Boston was ablaze with amazing epic geekyness for a Friday night, befitting of an evening with prog rock mastery. The music school nerds were out in force, and some death metal fans were in the crowd as Cynic made a rare appearance in Boston. They actually played this venue once a few years ago when it was called Harper’s Ferry, and on that night they played their classic Focus album in full. No one expects them to go too far down memory lane much anymore, but the band still has it’s ardent fans, many who were sporting merch from their recent album Kindly Bent To Free Us (Season of Mist). The bill was also stacked with a collection of awesome and unusual bands, but the crowd was definitely open-minded and ready for fun.

Kicking things of was Protean Collective . Protean Collective are Boston’s answer to Dream Theater, and the comparison my friends is legit. Every member of the band is a virtuoso level talent, but they also know how to write a catchy, rocking tune or three. The early crowd was full and packed at the front, hanging on the bands’ every note. When they played ‘Caldera’ off of their recently released The Red and The Grey album, there was an audible recognition in the crowd, as if everyone all said “ah, they are playing my jam!”, all at once. The entire band was impressive, but as usual we were watching drummer Matt Zappa from the far side of the stage. He was just crushing on this night. If you love progressive metal, do not sleep on this band! Coming up next was Buffalo, New York’s The Reign of Kindo. Playing a spastic mix of jumbled styles from Jazz, to Afro-Cuban, to funk, to pop, to rock; these guys interchanged styles like you wouldn’t believe. They were really phenomenal singers too, everyone of them. Their ability to share the wealth musically was very impressive, but ultimately they were not really my thing. A little too much pop cuteness, but still, you have to give it up to them for the level of musicianship and fun they bring to the table.

Everyone in the house seemed to be repping Lesser Key tonight, equally hard as Cynic in fact. This really surprised me, since I consider Lesser Key still somewhat of an underground band. I suppose it would be hard to keep secret a prog metal band with a founding member of Tool as their bassist, Paul D’Amour. While most of the press focuses on this factoid, the real story is their brilliant self-titled debut EP (Sumerian) and their dynamic stage show. It’s hard not to be transfixed by front man Andrew Zamudio, with his haunting voice and performance. He is what I would term “a singer’s singer”; capable of anything. The band plays their take on post-metal/prog-metal with dynamic swells and peaks, with droning licks followed by crunching riffage. The band put on a performance worthy of a headliner, not an easy feat on this night. I don’t believe the band has toured all that much either so the amount of people in the crowd singing a long was surprising to me. I’m just glad there weren’t idiots out there yelling at Paul to play Tool songs, like I imagined. I applaud him for carving his own path and leading this new project. I for one am looking forward to more new music from them soon.

Earlier in the night hanging outside of the venue, I bumped into Sacha Dunable, the affable singer of Intronaut and a few other bands. Sacha was teching on this tour for Cynic and he agreed with me when I claimed it must be just an experience working with Paul Masvidal on any level. They guy has a pure spirit and he is genius guitar player as we were about to find see. Armed only with a cool video screen and some clever sound clips between songs, Cynic was here to play some prog rock tonight and blow some minds. They did just that! Opening with ‘True Hallucination Speak’ the place went wild at the atypical opening song. Cynic has become a band focused on the overall sonic picture, not just a little feature piece here and there. Master musicians and performers don’t have to fall prey to the trappings of the comfortable after all. The band is always excellent live, but now was buoyed by the presence and monster bass playing of Sean Malone. As a huge prog fan and bassist, I have waited my entire adult life to see Sean effortlessly express himself in a live setting. Damn, he was flawless! Naturally Paul’s playing and singing were exemplary. If you look clearly at Paul’s fret hand, I think there is an face-sucker from Alien trying to break out of his forearm muscles and kill someone! Max Phelps has also grown into a nice compliment to Paul too over the last few years, and chipped in some occasional growls, much to the delight of the long-hairs in the room

The set list was beautifully constructed. I joked that after ‘Veil of Maya’ from Focus was performed, the death metal heads in the room could go home. Hopefully, people stuck around. Sean Reinert has never sounded better and he was just insanely tight on the older material, especially. He seems to be in about the best shape of his life too, as he never seem to tire. There were truly some magical numbers played tonight as ‘Carbon-Based Anatomy’, ‘Integral’, ‘This Space for This’, and ‘Gitanjali’ put a smile on a lot of faces. Keeping in fashion with their approach, they closed with two new songs that went over as big as anything else they did earlier. See, Cynic fans get it, and Cynic doesn’t need haters to play along if they choose not to. I’d surmise that you would be hard pressed to find a better collection of musicians, rocking out for as appreciative a crowd as I witnessed tonight.

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Cynic Set List:

True Hallucination Speak

Evolutionary Sleeper

Carbon-Based Anatomy

Moon Heart Sun Head

Veil of Maya

Integral

The Space for This

Gitanjali

Textures

The Lion’s Roar

Encore:

Kindly Bent to Free Us

Cynic on Facebook

Lesser Key on Facebook

The Reign of Kindo on Facebook

Protean Collective on Facebook

WORDS BY KEITH CHACHKES

PHOTOS BY MEG LOYAL PHOTOGRAPHY