| |
Whiskyfun
Home
(Current
entries)
Concert
Review
Index
(All Reviews
Since 2004)
Leave
feedback
 |
Copyright
Nick Morgan and crew
|
|
|
Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
|
 |
|
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR The Barbican, London,
April 16th 2007 |
| I’m
sorry Serge, but I have to confess that sometimes
even I get it wrong. I rushed at these tickets as
soon as the gig was announced. Van
der Graaf Generator! Wow! And there
in my mind was this hazy memory of student parties
and yet another fairly pleasing ELP meets King Crimson
prog rock band, useful gatefold sleeve albums and
all. And I had a striking image of Peter
Hammill, long curly locks, that slightly effeminate
boyish look, cheesecloth shirt, and a voice from
paradise. And I’m sure he did nice folky stuff
after the band split, or between their several manifestations
in the seventies – and didn’t he have
a sweet-lipped and sweet-singing sister Claire
Hammill, sweeping Indian print cotton skirts,
coy in fields of daisies and wildflowers, who teamed
up with Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells and all of
that stuff? And for what it’s worth the Photographer
was sure she met one time band member Charles Dickie
at some hippy hangout in Oxford. Yep - it was all
pretty clear to me and my expectations apparent
as we arrived at the Barbican for this rare London
appearance. |
| From
1967 to 1978 the band went through various line
ups and had the usual break-ups before calling it
a day. Front man Hammill pursued a prodigious solo
career. Then in 2005 the band reformed with Hammill,
saxophonist David Jackson, keyboards man Guy Evans
and drummer Hugh Banton. A new album, Present, was
released and the band toured with a major show at
the Royal Festival Hall, available in its entirety
on CD as Real Time. Following this, Jackson departed
from the fray once more, taking with him the most
distinctive element of the Van der Graaf sound,
but the threesome returned to tour in 2007. |
Peter Hammill (right) with Demis Roussos
in 1977. Sorry, I mean with Phill Collins |
| Did
I mention that, like the Fat Ladies, they’ve
just come back from Limbourg (“a weird place”
as someone described it on Hammill’s bulletin
board) – that should have told me something.
So should the audience – many of whom (without
wishing to be rude Serge) would not have been out
of place at one of your whisky shows. And in fact
I had a serious double take when I bumped into one
who must have been Serge’s twin brother –
so everyone can tell what they looked like. Or at
least the relatively normal ones. There are a lot
of single guys here – arms tightly folded,
trousers too short, bodies slightly rocking with
the haunted eyes of deserted East European orphans
in some dreadful children’s home. Some of
them are too close – remember, keep an eye
on them whatever happens. |
 |
|
|
They
take the stage fifteen minutes late. How can I describe
what happened next? Ok – let the black notebook
speak: ”singing flat”; “Johnny
Rotten”; “echo pedal”; “Spinal
Tap lyrics”; “organist bass pedals”;
“delicate high-hat cymbal”; “can
they really have been this bad”; “man
across aisle rocking violently and dribbling”;”
strained strangulated and often painfully out of
tune vocals”. You see, Serge I just hadn’t
done my research and didn’t realise they were
really supposed to sound like that. |
| No
wonder the Photographer – as deluded as I
was - was nearly lynched when she surmised loudly
halfway through Hammill’s opening vocal efforts,
“Christ, he’s really lost it hasn’t
he?”. So I suppose it was a love it or hate
it moment – and to be frank Hammill’s
vocal delivery is so extreme and (until J. Rotten
produced a fairly good pastiche of it) unique, that
it’s pretty hard to love it at the first hearing.
In fact, perhaps I’d excised it from my memory.
And whilst I could forgive the voice I still can’t
find it in my heart to be so charitable about the
lyrics, sometimes described as Hammill’s “anguished
poetry”. |
| I
mean I know we all sang along to Pete Sinfield’s
‘Court of the Crimson King’ and stuff
like that back in the good old 1970s, but that was
because we had to make our own entertainment then,
and frankly I’d be embarrassed to own up to
it now (oops!). So it’s one of those moments
when you either shake your head solemnly at the
profundity of it all, or simple giggle uncomfortably.
Sorry VdGG fans – but I took the giggle route.
Take the opener, ‘Childlike faith in childhood’s
end’: “As anti-matter sucks and pulses
periodically the bud unfolds, the bloom is dead,
all space is living history”. Well possibly,
but then think of this from ‘Every bloody
emperor’, “Unto nations nations speak
in the language of the gutter; trading primetime
insults the imperial impulse extends across the
screen”. Pretty gloomy schoolboy radicalism
wouldn’t you say? And certainly not for me.
No – we’ll draw a veil over the rest,
apart from the moment when Hammill sang “Am
I really here?” – at that point my empathy
was complete. |
| Of
course the fans (in other words everyone else in
the Barbican apart from the Photographer and yours
truly) loved every minute of it, and possibly quite
rightly so. Guy Evans was astonishing on keyboards
and bass pedals (even though he couldn’t help
it sounding like, well … ELP meets King Crimson),
and Banton’s ability to move swiftly from
sublime delicacy to driving rhythms was outstanding.
And of course Mr Hammill is an accomplished guitarist.
Love it or hate it, take it or leave it. So we left
as ‘Man-erg’ came to a close (“The
killer lives inside me; yes, I can feel him move”),
which was just as well. As I looked back and encore
‘Still life’ began I could see the rocking
wraiths rising from their seats like an army of
Nosferatus. We closed and barred the door behind
us, and made a run for it – “somnolent
muster - now the dancing dead forsake the shelter
of their secure beds, awaken to a slumber whose
depths they dread…” Blimey, that’s
enough! |
 |
|
Oh, and by the way, if you’re interested,
Van der Graaf Generator is a spelling mistake.
- Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
|
|
|
|
|
There's nothing more down there... |
|
|
|
|
