Poitiers 13-4-74

Martin Hayman (Sounds 27-4-74)

French Connection says the man sitting over the way from me. It fits good, and it sounds right. Oh yeah? I think as I nod after eleven hours doing my Polish refuges stunt from Paris to London… swift, efficient and discreet? None of these things.

So you want to know how we spent our Easter holidays? We went to see Magma in Poitiers. Yes Magma: the group led by Christian Vander that there was such a big song-and-dance about recently (and for good reason): But why Poitiers, indeed? This was a question that I asked myself with increasing frequency as the weekend wore on and the obstacles against our travelling show stacked up against us.

But how dull to learn how the intrepid reporters various music publications scaled insurmountable obstacles to bring you back the story! How much more exciting to know what the crack was when (finally) we get to our destination.

It must have been something to do with the baroque imagination of mastermind Giorgio Gomelsky, who at the drop of a hat, had suggested (knowing from way back as he does the proclivities of the English music journalist when invited abroad to disport himself with foreigners), that we make this French connection....

Threatened for our pleasure were Magma and Can. There were unsubstantiated rumours that there would also be Stomu Yamash'ta and Keith Tippett. Neither was there.

Breakdowns

Of the numerous breakdowns in communication and organisation in getting there let us draw a veil; other than to note that the Simca rented from the Paris branch of Rent-A-Wreck sighed and gave up the ghost at the moment we entered the city limits of Poitiers: its gear stick flopping around in my hand with the same feel and the same propulsive qualities as a wooden spoon in a saucepan of porridge. By a miraculous chance we coasted to a halt outside the local office of the car rental firm, where a lady with a lapel badge pinned firmly to her ample bosom reading "We Try Harder" encouraged our party to push harder… eventually we arrive at the Hotel de France.

To the gig itself: a vast circular concrete hangar surrounded by acres of car-park; "Just like an American gig" noted funster and publicist Keith Goodwin, whose constant succession of jokes had still not worn thin. We wave slips inscribed with cryptic remarks and bearing the signature of Giorgio Gomelsky, who is promoting the gig: It works.

Inside Can are playing 'One More Saturday Night' and their sound is... like it was filtered through a wet blanket. The Palais des Expositions is perhaps one-third full and it's very, very dark and there doesn't seem to be anything happening. It's like a cheapo cheapo overblown Roundhouse.

Can, do a freak-out encore and the Théâtre du Chêne Noir arrive and harangue the crowd with post-1968 slogans. We leave in rather ill humour and recuperate our strength in the hotel bar.

Then Magma arrive

Christian Vander sits in the centre of the stage, a compelling figure with the blank but immortal tormented face of a werewolf. The group has been pared right down now to the essentials; no more Rene Garber with his vocals and contrabass clarinet, no more Stella Vander. Just a hard rock unit of bass, guitar, two pianos and singer percussionist. And those drums… those evil, marching drums.

Evil? Not intended: it just slipped. There is something too close to the edge about Magma. I say Christian Vander is commanding: it's a military term. There's an authoritarianism about him; not as lightweight as arrogance, for it wouldn't apply. There's a sense that his convictions are stronger than those of the rest of the people in the hall put together. And it's all channelled straight into a music that is intense; so intense I think it, slips over the edge into obsession.

I creep right up to the edge of the stage ... Vander is totally absorbed. His face twisted into the severe and agonised grimaces of one whose absorption in his own creation is total, he stares out into the middle distance. For perhaps a quarter-hour he maintains the same marching rhythm. His right hand rolls on the snare drum; his left hand hits the skin once, stops dead, again, the whole arm flies back to shoulder height; there is something manic about it, this unvarying pattern.

There is something going on that neither I, nor the rest of the audience knows about; something, which in the fullness of time may be revealed to us, but at what price? Top breaks one string, then another, tears them off and keeps on playing, but tonight and every night it's Vander's victory.

Victory indeed. I look around at the crowd, young, many of them. Here is no joy. They are transfixed. Do they share this man Christian Vander's vision? Do they want to? What are these blank, absorbed faces thinking of?