“East” contains 80 minutes of typical late-eighties/early-nineties TD. The set mainly consists of material from “Optical Race”, “Lily on the Beach” and “Destination Berlin”. Only “Gaudi Park”, from the album “Le Parc”, is a kind of musical flashback within this finely balanced set, which would provide the basis for the English tour later that year.
The extremely positive mood of the material played by the band is very apparent. “Nomad’s Scale” is dominated by the guitar duel between Edgar and Jerome. This version is much more beautiful than the one on “Rockface”, even though Froese junior occasionally leans too much towards Malmsteen- or Satriani-like guitar pyrotechnics, and performs at break-neck speeds. However, his playing does not contribute anything to the essence of the piece. After that, the band continues with the “Canyon Dreams”-like “Daybreak on the river” and “Longing for Cashba” both of which appeared earlier in the 7“I-Box” set. This all fits perfectly into the whole set, especially when Paul Haslinger is given the opportunity to fully indulge himself on a custom-built Akai keyboard. When the sets ends, after several pieces featuring the characteristic sax playing by Linda Spa, the listener will grasp the future direction of the evolving TD sound.
Like the 1980 Berlin concert this concert marked an important point in the development of TD. “Berlin summer nights” is the bonus track on the cd. Apart from a copy autographed by Edgar and Jerome, the first 200 buyers received a special TDI cd-r that contained three extra bonus tracks (“Alchemy of the Heart”, “Alexander Square” and “House of the Rising Sun”). With this, the regular “East” CD contains an almost complete recording, barring a few pieces. Because of its brilliant sound quality (even better than “Rockface”) “East” is another real must-have for TD fans. I can’t deny that these are expensive times for buying cds. The fact of the matter is that these releases are simply too nice and beautiful to miss, especially as the material is of such importance musically. Now, let’s see if new releases of the pre-1988 recordings become available.
