Ayreon is not a band, as such. It is one of the many musical projects of Dutch composer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen (the guy narrating the video, playing guitar, bass, and keyboards). All Ayreon albums are concept albums that tell a story, and he gets top-notch singers from all over the world to sing the parts of the various characters in the story. Some of his other projects include Star One, Guilt Machine, Ambeon, and The Gentle Storm. Floor and her sister Irene are frequent contributors.
Here is a list of the composer and singers in order of appearance: Arjen Lucassen - Composer - Dutch singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long-running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon. James Labrie - Lead singer for Dream Theatre. Tommy Karevik - Lead singer of Kamelot and Seventh Wonder. Tommy Rodgers - Lead singer of Between the Buried and Me. Simone Simmons - Lead singer of Epica. Nils K. Rue - Lead singer of Pagan's Mind and also worked with Eidolon. Tobias Sammet - Lead singer of Edguy & Avantasia. Hansi Kürsch - Lead singer of Blind Guardian and Demons & Wizards. Mike Mills - Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and main songwriter for Toehider. Russell Allen - Lead singer of Symphony X and Allen/Lande. Michael Eriksen - Lead singer of Circus Maximus. Floor Jansen - Lead singer of After Forever, ReVamp & now Nightwish. Next I would suggest reacting to the performances at Ayreon Universe concert, especially the following Intergalactic Space Crusaders, River of Time, Merlin's Will, Valley of the Queens, Ride the Comet, Star of Sirrah, And the Druids Turn to Stone, Age of Shadows & Everybody Dies.
Ohw man! You have a lot of exploring to do! I loved your reaction! You were really puzzled at the beginning, not crasping the concept, and gradually you got into it! I read Mike Mills (TH1, the computer) was asked by Arjen Anthony Lucassen to play an inanimate object and he replied 'Mate, even if you want me to play a banana I'll do it! (Btw, did you know keyboardist Joost van den Broek was the keyboardist in After Forever, Floor's first band? He made music for the king and queen of The Netherlands and has been knighted!)
Did you do already Hansi Kürsch‘s „Blind Guardian“? In case not: You should definitely do „The Bard‘s Song & Valhalla“ from Wacken 2016. It‘s got one of the most insane crowd interactions ever. If you pass Wacken grounds nowadays and listen carefully, you can still hear the audience singing. Blind Guardian are, not only in Germany, metal gods and most influential in their genre of …. metal (you‘ll hear their genre when listening to „Valhalla“ 😎🤘)
Actually Arjen Anthony Lucassen, the mastermind of this awesome project, is the man who discovered Floor and her sister Irene. You can hear them for the first time in another Arjen project called Star One.
Ayreon is the (main) project of Dutch composer, producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen. He does scifi concept albums. He has had over 80 different singers on his 9 (double)albums. Most albums are part of the bigger story called the Ayreon Universe. He has not done many live-shows but the ones he did are all killer. The 4 main shows are: 1.) Star One - live on earth (actually starone is a side project, but they did play some Ayreon songs) 2002-dvd2003 2.) The Theater Equation (a playthrough of the cd human equation, this is more a broadway-theater show) 2105-dvd2016 3.) Ayreon Universe (a best of full on prog-rock-metal show) 2017-dvd2018 4.) Ayreon - Electric castle live and other tales (a playtrough of the cd Into the electric castle, and 1 song of each side-project) 2019-dvd2020
The best way to think of this track is that this is Chapter 1 to a full fledged novel. Chapter 1 is typically when you are introduced to all the main characters of the story. And that is what this song does.
Think of the album like a book. The first chapter sets the basis for the story and introduces all the characters then you get into the meat of the story. Floor has been involved with Arjen's projects since about 1999 and he seems to use her for shock effect. You should react to Valley of the Queens which will introduce you to 2 more metal queens and the next song on this album Everybody Dies where one of the backup singers is Floor's sister Irene.
William, thanks for your recommendation. Valley of the Queens is such a nice "folk-song". The three singers work together so well, supported by equally brilliant instrumentalists. Lee, you delivered as always a very nice reaction, thank you for that.
A bit of info James LeBrie - Dream Theater (USA) Tommy Karevik - Kamalot and Seventh Wonder (Sweden), Tommy Rogers - Between The Buried And Me (USA), Simone Simons - Epica (Holland), Nil K. Rue - Pagan's Mind (Norway), Tobias Sammet - Avantasia, Edguy (Germany), Hansi Kirsch - Blind Guardian (Germany), Michael Mills - Toehider (Australian), Russell Allen - Symphony X (USA), Michael Erikson - Circus Maximus (Normay), Floor Jansen - Nightwish (Finland/Holland), Arjen Lucassen is the tall guitar/synth player. He composes all the work. Ayreon is his baby/project. He is from Holland. This is just the first song of 17 on the album
One tiny correction, and I'm being nitpicky here, Simone and Floor are from The Netherlands. Holland is just a region in the western part of The Netherlands but Simone and Floor are from the south.
Ayreon is really fun to listen to. And as your favorite Nightwish fan, thanks for the shout out… but we need more Nightwish!!!!! (Basil can be your second favorite Nightwish fan…)
Finally you get to doing Ayreon❣️ You will love it all. 👍🏻🙋🏼♀️ If you look for more, the whole ‘Universe ‘ live concert is epic, you can find enough there!
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. 'The Source' (the album which this song is from) is technically the start of the story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Somewhere in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
It's not snippets of each song on the album, that would be an overture. This song is prog music, where anything goes. -10 time changes, why not?, 5 genres in a song - can do, a transition every 15 seconds - absolutely! The album is a concept album where's all the songs in the album relate to a single story/topic. The Source is meant to be listened in order on the album to tell the story.
finally you made it, welcome to the (Nightwish approved) rabbit hole of a dutch mastercomposer Arjen Lucassen, my fav. Ayreon track ?? glad you asked, lol .....go for Everybody dies live, but pls. go in blind again (its more fun for the viewers) .... grts from a dutch cheesehead in Germany, member of the Nightdreamers Reacticide Discord .... and pls stay safe
this is a single song, Arjen's Ayreon project is sort of a like a rock opera where the songs on the album tell a whole story, and each of the 11 singers play a character in this story. in this first song, all 11 singers are present, but not all songs have all singers portrayed, just the ones where it makes sense for their character to be in to fit the story being told. each of his Ayreon albums tell a story, with the singers portraying characters, and each album may have some different singers than the others. Arjen Lucassen (dutch) composes the music and then reaches out to his choice of singers and musicians from around the world to be part of his project. and Arjen is such a likeable and respected guy in the music community that even the biggest stars are willing to participate gladly.
Ayreon is a musical project by Dutch songwriter, singer, musician and record producer Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Ayreon's music is described as progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal sometimes combined with genres such as folk, electronica, experimental and classical music. The majority of Ayreon's albums are dubbed "rock operas" because the albums contain complex storylines featuring a host of characters, usually with each one being represented by a unique vocalist. Each Ayreon album tells a different story, but all, with the exceptions of Actual Fantasy, The Theory of Everything, and Transitus, take place in the same fictional, science fiction universe; additionally, Lucassen's solo album Lost in the New Real is also set in the Ayreon universe. Ayreon's music is characterized by the use of traditional instruments in rock music mixed with instruments more native to folk and classical music. Lucassen writes the music and the lyrics, sings and plays most of the instruments on all of the Ayreon albums, alongside many guest musicians. His most regular collaborator is drummer Ed Warby. The singers in order of appearance are: James LaBrie from Dream Theater Tommy Karevik from Kamelot, Seventh Wonder Tommy Rogers from Between the Buried and Me Simone Simons from th most epic Epica Nils K. Rue from Pagan's Mind and Eidolon Tobias Sammet from Edguy and here mentioned Avantasia Hansi Kürsch the „Bard from Walhalla“ from Blind Guardian Mike Mills playing a computer and singing binary from Toehider Russell Allen from Symphony X Michael Eriksen from Circus Maximus and last but not least the incredible Valkyrie Goddess Floor Jansen from Nightwish Arjen Anthony Lucassen was the one who discovered Floor's talent when she was 16 !!! Here is Ayreon Universe best of live setlist (All Highly Recommended): ua-cam.com/play/PLJGn3wi7b7b606GfoKAdOgm6rtX9OliRc.html NWSU/Ayreonaut 🤘😎🤘
First of all, welcome to the Ayreon universe. Ayreon is a musical project created by the Dutch multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen in 1995. In every Ayreon album, Arjen composes a greater 95% of music and texts average and plays electric guitars, acoustic guitars, electric bass, synth and keyboards, and invites several guest vocalists to join him to play a part in his own metal operas. The Ayreon's album sequence is the following one: 1) in 1995 Arjen created the first Ayreon album "The Final Experiment", talking about the story of a blind ministrel of the 6th century britain, named Ayreon, who receives from the future visions of humanity decline and tries to sing about these visions to save the world from its own downfall. The prologue of this album is that in the year 2084 a.d. (chosen by adding 100 years to 1984 referring to George Orwell's most famous novel) mankind has virtually destroyed itself, it's survival depends on the final experiment. 2) Ayreon's second album "Actual Fantasy" (1996) is the only Ayreon album not being a concept album, but it is a group of song each of them narrating story related to science-fiction themes or fantasy themes 3) in 1998, "Into the Electric Castle" talked about eight different characters each of them taken by a different historical age of the earth, that are brought to another dimension and are given a quest by a mysterious alien presence, to go through this unknown land to find the electric castle and try to survive it to go back home. It is the first album to talk about the alien race named "forever", but this seems to be a completely different story from the first two albums 4) in 2000 "Universal Migrator" an album split in two different parts, each of the released as a unique album [pt1: the Dream Sequencer] and [pt2: flight of the migrator]. This is the first album to make clear that all the stories told by "The Final Experiment" and "Into the Electric Castle" are connected to create a bigger picture, a real "Ayreon Universe" 5) in 2004 "The Human Equation", that seems to be disconnected by the "Ayreon Universe" big picture, until the last 30 seconds of the last song, in which it is revealed that the story developed all through the album is a program run by the Forever race to try to solve "The Human Equation" in order to save us and them from the final catastrophe. 6) in 2008 there are two events: --> a) the album 01011001 (binary code for the letter "Y") is declared by Arjen to be the final chapter of the "Forever race saga" and reveals that the Forever alien race is the human race ancestor arrived from another planet after a global catastrophe and they are guiding our evolution from the dawn of human race until now to make us save them from their destiny --> b) the best of "Timeline" contains a poster describing how all the album related to the "Forever Saga" are connected and their own part in the "Ayreon Universe big picture", and contains also a new song "Epilogue: The Memory Remains" that is the final epilogue of the "Forever Saga" 7) in 2013 the album "The Theory of Everything" is the first Ayreon concept album completely disconnected by the "Forever Saga" telling about the research of a father and his son of the theory of everything 8) in 2017 with the album "The Source" Arjen returns to his beloved "Forever race" characters, telling us the prequel of the Forever Saga, explaining us where they lived, what was the extinguishing event they have to face, what caused that event, and how the Forever race faced it. 9) in 2020 with the title "Transitus" Arjen created a complete different story, set on earth in the 19th century, and being a tragic love story with dark and gothic vibe. This album was conceived to be a musical, so there are more songs each of them being shorter than an average Ayreon's song. In more than 25 years of Ayreon, they released only three live albums: The Theater Equation (a live performance of the album "The Human Equation"); Ayreon Universe (a live performance with a best of the songs created by Arjen for Ayreon and Star-One projects); Electric Castle Live and Other Tales (a live performance of the album "Into the Electric Castle" and a selection of 1 song for every Arjen's side project + the Marillion song "Kayleigh" performed by Fish, the original Marillion singer, that has played the "Highlander" part in the Arjen's metal opera). Each one of these live performances deserves to be considered a masterpiece in the music history. Arjen also released a lot of other music throughout the years, with many side-projects as "Ambeon", "Star One", "Guilt Machine", "Stream of Passion" , "The Gentle Storm" and his own solo albums. When he creates new music, he creates music, words, story and everything else and when he feels the real mood of what he's creating, he decides if the following creation will be an Ayreon album, another of his own existing side-projects, or a complete new side-project. Fun fact is that Floor Jansen has been a guest vocalist for Arjen since 2000 when she appeared on Universal Migrator. Since then she was a guest in Arjen's project in both the project Star One's albums and in the "01011001" Ayreon album. I hope this post will help you to go through the wonderful world of Arjen Anthony Lucassen's music p.s. if you'd like to listen to more Ayreon music, i strongly recommend to listen to his 3 live album and then the following selection of songs: 1) From "The Final Experiment" react to the first 3 tracks (Prologue, The Awareness, Eyes of Time) and the last track (Ayreon's Fate) 2) From "Actual Fantasy" react to "Abbey of Synn" [based on Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose"] 3) From "Into the Electric Castle" react to "Valley of the Queens", "Across the Rainbow Bridge" and one song chosen between "Isis and Osiris", "Amazing Flight", "The Two Gates" 4) From "Universal Migrator" react to "2084", "And the Druids Turn to Stone", "Chaos", "Dawn of a Million Souls" and "Into The Black Hole" (song sang by Bruce Dickinson) 5) From "01011001" react to "Age of Shadows (includes "We Are Forever")", "Ride the Comet", "The Fifth Extinction" and "The Sixth Extinction" 6) From "The Theory of Everything" react to the whole first suite "Phase I: Singularity" that goes from track 1 to track 11 of the first CD of the album 7) From "The Source" react to "Star of Sirrah", "Condemned To Live", "Acquatic Race" and "Journey to Forever" 8) From "Transitus" you can react to "Hopelessly Slipping Away" and "Get Out! Now!", "Condemned Without a Trial" and "Message From Beyond" Enjoy yourself in the Arjen's rabbit hole :)
Hi 👋something you might like to check out from Ayreon Ayreon universe age of shadows live floor and Marco from Nightwish and hanci from blind guardian Ayreon universe everybody dies live Ayreon universe intergalactic space crusaders live (this song is an homage to the uk sifi series blakes 7 from the 1980s) Ayreon universe the eye of Ra live ( floor and her sister irean) ( this song is an homage to the film star gate) Ayreon universe ride the comet live Ayreon universe Dawn of a million souls live Ayreon universe into the black hole live You can thank me later lol 😆
Epica is not Scandinavian though... Epica is a Dutch band. So is Arjen Lucassen, the mastermind behind Ayreon. He composes alle the music, writes all the songs and writes all the lyrics. Also Floor Jansen is Dutch. Did you even know this?
This 1st song is an introduction of the main characters in the story ( the rest of the album) This story is linked to other stories from previous albums, like Genesis to the bible Somehow all albums are linked together this way, which creates kinda like a Starwars universe ( only way better) So, dozens of briliant albums and 100's of stellar tracks for u to discover, with iconic vocalists and musicians composed by a true master in the art
Hey, you should check out The Electric Castle album live shows Ayreon, Featuring John de Lance the actor who played Q from star trek the next generation as a live narrator on stage, awesome thanks 😀
if it ain't dutch it ain't much... Welcome in the amazing world of Arjen A. Lucassen Aka Ayreon Universe (Ayreon, Ambeon, Star one, Guilt Machine, Gentle Storm, Stream of Passion).... Enjoy this rabbit hole….!!!!!
Ayreon quickly became my third favorite band after Pink Floyd and Nightwish after I discovered it a few years ago. After this, just pick songs from the two live concerts: Ayreon Universe live, with Floor Jansen, Marko Hietala etc. The electric castle live and other tales, with Simone Simons, Damien Wilson etc. See Wikipedia for everything you want to know about Ayreon., including the impressive list of well known musicians that participated on the albums and live concerts. Let me learn you how to pronounce Dutch names. The i in Simons is pronounced the same as the I in Simone. You pronounced Jansen correctly.
Kudos for referring to Tank! Both he and Chase Carneson have made reactions to this, and they're amaaazing (both the reactions and the reactors), check them out if you haven't.
Just discovered your channel. This is 1st video I watched cool reaction. I totally love Ayreon. His music covers all emotions and styles. Thiers something for everybody. He tells great stories on his albums and surrounds himself with a lot of talented people and an array of brilliant singers. Also a quick note on your background, great taste in films footie team and very importantly music. I'll be watching more of your superb reactions from this point forward. Best wishes from Scotland. Can you please react to Kamelot Liar, Liar (wasteland monarchy) please thanks
Hey Stephen. Join us on Discord. Definitely the best way to get Lee to listen to requests. Plus it's a lot of fun. No one takes anything very seriously on this discord. We do pick of the week, where everyone suggests something and the winner gets chosen and their is also a raffle once a month as well. Don't need to be a Patreon or anything.
If you are interested, Lee is doing a live stream tonight at midnight. (after he gets home from work.) A great way to meet everyone. We use Twitch for the live stream as the songs don't get blocked. Twitch address in the description 👍🏻👍🏻
I must start off my comment by saying that this lane of music is not what I typically would listen to. With that said...... This masterpiece took me on an incredible musical journey. Loved the genre transitions (especially when they went bluesy), the galloping basslines, all the different styles of singing and instrument playing, well everything about it. Basil you truly outdid yourself with this request. I loved it 😁😁 It would have been so much better if the loud mouthed guy "reactioner" kept his talking to a minimum. I am totally JOKING LEE😂😂. You did an amazing job with this one. You have grown so much doing these reactions and it truly showed with this one. Keep up the incredible job!!
No this song is not made up of snippets of all the other songs on the album, it’s a song in itself, it’s the first song on the album and each song after reveals more of the story!
A prelude to a Rock Opera, it seems - great intro to the performers he/they've pulled together in an ensemble for the album. Had no idea what this would be, it was a slow build up, but well worth it - "The I" (I'd bet = The Intelligence) made me pause, then realised he's singing purely binary, clever lol. I'm not sure if someone will ever decode it, or check to see if he was randomising, or it was another clever level of lyrics
@@phillee2814 Mike Mills plays (sings?) the character of TH1 (ToeHider1 ??) in the story, an android helping humanity against the computers that have taken control of the world, hence the binary message he is giving: "TrustTH1"
@@roykliffen9674 I know which character Mike Mills plays, the correction was to the extended binary translation, as it has no hyphen and only the TH is upper case, both of the "t"s in trust being lower case. You can translate it for yourself if you like - if you don't read ASCII or extended ASCII there are plenty of translators online. Or you can count the total number of octets, and see that the first and fifth are identical while the fifth is different. I don't know why the un-hyphenated version was chosen unless maybe to make an 8 byte or 64bit total, which would possibly be more "in character".
@@phillee2814 Oops.... answered the wrong replier ... sorry for that.... was meant for the OP and original replier; was not intended as a correction of your reply which to me already was spot-on. And I do stand corrected on the T's ^_^
Great song from a great album. The song is really the 'overture' of the album, so not quite snippets but it introduces the themes both musically and the story. Possibly the best prog album I own and I've been listening to prog rock since Yes in the 1970's.
Great choice Basil you are obviously a person of great refinement and musical taste to introduce Lee to Ayreon. This Old Metal/Rock head salutes you and in no way harbors any resentment because you beat me to this selection as I had to change my choice because they said Basil had already selected this. Virtual beer on me great job! Rock On Stay Safe!😉🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
Ayreon is not a band, as such. It is one of the many musical projects of Dutch composer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen (the guy narrating the video, playing guitar, bass, and keyboards). All Ayreon albums are concept albums that tell a story, and he gets top-notch singers from all over the world to sing the parts of the various characters in the story. Some of his other projects include Star One, Guilt Machine, Ambeon, and The Gentle Storm. Floor and her sister Irene are frequent contributors.
Here is a list of the composer and singers in order of appearance:
Arjen Lucassen - Composer - Dutch singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long-running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon.
James Labrie - Lead singer for Dream Theatre.
Tommy Karevik - Lead singer of Kamelot and Seventh Wonder.
Tommy Rodgers - Lead singer of Between the Buried and Me.
Simone Simmons - Lead singer of Epica.
Nils K. Rue - Lead singer of Pagan's Mind and also worked with Eidolon.
Tobias Sammet - Lead singer of Edguy & Avantasia.
Hansi Kürsch - Lead singer of Blind Guardian and Demons & Wizards.
Mike Mills - Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and main songwriter for Toehider.
Russell Allen - Lead singer of Symphony X and Allen/Lande.
Michael Eriksen - Lead singer of Circus Maximus.
Floor Jansen - Lead singer of After Forever, ReVamp & now Nightwish.
Next I would suggest reacting to the performances at Ayreon Universe concert, especially the following Intergalactic Space Crusaders, River of Time, Merlin's Will, Valley of the Queens, Ride the Comet, Star of Sirrah, And the Druids Turn to Stone, Age of Shadows & Everybody Dies.
Ohw man! You have a lot of exploring to do! I loved your reaction! You were really puzzled at the beginning, not crasping the concept, and gradually you got into it! I read Mike Mills (TH1, the computer) was asked by Arjen Anthony Lucassen to play an inanimate object and he replied 'Mate, even if you want me to play a banana I'll do it! (Btw, did you know keyboardist Joost van den Broek was the keyboardist in After Forever, Floor's first band? He made music for the king and queen of The Netherlands and has been knighted!)
Next Ayreon: "Everybody Dies" Live
Nice one, thank you, there is more where this came from, also live performances, really very nice to see and react to, until the next one, bye
Did you do already Hansi Kürsch‘s „Blind Guardian“?
In case not:
You should definitely do „The Bard‘s Song & Valhalla“ from Wacken 2016.
It‘s got one of the most insane crowd interactions ever.
If you pass Wacken grounds nowadays and listen carefully, you can still hear the audience singing.
Blind Guardian are, not only in Germany, metal gods and most influential in their genre of …. metal (you‘ll hear their genre when listening to „Valhalla“ 😎🤘)
Welcome to the Master Composer, Producer, and Musician Arjen! Woot! More, More, More!
Actually Arjen Anthony Lucassen, the mastermind of this awesome project, is the man who discovered Floor and her sister Irene. You can hear them for the first time in another Arjen project called Star One.
Ayreon is the (main) project of Dutch composer, producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen. He does scifi concept albums. He has had over 80 different singers on his 9 (double)albums. Most albums are part of the bigger story called the Ayreon Universe.
He has not done many live-shows but the ones he did are all killer. The 4 main shows are: 1.) Star One - live on earth (actually starone is a side project, but they did play some Ayreon songs) 2002-dvd2003
2.) The Theater Equation (a playthrough of the cd human equation, this is more a broadway-theater show) 2105-dvd2016
3.) Ayreon Universe (a best of full on prog-rock-metal show) 2017-dvd2018
4.) Ayreon - Electric castle live and other tales (a playtrough of the cd Into the electric castle, and 1 song of each side-project) 2019-dvd2020
The tall guy playing guitar, bass and keyboards is Arjen Luccasen, a genius
The best way to think of this track is that this is Chapter 1 to a full fledged novel. Chapter 1 is typically when you are introduced to all the main characters of the story. And that is what this song does.
Think of the album like a book. The first chapter sets the basis for the story and introduces all the characters then you get into the meat of the story. Floor has been involved with Arjen's projects since about 1999 and he seems to use her for shock effect. You should react to Valley of the Queens which will introduce you to 2 more metal queens and the next song on this album Everybody Dies where one of the backup singers is Floor's sister Irene.
William, thanks for your recommendation. Valley of the Queens is such a nice "folk-song". The three singers work together so well, supported by equally brilliant instrumentalists. Lee, you delivered as always a very nice reaction, thank you for that.
Valley of the Queens ++.
It's one song, Ayreon is a project. He uses different vocalist for different parts as characters.
A bit of info
James LeBrie - Dream Theater (USA)
Tommy Karevik - Kamalot and Seventh Wonder (Sweden), Tommy Rogers - Between The Buried And Me (USA), Simone Simons - Epica (Holland), Nil K. Rue - Pagan's Mind (Norway), Tobias Sammet - Avantasia, Edguy (Germany), Hansi Kirsch - Blind Guardian (Germany), Michael Mills - Toehider (Australian), Russell Allen - Symphony X (USA), Michael Erikson - Circus Maximus (Normay), Floor Jansen - Nightwish (Finland/Holland),
Arjen Lucassen is the tall guitar/synth player. He composes all the work. Ayreon is his baby/project. He is from Holland.
This is just the first song of 17 on the album
I tip my hat to the master of requests....this was incredible Basil.
@@daphned.7489 Cheers Daphne. It is a great song 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 You're no slouch either when it comes to requests
One tiny correction, and I'm being nitpicky here, Simone and Floor are from The Netherlands. Holland is just a region in the western part of The Netherlands but Simone and Floor are from the south.
Ayreon is really fun to listen to. And as your favorite Nightwish fan, thanks for the shout out… but we need more Nightwish!!!!! (Basil can be your second favorite Nightwish fan…)
Got your back, Lizzie. No 2 fan standing to attention 😋😋
Marko & Floor's sister Irene sing in Ayreon too.
Finally you get to doing Ayreon❣️
You will love it all. 👍🏻🙋🏼♀️
If you look for more, the whole ‘Universe ‘ live concert is epic, you can find enough there!
It's called Space Metal and it's Killer
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. 'The Source' (the album which this song is from) is technically the start of the story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Somewhere in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
It's not snippets of each song on the album, that would be an overture. This song is prog music, where anything goes. -10 time changes, why not?, 5 genres in a song - can do, a transition every 15 seconds - absolutely! The album is a concept album where's all the songs in the album relate to a single story/topic. The Source is meant to be listened in order on the album to tell the story.
finally you made it, welcome to the (Nightwish approved) rabbit hole of a dutch mastercomposer Arjen Lucassen, my fav. Ayreon track ?? glad you asked, lol .....go for Everybody dies live, but pls. go in blind again (its more fun for the viewers) .... grts from a dutch cheesehead in Germany, member of the Nightdreamers Reacticide Discord .... and pls stay safe
PLEASE have a listen to my favorite track from this album, Run! Apocalypse! Run! So few reactors even look at it!
Check also Ayreon- Age of Shadows and Eye of Ra and Into the Black Hole Ayreon/Star One
Thanks nimwey, I sure will 😁👌
this is a single song, Arjen's Ayreon project is sort of a like a rock opera where the songs on the album tell a whole story, and each of the 11 singers play a character in this story. in this first song, all 11 singers are present, but not all songs have all singers portrayed, just the ones where it makes sense for their character to be in to fit the story being told. each of his Ayreon albums tell a story, with the singers portraying characters, and each album may have some different singers than the others. Arjen Lucassen (dutch) composes the music and then reaches out to his choice of singers and musicians from around the world to be part of his project. and Arjen is such a likeable and respected guy in the music community that even the biggest stars are willing to participate gladly.
Ayreon is a musical project by Dutch songwriter, singer, musician and record producer Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Ayreon's music is described as progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal sometimes combined with genres such as folk, electronica, experimental and classical music. The majority of Ayreon's albums are dubbed "rock operas" because the albums contain complex storylines featuring a host of characters, usually with each one being represented by a unique vocalist.
Each Ayreon album tells a different story, but all, with the exceptions of Actual Fantasy, The Theory of Everything, and Transitus, take place in the same fictional, science fiction universe; additionally, Lucassen's solo album Lost in the New Real is also set in the Ayreon universe. Ayreon's music is characterized by the use of traditional instruments in rock music mixed with instruments more native to folk and classical music. Lucassen writes the music and the lyrics, sings and plays most of the instruments on all of the Ayreon albums, alongside many guest musicians. His most regular collaborator is drummer Ed Warby.
The singers in order of appearance are:
James LaBrie from Dream Theater
Tommy Karevik from Kamelot, Seventh Wonder
Tommy Rogers from Between the Buried and Me
Simone Simons from th most epic Epica
Nils K. Rue from Pagan's Mind and Eidolon
Tobias Sammet from Edguy and here mentioned Avantasia
Hansi Kürsch the „Bard from Walhalla“ from Blind Guardian
Mike Mills playing a computer and singing binary from Toehider
Russell Allen from Symphony X
Michael Eriksen from Circus Maximus
and last but not least the incredible Valkyrie Goddess Floor Jansen from Nightwish
Arjen Anthony Lucassen was the one who discovered Floor's talent when she was 16 !!!
Here is Ayreon Universe best of live setlist (All Highly Recommended): ua-cam.com/play/PLJGn3wi7b7b606GfoKAdOgm6rtX9OliRc.html
NWSU/Ayreonaut 🤘😎🤘
Love this, nice choice Basil!! I will definitely check out more.
Arjen worked with Floor ever since she was about 17 or 18 y/o. If Arjen asks her to contribute she's happy to do so.
First of all, welcome to the Ayreon universe. Ayreon is a musical project created by the Dutch multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen in 1995.
In every Ayreon album, Arjen composes a greater 95% of music and texts average and plays electric guitars, acoustic guitars, electric bass, synth and keyboards, and invites several guest vocalists to join him to play a part in his own metal operas.
The Ayreon's album sequence is the following one:
1) in 1995 Arjen created the first Ayreon album "The Final Experiment", talking about the story of a blind ministrel of the 6th century britain, named Ayreon, who receives from the future visions of humanity decline and tries to sing about these visions to save the world from its own downfall. The prologue of this album is that in the year 2084 a.d. (chosen by adding 100 years to 1984 referring to George Orwell's most famous novel) mankind has virtually destroyed itself, it's survival depends on the final experiment.
2) Ayreon's second album "Actual Fantasy" (1996) is the only Ayreon album not being a concept album, but it is a group of song each of them narrating story related to science-fiction themes or fantasy themes
3) in 1998, "Into the Electric Castle" talked about eight different characters each of them taken by a different historical age of the earth, that are brought to another dimension and are given a quest by a mysterious alien presence, to go through this unknown land to find the electric castle and try to survive it to go back home. It is the first album to talk about the alien race named "forever", but this seems to be a completely different story from the first two albums
4) in 2000 "Universal Migrator" an album split in two different parts, each of the released as a unique album [pt1: the Dream Sequencer] and [pt2: flight of the migrator]. This is the first album to make clear that all the stories told by "The Final Experiment" and "Into the Electric Castle" are connected to create a bigger picture, a real "Ayreon Universe"
5) in 2004 "The Human Equation", that seems to be disconnected by the "Ayreon Universe" big picture, until the last 30 seconds of the last song, in which it is revealed that the story developed all through the album is a program run by the Forever race to try to solve "The Human Equation" in order to save us and them from the final catastrophe.
6) in 2008 there are two events:
--> a) the album 01011001 (binary code for the letter "Y") is declared by Arjen to be the final chapter of the "Forever race saga" and reveals that the Forever alien race is the human race ancestor arrived from another planet after a global catastrophe and they are guiding our evolution from the dawn of human race until now to make us save them from their destiny
--> b) the best of "Timeline" contains a poster describing how all the album related to the "Forever Saga" are connected and their own part in the "Ayreon Universe big picture", and contains also a new song "Epilogue: The Memory Remains" that is the final epilogue of the "Forever Saga"
7) in 2013 the album "The Theory of Everything" is the first Ayreon concept album completely disconnected by the "Forever Saga" telling about the research of a father and his son of the theory of everything
8) in 2017 with the album "The Source" Arjen returns to his beloved "Forever race" characters, telling us the prequel of the Forever Saga, explaining us where they lived, what was the extinguishing event they have to face, what caused that event, and how the Forever race faced it.
9) in 2020 with the title "Transitus" Arjen created a complete different story, set on earth in the 19th century, and being a tragic love story with dark and gothic vibe. This album was conceived to be a musical, so there are more songs each of them being shorter than an average Ayreon's song.
In more than 25 years of Ayreon, they released only three live albums: The Theater Equation (a live performance of the album "The Human Equation"); Ayreon Universe (a live performance with a best of the songs created by Arjen for Ayreon and Star-One projects); Electric Castle Live and Other Tales (a live performance of the album "Into the Electric Castle" and a selection of 1 song for every Arjen's side project + the Marillion song "Kayleigh" performed by Fish, the original Marillion singer, that has played the "Highlander" part in the Arjen's metal opera). Each one of these live performances deserves to be considered a masterpiece in the music history.
Arjen also released a lot of other music throughout the years, with many side-projects as "Ambeon", "Star One", "Guilt Machine", "Stream of Passion" , "The Gentle Storm" and his own solo albums. When he creates new music, he creates music, words, story and everything else and when he feels the real mood of what he's creating, he decides if the following creation will be an Ayreon album, another of his own existing side-projects, or a complete new side-project.
Fun fact is that Floor Jansen has been a guest vocalist for Arjen since 2000 when she appeared on Universal Migrator. Since then she was a guest in Arjen's project in both the project Star One's albums and in the "01011001" Ayreon album.
I hope this post will help you to go through the wonderful world of Arjen Anthony Lucassen's music
p.s. if you'd like to listen to more Ayreon music, i strongly recommend to listen to his 3 live album and then the following selection of songs:
1) From "The Final Experiment" react to the first 3 tracks (Prologue, The Awareness, Eyes of Time) and the last track (Ayreon's Fate)
2) From "Actual Fantasy" react to "Abbey of Synn" [based on Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose"]
3) From "Into the Electric Castle" react to "Valley of the Queens", "Across the Rainbow Bridge" and one song chosen between "Isis and Osiris", "Amazing Flight", "The Two Gates"
4) From "Universal Migrator" react to "2084", "And the Druids Turn to Stone", "Chaos", "Dawn of a Million Souls" and "Into The Black Hole" (song sang by Bruce Dickinson)
5) From "01011001" react to "Age of Shadows (includes "We Are Forever")", "Ride the Comet", "The Fifth Extinction" and "The Sixth Extinction"
6) From "The Theory of Everything" react to the whole first suite "Phase I: Singularity" that goes from track 1 to track 11 of the first CD of the album
7) From "The Source" react to "Star of Sirrah", "Condemned To Live", "Acquatic Race" and "Journey to Forever"
8) From "Transitus" you can react to "Hopelessly Slipping Away" and "Get Out! Now!", "Condemned Without a Trial" and "Message From Beyond"
Enjoy yourself in the Arjen's rabbit hole :)
Hi 👋something you might like to check out from Ayreon
Ayreon universe age of shadows live floor and Marco from Nightwish and hanci from blind guardian
Ayreon universe everybody dies live
Ayreon universe intergalactic space crusaders live (this song is an homage to the uk sifi series blakes 7 from the 1980s)
Ayreon universe the eye of Ra live ( floor and her sister irean) ( this song is an homage to the film star gate)
Ayreon universe ride the comet live
Ayreon universe Dawn of a million souls live
Ayreon universe into the black hole live
You can thank me later lol 😆
the translation for the binary means TRUST TH-1,Th1 is the Robot
Epica is not Scandinavian though... Epica is a Dutch band. So is Arjen Lucassen, the mastermind behind Ayreon. He composes alle the music, writes all the songs and writes all the lyrics. Also Floor Jansen is Dutch. Did you even know this?
This 1st song is an introduction of the main characters in the story ( the rest of the album)
This story is linked to other stories from previous albums, like Genesis to the bible
Somehow all albums are linked together this way, which creates kinda like a Starwars universe ( only way better)
So, dozens of briliant albums and 100's of stellar tracks for u to discover, with iconic vocalists and musicians composed by a true master in the art
Hey, you should check out The Electric Castle album live shows Ayreon, Featuring John de Lance the actor who played Q from star trek the next generation as a live narrator on stage, awesome thanks 😀
Great reaction. Ayreon had it’s first album out before Nightwish started. Floor Jansen was still in After Forever when Arjen asked her for Ayreon.
I'd like to make an intelligent comment explaining Ayreon, but others have done so. Regardless, have a comment for the algorithm.
Aw thank you so much 😁👌
Absolute Masterpiece 🐱👤🎶👍 Ayreon - Intergalactic Space Crusaders (Star One) (Universe)
if it ain't dutch it ain't much... Welcome in the amazing world of Arjen A. Lucassen Aka Ayreon Universe (Ayreon, Ambeon, Star one, Guilt Machine, Gentle Storm, Stream of Passion).... Enjoy this rabbit hole….!!!!!
Ayreon Lee, make Arjen (Lucassen) with a Dutch Y for the J, as you do with Jansen, and phonetically it is Ayreon in English phonetics.
Good stuff !
Thanks buddy 😁👌
Ayreon quickly became my third favorite band after Pink Floyd and Nightwish after I discovered it a few years ago.
After this, just pick songs from the two live concerts:
Ayreon Universe live, with Floor Jansen, Marko Hietala etc.
The electric castle live and other tales, with Simone Simons, Damien Wilson etc.
See Wikipedia for everything you want to know about Ayreon., including the impressive list of well known musicians that participated on the albums and live concerts.
Let me learn you how to pronounce Dutch names.
The i in Simons is pronounced the same as the I in Simone.
You pronounced Jansen correctly.
Trust TH-1
Kudos for referring to Tank! Both he and Chase Carneson have made reactions to this, and they're amaaazing (both the reactions and the reactors), check them out if you haven't.
Just discovered your channel. This is 1st video I watched cool reaction. I totally love Ayreon. His music covers all emotions and styles. Thiers something for everybody. He tells great stories on his albums and surrounds himself with a lot of talented people and an array of brilliant singers. Also a quick note on your background, great taste in films footie team and very importantly music. I'll be watching more of your superb reactions from this point forward. Best wishes from Scotland. Can you please react to Kamelot Liar, Liar (wasteland monarchy) please thanks
Hey Stephen. Join us on Discord. Definitely the best way to get Lee to listen to requests. Plus it's a lot of fun. No one takes anything very seriously on this discord.
We do pick of the week, where everyone suggests something and the winner gets chosen and their is also a raffle once a month as well. Don't need to be a Patreon or anything.
If you are interested, Lee is doing a live stream tonight at midnight. (after he gets home from work.)
A great way to meet everyone.
We use Twitch for the live stream as the songs don't get blocked. Twitch address in the description 👍🏻👍🏻
Been seeing some of your Nightwish and Sabaton and only just realised -
⚽️ YNWA! 👊
Awesome!! YNWA!! 😁
I must start off my comment by saying that this lane of music is not what I typically would listen to. With that said......
This masterpiece took me on an incredible musical journey. Loved the genre transitions (especially when they went bluesy), the galloping basslines, all the different styles of singing and instrument playing, well everything about it.
Basil you truly outdid yourself with this request. I loved it 😁😁
It would have been so much better if the loud mouthed guy "reactioner" kept his talking to a minimum. I am totally JOKING LEE😂😂. You did an amazing job with this one. You have grown so much doing these reactions and it truly showed with this one. Keep up the incredible job!!
Well said Daphne. Lee did a great job.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@@bazkeen 😁👍
Aw thanks Daphne, I'm glad you appreciate my evolution as a reactor 🙂👌
Krate wree-akssjion!
No this song is not made up of snippets of all the other songs on the album, it’s a song in itself, it’s the first song on the album and each song after reveals more of the story!
A prelude to a Rock Opera, it seems - great intro to the performers he/they've pulled together in an ensemble for the album.
Had no idea what this would be, it was a slow build up, but well worth it - "The I" (I'd bet = The Intelligence) made me pause, then realised he's singing purely binary, clever lol. I'm not sure if someone will ever decode it, or check to see if he was randomising, or it was another clever level of lyrics
Binary stands for TRUST-TH1
@@mandje2002 No, it is "trustTH1" and it is extended ascii.
@@phillee2814 Mike Mills plays (sings?) the character of TH1 (ToeHider1 ??) in the story, an android helping humanity against the computers that have taken control of the world, hence the binary message he is giving: "TrustTH1"
@@roykliffen9674 I know which character Mike Mills plays, the correction was to the extended binary translation, as it has no hyphen and only the TH is upper case, both of the "t"s in trust being lower case. You can translate it for yourself if you like - if you don't read ASCII or extended ASCII there are plenty of translators online.
Or you can count the total number of octets, and see that the first and fifth are identical while the fifth is different.
I don't know why the un-hyphenated version was chosen unless maybe to make an 8 byte or 64bit total, which would possibly be more "in character".
@@phillee2814 Oops.... answered the wrong replier ... sorry for that.... was meant for the OP and original replier; was not intended as a correction of your reply which to me already was spot-on. And I do stand corrected on the T's ^_^
Great song from a great album. The song is really the 'overture' of the album, so not quite snippets but it introduces the themes both musically and the story. Possibly the best prog album I own and I've been listening to prog rock since Yes in the 1970's.
Great choice Basil you are obviously a person of great refinement and musical taste to introduce Lee to Ayreon. This Old Metal/Rock head salutes you and in no way harbors any resentment because you beat me to this selection as I had to change my choice because they said Basil had already selected this. Virtual beer on me great job! Rock On Stay Safe!😉🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
Sorry about that 🤣🤣 Has been on my list for sometime to give to Lee
Que cara chato...