I saw Peter Hammill last saturday at 'La Maroqinerie' in Paris. Now, 'La Maroqinerie', is (and has the charme of) an ancient factory basement with concrete walls and is not one of my favourite venues. The acoustic is bad and there is place for about two hundred, but only 50 chairs (speaking about musical chairs). As the venue is in a residentiel area there is a strict curphew at 22:30, and even if the athmosphere is at it's peak, the roomlights go on ponctually and the concert's over.
Now the good things : see Peter Hammill in concert is always fantastic and to see him in a club athmosphere is great too. He is so delicate, witty and rocks at the same time...He played with
Stuart Gordon on violin and himself either on piano or guitar.They play for such a long time together now and the interplay between the two is just telepathic.The public was calm and receptive and slightly aged
.
He started on piano and the track list (from those I knew)
-Siren Song (starter)
-A better time
-nothing comes
Unfortunately the sound distorted as soon as they played only slightly louder. The sound got really better when PH switched to guitar (Ovation?) a better equilibrium between the two instruments too. At one moment SG had problems with his violin plug right after the start of a song, producing a crashing noice, and PH stopped and said to SG: "Are you trying to become a heavy metal violonist now"? From the guitar part I regonized :
-Bubble
-Patient (one of my favourite tracks)
PH switched then again to the piano for the third part of the concert.I regonized only one of my favourite PH songs, a brillant rendition of A way out that I preferd to the version I knew from 'Room temperature Live' Strict curphew obliged PH and SG came back for an encore and played Stranger still. A guy from the venue made signs to the man on the soundboard, houselights on, a kind of frustrating ending for a great concert. I hope to see him next time in a better place.
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