Gong in Paris 04/11/09

Meeting at 7PM : dinner with Olivier, Christophe et Michel in a nice Creperie that Olivier had found for us. Good food and a nice chat including concert memories from Michel, who had seen Gong in 1969 in Dôle (French alps). BTW Some of you might remember Christophe from our now legendary first Progarchives meeting in Den Haag.

…off to Le Bataclan, famous Parisian venue where Gong, had already played and recorded in the 70’s. About  400, some of the usual suspects and a mainly male audience. Concert starts with a nice animation on the screen behind the stage, which would last through the whole show, one of the more memorable points of the concert.

I say this right away, the four of us were disappointed, first the sound was bad, muddy bass, drumset too low in the mix, too much  low end signals and so on…then there was something missing, a spark…it’s always great to see Daevid Allen on stage, the ultimate entertainer, but even so he did his best to create a good athmosphere involving some audience participation,  the music was not taking off…a mixture of old and new songs I recognized  Digital Girl and  Wacky Baccy Banker from the new record + You Can’t kill me, Dynamite/ I am your animal, Pot Head Pixies, With Song/ I am your Pussy, Oily Ways, Selene, No More wars(?) nice but no real highlight,  and then I still don’t know why they announced the concert as Gong + The Steve Hillage Band, the SHB played exactly one song in the middle of the concert, signified by the stage absence of Daevid, seen that the rest of the band was identic???? Didier Malherbe was the special guest and appeared several times alongside Theo Travis, including a nice flute duo (which was kind of a minor highlight compared to Gilli’s soporifique space whispering)

I would be curious to read more reviews about this tour, but this particular concert won’t leave any traces…

We arrived at 8:20 and now I understand why we didn't saw the SHB, that's a real novelty in Paris that they start the concert twenty minutes earlier; normally it's the other way round, nevermind....we were down in the standing section about 15 meters deadcenter in front of the stage and the sound was awfull...as for the show, the important thing is that you liked it!

I have to agree with Martin. We were very happy to meet but we were disapointed by the concert. It was exactly as i expected it: (very) bad drummer + over-amplified rhytmic section which gives a muddy low as Martin said. Unfortunatly, this is the usual problem with "rock" concerts but it'll not change as everybody seems happy with that sound.
Plus, the Bataclan's acoustic is naturally bad, which doesn't help.

I want to emphasize how bad is the drummer and as Martin pointed out, it seems like he had a hard time following the others. He has a very heavy touch, making the whole sounding like some current prog-metal...


Besides all these negative points, they were all good except the drummer and the bass player but unfortunatly Hillage's guitar was not clearly audible within this sonic magma.

Hummm...better buy "Sherwood forest '75" Live CD...

Blowie,

Sean Trane wrote: ^^^^^^^^^   Having seen them in Ghent, this past saturday, I was also disappointed by their concert   1. Steve was not playing with his band as opening act 2. Howlett was not there 3. their memorabilia shop in the hall was out of books (the Dreaming 2 book)   I had seen the first concert  with Hillage back in the the line-up  in London in June 08, and had not been impressed either   The new tracks from the recent album are generally rockier and squarer than the old sruff. Some tracks were simply too loud as well and sometimes the drummer Chris Taylor (an excellent drummer that plays with them regurlarly thoughout the last decade) could not be heard   Just like in London; the concert is relatively short : 1h45 and there was no encore on the semi-bogus excuse of Daevid having the flu. Even if the case, what stops the others to play one track without him..... I know Daevid and Gilly are both over 70 and the first moves around quite a bit, but Gong's shows have been shortened by at least a half hour compared to what they did back in the late 90's

Edited by Blowin Free - November 16 2009 at 08:50

The Amsterdam gig was one of the best I´ve seen in my life. Seriously, the sound was second to none, as any one whose been to the Melkweg will know, and both the SHB and GonG played amazing sets that made me feel 16 again, so in awe was I.