I stumbled across Arjen Anthony Lucassen one day during my ongoing pursuit of new and worthy progressive-rock to add to my expanding collection. There has been a proliferation of prog-rock/metal bands who have emerged during the 90's, since Dream Theater reignited the scene with their debut album Images And Words in 1992, but being able to separate the great ones from the mediocre ones can be a daunting task. For every Spock's Beard that emerges, there are twenty others who are downright painful on the ears. Lucassen and his many side projects are frequently played on all the prog-rock radio sites, and his albums are mostly praised by the prog-rock critics on the web, which is what initially attracted my attention to his music. I 'm not ready to say that he is one of the best, but he is certainly one of the most fascinating prog-rock/metal artists in the business, as this DVD amply demonstrates.

Star One is Lucassen's most recent new project, which so far consists of the 2002 album Space Metal and 2003's Live On Earth, from which this bonus DVD is included. He has already released over twenty albums under his other projects Vengeance, Bodine, Ayreon, and Ambeon. They must have quite the work ethic over there in Holland. I can picture an elderly Lucassen scolding his grandson one day, "what do you mean you're in "A" band? When I was your age I had FOUR of my own bands!".

There is nothing at all understated about Lucessen, and these projects of his. Aryeon, probably his most successful one of the bunch, and the one whose songs make up the majority of this concert, deals with themes of time travel, mythology, medieval times, intergalactic space travel, and many other science fiction topics. Every album is either a grand concept, or a rock-opera - nothing remotely subtle. The first Star One album, Space Metal is Lucassen's heaviest offering to date and each song is based on one of his favorite space films including Star Wars, Dune, Alien, Stargate, and Outland. For this album Lucassen obtained the services of some of prog-rock's finest vocalists including Russell Allen (Symphony X), Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold), and Floor Jansen (After Forever).

Live On Earth was recorded in September 2002 in Rijssen, Holland during a short European tour where Lucassen managed to reunite all of the vocalists who sang on the Space Metal album. Star One's stage show looked as if a giant spaceship, bathed in dry ice, blue lights and lasers, had just landed in the arena and opened itself up to the awestruck crowd. Inside are long-haired, humanoids, armed with musical instruments, and dressed in silver space suits - that just so happen to make them look like characters from the Lost In Space TV show. I swear I saw a concert or two just like this on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert back in the 70's. There are multiple levels to the stage with stands for the various vocalists to sing from, and a giant video screen centering the stage, which constantly shows images of galaxies, black holes, and other cool space phenomena. Hell, they even have a "stargate" up there. Think of 80's Pink Floyd concerts, ELO's Out Of The Blue tour, or Boston's last few tours, but on a much smaller scale. I would describe the music as a blend of Deep Purple, ELP, and modern progressive-metal.