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W2, Den Bosch, The Netherlands
7th of April 2007
Faun and Keltia

I hadn’t seen them since Castlefest last summer so it was about time for a concert of Faun again. With their new album Totem just released it was of course time for a tour and tonight the W2 had the honour of being their host. They had brought along a Belgian opening act, I had never seen or heard them before so I was very curious.


Keltia

Keltia was founded in 2002 when Keltia herself started to perform with her harp. As off 2004 she sought others to join her and found Seesayle and Wiz. From then on Keltia became a group of three and it still is.

Music
Keltia plays a kind of music which she describes best at her own website: a mixture of pop-folk, progressive, dark and baroque music with Celtic and eastern sonorities. Quite a mouth full but that is what it sounds like indeed. Mostly the songs are quite calm, soothing even. There are also songs with a little bit more tempo and spirit but they are rare. They use dissonant voices, the singing of Seesayle sometimes reminds me of the Voix Bulgares (a famous Bulgarian vocal group). It can sound wonderful but there were some false notes as well. The sound of the harp was great, to these untrained harp ears. It was a shame they used a drum computer, real drums could have added some depth to the music.



Performance
Keltia and Seesayle paid attention to their outfits, it was a shame that Wiz didn’t. He looked far to normal to be on this stage. Keltia announced what the songs were about. Such as a song about a girl being chased in to a labyrinth by a monster. This was emphasised in the song by imitating the breath of the scared girl. The song came to life this way. It seemed as though Keltia was a bit shy, her movements on stage were very small. She was the only one moving, the stage performance was quite static.

Rating
Music 6
Performance 5
Sound 7
Light 6
Total 6 (5,7)



Faun

A Faun backdrop was hanging at the back of the stage, decorated with two white cloths hanging from its corners. The cloth hanging over the table of Niel contained their new artwork. And of course there was new merchandise as well, all this to celebrate the new album Totem.

Music
Faun played a good blend of old and new songs. It is always pleasant when a new album is out that you hear some of the older songs as well because not everybody in the audience might know the new album already. Oliver seemed to have a lesser voice then usual. He apologised for this later, at home they had snow… here it smelled like the beaches of Jamaica. Ah well, a cold catches us all some times. One of the new songs is called ‘2 Falken’ and it is about finding your totem animals, 2 falcons to be precise. Of course songs from the former album such as the herb inspired song ‘Rosmarin’ were played. We were even treated to an accoustic song of the beginning days of Faun ‘Maria’. Which is taken from the Livres Rouge. Neil was not needed for this song, because they did not quite have laptops back then. It is never bad to take a break here in Holland, or so we were told.



Performance
Lisa and Fiona had new dresses for this new show. Both white, making them look like angels from medieval times. Even Fiona’s bagpipe was white now. Oliver announced each song with a story or joke. About the song ‘Wind  & Geige’ he told us the best way to travel is by trance (especially the shamanistic ones). And we were invited to travel along on the trance of this song. Oliver disappeared into the music and the rhythm of the song was enhanced by the strobe lights, really taking us along in the trance of the song. If it were up to Oliver we were to hear only Faun music, there are secret messages in the songs causing us to think of Faun all day every day for the rest of our lives. The theme of this new album, the totem, how to get to the deeper layers of your soul is perfect for this time I believe. There is a lot of soul searching going on around the world.

Rating
Music 8
Performance 8
Sound 7
Light 8
Total 8 (7,8)




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