Flower Kings: The Flower King
Free download from the Internet Archive
(if the direct/mediafire link isnt working, try the "freedownload" link: it's the same file at the original host.)
Our current theme comes to you partly inspired by Mothers' Day and partly guided by input from JDavid (once again). Flowers for your mother, flower-related music from us. Besides ... it's Springtime for most of us.
I was searching the Internet Archive for something legal/free that could start us off on our new theme, doing a search for <flower> in the live music section, when I ran across this piece, the aptly named song "The Flower King" by the Flower Kings.
I will confess previous ignorance of the band, but a little Internet search brought up a plethora of data about the group: enough to make my ignorance appear to be a personal fault. Never heard of them? Neither had I. The official web site for the Swedish group Flower Kings notes that the band is a natural "like" for anyone who listened to Genesis, Yes, Zappa, ELP and others. That's me. Correctly categorizing their music as progrock, this live performance appears to be from a 2003 show in De Kade, the Netherlands. Much about the musical style calls to mind Genesis: the way the song builds to various crescendos, the harmonies... For a live performance, it's pretty good.
Begun in 1994, the group is still active today: see their website to purchase tickets for and see the calendar for their upcoming shows. Once again, many thanks both to the band and to the Internet Archive for making some of their media available for free.
