It’s admirable how festival organiser Luk De Roover goes out on a limb each year to put an AOR/melodic rock act that hardly anybody has heard of on the bill of the Lokerse Feesten.
This time the choice fell on American combo Valentine accompanied by a man who had graced this very stage on 3 other occasions: mister Terry Brock. For the melodic rock aficionado incentive enough to be present.

I was eager to find out what these gentlemen had in store for us, especially since Valentine has only released 2 albums to date: the excellent self titled debut from 1990 and more recently the Journey flavoured “Soul Salvation”.

And what they dished out was most tasty. They kicked off their 90 minute set in a great way with “Running On Luck”, “We’ll Find A Way” and “Tears In The Night” during which it became immediately clear that the voice of singer Hugo was in great shape.

But new tracks like “Soul Salvation” and “One More Chance” sounded equally impressive, very much in the classic Journey vein with the aforementioned mister Hugo throwing in some genuine Steve Perry poses and movements.

Besides Hugo, black back-up singer Deana D. (a member of the Heart tribute band “Heartless”) demanded her share of the spot light. During versions of the Heart chestnuts “Alone” and “Barracuda” she even took centre stage and impressed me with the way she handled the vocals.

And then there was of course Terry Brock who was once again firing on all six during both the Strangeways tune “When Love Lies Dying” and The Sign’s “Forever Again”.

The band didn’t shy away from including a new track in tonight’s set list and rightly so cause “Face In The Crowd” sounded just as good as the rest of the material.

A most entertaining gig for anyone with a love for AOR/melodic rock but also those present with a different musical taste seemed to appreciate what Hugo & C° had to offer.

Towards the end Valentine played a beautiful version of the song “No Way” for which the band shot their first promotional video back in the heyday of rock ‘n roll. But they closed things down with a cover of the Journey tune “Don’t Stop Believing” on which Hugo and Terry shared vocals.

All in all another most enjoyable evening and I’m anxious to see with what mister De Roover will come up next year.