The Dutch Wharf Festival (Festival Aan De Werf), held in Utrecht, Netherlands from May 20th to 29th, included a show called Reiziger In Space. The show took place on May 20th and 21st, at 9:30pm, and our friend Charles, from the great FloydStuff.com, kindly provided us with this review.

22 May 2004 - REIZIGER IN SPACE - A REVIEW

The whole idea started in a hotel on tour in Belgium. Cor van Ingen and Erik de Jong of Spinvis were once again amazed by the stories of their pianist Han Reiziger on how it all was back in the late sixties when Dutch public broadcasting company VPRO started recording rock concerts as they had done before with Jazz. For Festival a/d Werf they adopted this idea for a two hour performance which was held over two nights on May 20 and 21.

The festival is being held on various locations and this one, the Academy Theater, was a beautiful intimate 150 seater, built in an old inner square of the Performing Arts building of the local University. Combining a a discussion on old times with playing audio recordings, showing rare videos and introducing live performances, the show kicked off at 9.30 pm with a piece of Kevin Ayers recorded during the Piknik program.

After short fragments of Soft Machine (video) and Deep Purple (video), poet/performer Arjan Witte did a strange Dutch version of a Frank Zappa song. Next up was a large Captain Beefheart section with audio recordings from the VPRO archives, talk about an aborted television session and a 15 minute performance of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart songs by the Rosa Ensemble, with vocals by Hans Dagelet.

More talks and archive material from the VPRO vaults as well as Cor van Ingen's collection followed with Canned Heat and Supersister. After playing a recording of this last band, former keyboard player Robert Jan Stips entered the stage to make his way through a selection of the band's work on a grand piano. His 15 minute performance included She Was Naked and Radio.

After this finally some attention for Pink Floyd with a beautiful yet eccentric version of Chapter 24 by Arjan Witte, making this into a strange staccato electro version with Rhythm Box and Hammond B2. Shown was the French Let There Be More Light already on television this week.

The evening came to a close around 11.30 pm with a jam session of a Spinvis song by all artists. All in all not very much Floyd and certainly nothing new, but a beautiful evening with entertaining hosts and guests and in a nice loose surrounding.