Letters From Utopia by Kayak

Kayak is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in 1972 in the city Hilversum by Ton Scherpenzeel and Pim Koopman. In 1973, their debut album See See The Sun was released, including three hit singles. Their popularity was mainly in the Netherlands, with their top hit (Ruthless Queen) reaching No. 6 on the Dutch charts in March 1979. They disbanded in 1982 after releasing nine albums.In 1999 the band was asked to perform on the TV show De Vrienden van Amstel Live. After this performance, they decided to reform, and released nine further studio albums and three live albums. On 4 January 2008 they released Coming Up For Air. That same day saw the start of their 35th anniversary-tour. On 7 October 2008, they ended the tour at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The concert was released on CD and DVD as The Anniversary Box in December 2008. In October 2009 the band embarked on a Dutch tour. According to Ton Scherpenzeel (on the band's website), after that tour Kayak would no longer do the album-tour-album-tour cycle. They would probably keep on making new music though, as Scherpenzeel stated. But the sudden and unexpected death of Pim Koopman in November 2009 (halfway through the tour) made the future of the band very uncertain. In May 2010, the band's website announced a tribute concert for Pim Koopman. The concert was held on 22 November at the Paradiso. It involved not only Kayak, but also some artists with whom Koopman had worked in the past. Some of the names that appeared on stage: Pussycat, Caren Maywood, Alides Hidding, José Hoebee and Michael Robinson. Okkie Huysdens (with whom Koopman formed The President) and Jeroen Engelbert (one of many members of Koopman's band Diesel) also performed. For the occasion, Kayak used Hans Voerman as an extra keyboard player. The drumstool was occupied by Hans Eijkenaar. After the concert, Kayak announced that Eijkenaar was the new drummer of Kayak. With Eijkenaar on drums, Kayak released their album Anywhere But Here in September 2011. On 21 September 2012, it was exactly 40 years ago that the band's name was chosen. To celebrate this, Kayak went on a tour titled Journey through Time, after one of their songs. They played at least one song from each studio album. Also included was an excerpt from their forthcoming album Cleopatra - The Crown Of Isis. That excerpt was also released on an EP, backed by a newly recorded version of Symmetry, a song that Scherpenzeel and Koopman originally wrote in 1971. The album Cleopatra - The Crown Of Isis was released in November 2014. At the end of 2014, Cindy Oudshoorn and Edward Reekers announced their departure from Kayak, leaving the band without lead vocalists. At a one-off live performance of Cleopatra in March 2015 on the Dutch isle of Texel, Oudshoorn was replaced by Marjolein Teepen, who had worked with Kayak before. Male vocalists were Martin van der Starre, Alexander van Breemen -both of whom also sang on the album- and Rolf Koster. In the summer of 2017 Kayak announced: "The band that will go on tour features keyboardist Ton Scherpenzeel, guitarist Marcel Singor and vocalist Bart Schwertmann, as well as bass player Kristoffer Gildenlöw (who can be heard on the new album 'Seventeen') and- recently added to the band- drummer Collin Leijenaar." However, during their European tour of 2018, Kayak and Leijenaar decided to discontinue their collaboration. Hans Eijkenaar returned for the remaining part of the tour.