and gets some of the best instrumentalists he can find for live shows. He does make an appearance in a few of the videos, for example, The Eye of Ra.
Because Aryeon is not a band, per se, all the parts are variable. Think about the logistics of getting singers from 11 different bands to appear for a performance like this, not just the band timing, but all the contracts with the various promoters and record labels.
With Ayreon, the more serious the topic, the more upbeat the song. Also, Arjen only appears on a few of the 'Universe Live', songs - If you want to see him play Live, check out 'The Castle Hall' from Ayreon Universe. He plays a role on the whole of 'The Electric Castle and Other Tales' concert, but that's a vocal role. The next song in the story, from the Universe Concert is - 'The Star of Sirrah'
In general I think the majority of Ayreon songs feature either 2 or 3 singers with certain key songs on the album going to 4 or 5. "The Day the World breaks down" was a bit of an extreme example.
My favourite one singer track is Twisted Coil (at electric castle live). There are backing singers but its really all Damian Wilson. He is completely amazing, like floor Jansen amazing. It has the same build up as Ghost Love Score does, and his vocal at the end gives me the same feeling.
Cool fact. Ross from Haken is on the next Star one album and yes its Arjen Lucassen that make it sot, even if its not the same thing as Ayreon its very close :) Btw Ross sings that track with de binary dude 😉 check it out, the singel is online on youtube :)
Star One - Prescient (ft Micheal Mills, Ross Jennings) ruclips.net/video/Ff4dFzMXYsM/видео.html
you mast buy the DVD FORM AYREON THEN YOU NO EVERYTHING.
Floor is Arjen’s closer. He brings her in like a Prog Metal Mariano Rivera 😂
nice remark, too uplifting to sing Everybody Dies ... well same goes for Monty Pythons Look at the Bright Side of Life.
This song is from Ayreon ninth studio album "The Source", prequel to album "01011001" .
This DVD is awesome , absolute fire performance by everyone 🤘🔥🤘. And to see Floor with her younger sister Irene ( one of the backup singers , close to the drums ) on the same stage , is absolutely magical 🥰.
Instrumentalists
• Ed Warby - drums (Star One)
• Johan van Stratum (VUUR, ex-Stream of Passion) - bass
• Marcel Coenen (Lemur Voice, Sun Caged) - lead guitar
• Ferry Duijsens - guitar
• Sir - Joost van den Broek (Star One, ex-After Forever) - keyboards
Vocalists
• Mike Mills (Toehider)
• Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian)
• Tommy Karevik (Kamelot, Seventh Wonder)
• Maggy Luyten (ex -Nightmare)
• Floor Jansen (Star one, Nightwish, ex-After Forever, ex-ReVamp)
Backup Vocalists
• Irene Jansen (Star One)
• Lisette van den Berg (Scarlet Stories)
• Marcela Bovio (Star One, MaYaN, ex-Stream of Passion, ex-Elfonía)
I believe it was I who left you the Whole Universe Concert List 😉
ruclips.net/video/hPcDLWsRX04/видео.html Just in case
NWSU/Ayreonaut ✌😁🤘
And new subscriber for that !!!!!
There is a difference between the studio albums and live (Universe/Star One) performances. Where Arjen plays keys and guitar parts himself for the studio albums, he can't play all those instruments himself live, so multiple instrumentalists are the way to go for live shows. On top of that Arjen is notoriously shy and doesn't like to be on stage. A nice example is 'The Eye of Ra', one of the few times he does appear on stage. As soon as the song is finished, he storms off stage. You can see Floor pointing at him to get the audience's attention to Arjen, but he's long gone. You can just see him leave the stage at the left side 😁
Not just based on PF but very much on seventies prog rock in general. The Keyboard player sure gives of vibes of a Rick Wakeman and Michael Mills reaches into the vocal ranges Jon Anderson was known for. Arjan also likes to use the flute in his compositions, a throwback to Jethro Tull , Camel or Focus.
Ayreon is something else. The single greatest sci fi audiobook series out there. Arjen has a way of painting the landscape in sound. If you like getting taken somewhere, there is no deeper and wider rabbit hole than this, one might even call it a Universe ;)
List of AYREON guest musicians: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ayreon_guest_musicians
Nice one bubba 😜
Arjen himself doesn't appear on many of the songs in the concert but the ones he does appear in are too good to pass up. Try the song "Amazing Flight" or "The Eye Of Ra" to see every singer and musician on the stage at one time.
Arjen does show up in some of the songs but when he writes these songs he imagines what singers would go well for the parts and tries to really them up. Not all of them can show up so he uses a replacement because the show must go on right? Did you know he has had Joe Satriani Perform for him. Infact here's a shortcut to a list of Singers who has performed for him and see how many you recognise. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ayreon_guest_musicians Also are you aware one of those three back up singers is Floors sister Irene Jansen? Here's a link to a song they both did together. ruclips.net/video/GkiF1UddMMw/видео.html Happy Watching.
Hey, you should definitely check out The Electric Castle album live shows featuring John de Lance the actor who played Q from Star Trek the next generation series as a live narrator, awesome thanks requesting 😎
On a completely different planet, have you tried the Japanese band Ningen Isu? Here;s a link to Heartless Scat...
ruclips.net/video/CbI79e5iZKs/видео.html
Arjen does not like to perform on stage to much...