LIVE FLOATING ANARCHY 1977

This albums is raw and exciting and captures David Allen, and Gilli Smyth with Here and now on their famous Floating anarchy tour. If you like Here and Now this is a great LP, if your really hooked on gong you may find this a little to raw and lacking in sophistication for your tastes. The songs almost all involve long and complex jamming with Steffi Sharp- strings utterly on top form and seemingly ecstatic to be playing with his personal hero. I think this hero worship may have fallen a little flat after this tour but that's just a guess. As far as I concerned the spirit overcomes the bands limitations and even kif kif cannot put a foot wrong on this tour da force. I only caught the very first gig that David did with here and now, at oxford with no time to rehearse that was a disappointment. Thankfully Tim Blake's crystal machine played and was exceptional that night. Somewhere between oxford and France things must have gelled and what we have here is the result of that marriage between professional musicians and extremely keen semi-professionals. What a great gig this must have been especially if you had invested in a nice micro-dot. An album for die hard hippy's only maybe but a corker all the same. Sadly this collaboration was not to last and here and now became what Gong had never truly been , ie a truly Anarchistic community the darlings of the free festival scene in the Uk.

Here and now probably deserve their own review page although if they could be termed prog is debatable...certainly (like hawkwind) they are an acid rock band. Later recording during this heady period suffer from kif Kif's annoying vocals and appalling drumming. Later after this classic line up split here and now became a very competent live band. These days some of the members have become part of the Butlins review style Gong that plays very safe versions of Gongs greatest hits to audiences of fans who seem not to notice how boring the music now sounds.

The Lp though is essential to Gong fans and remains sadly a great one off from a heady and truly amazing tour.