Points North – Live

Venue:  The Coach House – San Juan Capistrano, CA.

Date: December 18, 2015

Kevin Aiello (drums), Eric Barnett (guitar) and Uriah Duffy (bass) make up Points North, a Prog/instrumental band hailing from The Bay area of California.

Points North opened the show with Ignition, the opening track off their newest CD titled strangely enough, Points North. The video single has nearly 150,000 views on YT. A solid rendition, faithful to the studio track. They played all the right parts in all the right places. The crowd showed their appreciation with rousing applause. Next up, Northstar also from the newest CD. Uriah got this one going with an opening workout on his Lakland bass. This one becomes a scorcher then takes it down for some more bass work by Uriah. Back to full speed including some nice work behind the kit by Kevin Aiello.

Band introductions then another track from the new CD called Sky Punch. Everyone gets a turn for a solo spot in this one and Uriah does a nice job with playing bass AND playing synth with his feet.

The Source is up next. This is from their first CD called, Road Less Traveled. A ballad that is played with feeling. There is no “sleepiness” here. The tempo is slower but it is played almost with intensity. Spectacular work here by Eric Barnett! Appropriate burst of applause follows. A cover of YYZ by Rush is up next. They are all over this song like flies on…..well, you know! This shows just how tight this band is. At this point everyone is having a blast and singing along. Ok, they weren’t singing, there are no lyrics but if there were…

Turning Point off the new CD follows. This is the “epic” prog track. This clocks in at over 7 minutes. Kevin is amazing here. How does he do it? Uriah does double duty again, bass & “foot synth”. Eric plays enough notes on this that I wonder if he can feel his finger tips when it’s over!

The biggest stand out track of the night is Rites Of Passage. Eric says it’s the most difficult of their tracks to play live. They made it look easy. With all that’s going on in this song, they are still tight! Uriah does double duty again. Eric’s performance is spectacular…nothing less……from feeling and finesse to some lightning fast runs. Words fail to capture just how stunning this performance was! The last track was Steve’s Morsels……a tip of the hat to Steve Morse…at near breakneck speed.

If you enjoy top flight musicianship, instrumental rock with a side of Prog with hum-able melodies that can stick in your head, coupled with showmanship to match

….then check out Points North live!