VdGG - RFH - 06 May 2005

Just back from London, and they were absolutely fantastic - utterly mesmeric from start to finish.  If I had a criticism at all, I thought Guy Evans was a little disorientated at times, but his recoveries were amazing, and his technique clearly hasn't deserted him - magical.

Jaxon was immense, and Banton amazing, but the biggest surprise for me was Hammill's voice - just astonishing  - every bit as snarling and ferocious as those early albums.  What a performance he gave - still running around the stage.

I would definitely go and see them again and would urge any fence-sitters to do likewise. They WILL get even better

I'll post some pictures up when I work out how to do it....!!

Saturday, May 7 2005

From a train somewhere between London and Newcastle. . .

Why Do Pensioners Have All The Best Tunes?

In a week that saw the pundits and politico’s babble excitedly about whether the country might turn red, blue, yellow or green it was the Grey party that was always going to get my vote.

In the time that both Cream and Van der Graaf Generator have been away, legions of children (and perhaps even grandchildren) have been spawned by the spotty-faced teenagers who once shook their long locks to the likes of White Room and, a few years on, In The Black Room.

Though occupying opposite ends of the stylistic spectrum both bands have a distinctive sound that identifies them within a matter of seconds and despite that fact that what was once white or Black is now a paler shade of grey, they both packed the kind of punch that contenders a fraction of their age can only dream about.

With over 150 years plus years between them, Clapton, Bruce and Baker walked casually out on stage to receive the adulation of a Royal Albert Hall so packed to the rafters with Americans that one could be forgiven for thinking that this was a Democratic convention. Whilst Clapton looked like he might pass for a relaxed White House candidate in off-duty family mode, the same could not be said of Jack Bruce, whose illness and recent liver transplant had clearly taken it toll. Having always had something of a gnarled visage, Ginger Baker presented a bewildered gape throughout the night, looking not unlike an Alzheimer sufferer presented with a cutlery drawer and asked to find a spoon.

As the trio basked in the glow of approval, row upon row was lit bright not by people holding lighters and matches aloft but with the glare of tiny display screens from mobile phones. Next to me, a chap all the way from Boston was busily texting someone back home with the news that Cream had opened the set with I’m So Glad. And so it was for the next two hours, intercontinental networks buzzing as text and open lines conveyed the comings and goings of the gig to envious loved ones.

At a time when everything around a concert is slickly packaged, it was refreshing to see some good old fashioned eye-contact and hear a couple of raggy endings to some of the numbers, producing many smiles and grins from the players. This benign expression of schadenfreude was matched by an unambiguous joy at the successes and triumphs that were equally evident in each other’s playing. Clapton played a blinder during NSU and demonstrated something of his old fluid potency during the tumultuous comedown of We’re Going Wrong. Bruce proved that despite his health problems and a need to sit down during a few sections of the set, the glorious rasping voice remained as wonderfully course as you’d want and his bass playing was never less than spectacular.

Even Baker’s dogged thumping achieved what was required although lacked the spark that rightly saw him feted back in his heyday. Though his end veered more towards competency than celebration, it was good to hear a ludicrously quaint Pressed Rat And Warthog. Not quite able to keep a straight face during his recitation, Ginger reminded us at the end of the piece that our heroes had actually re-opened their shop and of course were now selling t-shirts.

The perfunctory Politician and anodyne Spoonful sometimes gave the impression that the task was to get through the big numbers in the time allocated rather than see where the muse might lead. Perhaps only Sweet Wine bucked the trend, taking a meandering journey in search of a sparky solo. But such concerns are of no consequence to the majority of those present. If Eric Clapton was God then this was not so much a concert as a congregation in communion.

And whilst Cream’s influential shadow may be longer and deeper across the popular culture landscape, when it comes to originality Van der Graaf are no slouches either. As at the Albert Hall, when Hammill, Jackson, Banton and Evans climbed aboard the atmosphere at the Royal Festival Hall was charged with an enormous amount of goodwill. And like Cream, none of them are getting any younger; factor in a major health scare (Hammill’s heart attack a year or so ago) and there’s more than enough reason to get it together before it’s all too late.

In this pessimistic light, a VdGG reunion might just be seen as an exercise in giving the back catalogue a stir through were it not for the appearance of their new double album, Present, which is as good (in a couple of cases) better than anything from the past.

Looking as thin as packet of Rizla papers, the singer whispered his way through the delicate menace of Undercover Man’s opening bars but soon unleashed the roar of terror that not only makes the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up but shaves them off for good measure. That brutal sharpness stretches right across the band, be it the seismic heaving of Guy Evans’ restless drumming, Hugh Banton oozing keyboards or David Jackson’s stratospheric sax.

The sense of hazard that seems such a part of the VdGG encounter was palpable throughout a set that delved deep into the past but came up sounding remarkably contemporary. New tracks such as Every Bloody Emperor and Nutter Alert sounded every bit the equal of old warhorses such as Lemmings, Darkness and even, Killer. Throughout the night their turbulent music boiled with a caustic, controlled rage which either turns people off or makes them a fan for life. With VdGG, there doesn’t seem to be anything in between. When music is as committed as this, it’s impossible to be partial about it.

At the Albert Hall, the crowd often applauded at the end of a Clapton solo such is the appreciative nature of the blues-based devotee. At the Royal Festival Hall, a different order of deference was evident. Large sections of the crowd would whoop, stomp and generally go ga-ga at the sound of Hugh Banton’s malevolent bass-end keyboards (think Killer). This wasn’t so much for the content (although that was uniformly fine) given that VdGG don’t really do solo’s as such. Rather it was for the very sound itself.

A truly partisan crowd applauded Jackson every time he put those two saxes simultaneously to his mouth – regardless of what came out. As with Cream, it seems likely that the band could have recited lines from the telephone book and the reaction would have been just as ecstatic. As it was, whatever Jackson played had a cracked, ethereal majesty about it. In between numbers, he would sometimes stand with his arms raised, holding a flute and sax in each hand, soprano and alto strapped across his chest like a bandolier making him look like a soldier of fortune; his body resembling a triumphant X marking the spot, as if to say “this is where the treasure is”.

With Banton and Evans understandably anchored behind their respective instruments, it was Hammill who strode manically about the stage, spitting out lines, flapping and swaying about as though being lashed by an unseen force, giving vent to the fearsome powers that this music has conjured for well over thirty years. Again like Cream, there was an understanding that no matter how formidable their individual talents might be, only when they lock together do they combine to create something that is somehow bigger than themselves. Throughout the gig, they smiled at each other, engaged in playful competition, emerging breathless from one of their more labyrinthine, MC Escher riff-fests, riding on the crest of risk-induced surge of adrenalin.

Here, even the weaker material from World Record sounded effective. As the final encore of Wondering slowly wound down to a single heart-beat note played by Banton and Jackson, one was left thinking that there was plenty of life in the band. And by the end of a concert that had witnessed four middle-aged men whip up a fury that would have been the envy of many a younger group, there was a marvellous sense of resolution, a feeling that the long years of listening had been vindicated, had always made sense; that one’s faith in something so transient and ephemeral as mere music had in the end not been misplaced.

As a sea of smiling faces spilled out the hall, I asked David Symes for his verdict. Though familiar with their material this was the first time he’d witnessed them in action. Looking dazed and amazed he managed to offer me these words: “Relentless. . .and. . magnificent.”

Stolen from Sid Smith's Diary!!!