Ayreon celebrates 30 years with an incredible set of shows in Tilburg

It’s becoming the norm: every two or three years, Tilburg, Netherlands, becomes Ayreon City during a weekend in September. People from all over the world gather to celebrate Ayreon’s music with five main sold-out shows in three days, which is an incredible feat. There are also loads of side events, such as karaoke, afterparties, live screenings with quizzes and acoustic sets. If you’re lucky, you can even find Damian Wilson and some of the other musicians walking down the street!

This year, instead of playing a full album like the last two shows in 2023 and 2019, Dutch mastermind Arjen Lucassen (or should we say Sir Arjen Lucassen?) decided to celebrate Ayreon’s 30th anniversary, with a selection of Ayreon classics with never-played-before songs.

Like the past shows, the line-up of singers and musicians for this one is top-notch: Damian Wilson, Anneke van Giersbergen, Marcela Bovio, Wudstik, Irene Jansen, Mike Mills, Tommy Karevik, Heather Findlay, Maggy Luyten, Dino Jelusick, Timo Sommers, Joost Van den Broek, and Ed Warby are just some of the names.

As expected, the atmosphere around 013 Poppodium is incredible. No heavy rain can get in the way of the fans from 71 countries, a record this year, who sold out all of the five shows in minutes. As the queue forms, people try to find out which songs will be played and who will sing them.

As the curtains open, revealing an immense and immersive screen showing a virtual landscape of Mars, Wudstik joins the stage for the first of the many surprises of the evening, “My House on Mars“. He was a last-minute addition to the show as, unfortunately, Edward Reekers is terminally ill and couldn’t make the show. Immediately engaging the crowd, Wudstik’s voice, combined with backing vocals from Marcela Bovio and Irene Jansen, has the audience screaming the chorus immediately. Joost also has one of his many highlights of the evening, doing an amazing job with the keyboard solo.

The slightly heavier “Sail Away to Avalon” from Ayreon’s first album “The Final Experiment” brings Maggy to the stage with her thunderous voice. Looking around the stage, it’s really nice to see how everyone is in great mood and having a good time. From Maggy raising her arms to the audience to Marcela and Irene laughing and Timo and Johan interacting with the fans.

Tommy Karevik brings another surprise: a non-Ayreon song. “Green and Cream” from Guilt Machine. And then finally, Arjen joins the stage for “Days of Knights“, from his first solo album. Huge praise for him from the fans as the tall Dutch singer looks impressed by the audience.

“Day Six: Childhood” brings Anneke to the stage for the first time. It’s a slimmed-down, piano version of the song, which makes her performance stand out even more. “Dragon on the Sea” has Marcela Bovio and Irene Jansen doing an amazing duet in another track from “The Dream Sequencer”, and “Day Thirteen: Sign” has Heather Findlay dazzling the audience with her beautiful voice.

The night goes on with more guests: Mike Mills, Damian Wilson, and Dino Jelusic with a Star One cover. The second set of the night brings some of the favourite tracks of the fans, such as “The Theory of Everything pt 1 & 2“, “Dawn of a Million Souls“, “Day Sixteen: Loser“, the beautiful “Valley of the Queens”, and the heavy “Everybody Dies“. And nothing better to wrap up this incredible night than “Day Two: Isolation” with all guests coming up one by one on stage.

Doing a production on this level is always a challenge, especially when it comes to the set list as it’s very difficult to please everyone, but I think Arjen struck the right balance here. It was nice seeing some love for “The Dream Sequencer” and “The Final Experiment“. It would be great to have some more from “Actual Fantasy“? Absolutely. But it is indisputable that “The Human Equation“, “The Source”, and “Into the Electric Castle” are more popular with fans. As for the future, we can only hope for a full production of “The Source” in two years’ time? It will be its 10-year anniversary after all. Fingers crossed!