ALL OVER THE SHOW

Steffe Sharpstrings - Guitar/Vox Bernie Elliott - Slide Guitar/Sabre Rob Bougie - drums Gav Da Blitz - synths/EMS Keef Da Bass - Nuclearbass/vox

Recorded during the August 1979 Free Tour at several different venues, this set captures Here & Now and their punkiest and most energetic stage, thanks in large to Rob Bougies great drumming. Also of note here is Bernie Eillotts brief appearace on slide guitar with the band, before disappearing into the marshes of the fens. This slide adds a great dimension to the sound and its a shame there was no full studio album with this line up.

The set kicks off with the band "baking hot" and cracking straight into "Think For Yourself", a fast paced number with repeating synth and slide lines drawing you straight in from the off.

Then its into "Open Door" with its thunderous bass line and some great effects laden lead from Steffe who proclaims "an open door, a flaming love - shining like a beacon".

The only familiar number here is "70's Youth" from the Give & Take album, which remains prteyy true to the studio version.

"Surgeons Knife" rounds off side one and captures Here & Now's finest moment on vinyl, all 11.22 minutes of it, which incidentally later found its way into Ozrics set at Stonehenge a few years later in 1984. The synth driven track with a backbeat is pretty straight forward trippy space punk up to about 5 minutes in. The is when the best jamming aspects of the band come to the fore as the song breaks down into some sublime guitar and ems bubbles which slowly build to a crescendo as Keef and Rob start a great simple rhythm that continue interspersed with some amazing lead work from Steffe, simply stunning.

Side 2 bring things back again with "Little Things", a punky back beat affair with Keefy and Steffe ranting about little things that annoy him, featuring some tasy Synths from Da Blitz - sound very 70's Roxy Music in parts.

"Only Way" builds slowly from a melodic guitar line with gentle tribal tom tom work over the top - the mellowest track on the album.

A typical Jam follows built on a powerful punky bass line with phased guitar and all over the place drumming from Bougie - typical of the jams that later appeared on the Off The Cuff release from the same year.

The album rounds off nicely with "End of the Beginning" a simple two chord bash with loads of spcey guitar and synths and he crowd hanging for more.

This album is hard to categorize as it is an almost radical departure from the previous efforts, "Give & Take" and "What You See Is What You Are" and the biggest surprise upon purchasing the album was the lack of familiarity with all but one of the songs - not exactly typical for a live release. Apart from "70's Youth" the only other track to see a studio release was "End of the Beginining", which is a crying shame is this was such an energetic and creative line up that did many gigs during the short time it was together. After 1979, these songs virtually never showed up in their live sets, although Open Door made a brief appearance in the early 90's set. Shortly after this release, Bernie, Steffe and Rob jumped ship whilst Keef and Gav moved away towards a more reaggae/dub/pop sound for their next effort " Stolen Moments" in 1981.

Fear not though (!), as Steffe is currently working on remastering "Off the Cuff" from this and other 1979 shows - all improvised and mindblowing - could be out in 2006 or 2007 - see Planet Gong site for details.

Share this HERE & NOW review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to
• Report this review (#70008)
• Buy HERE & NOW music online with PA partners
• Show all HERE & NOW MP3/Stream
• Go to HERE & NOW page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to All Over The Show page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for HERE & NOW related discussions