Gong in Paris 04/11/09
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Live Performance Reviews
Forum Description: Performance Reviews by Members
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=62665
Printed Date: December 04 2024 at 13:56
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Gong in Paris 04/11/09
Posted By: Alucard
Subject: Gong in Paris 04/11/09
Date Posted: November 07 2009 at 17:08
|
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 …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… ------------- Tadpoles keep screaming in my ear "Hey there! Rotter's Club! Explain the meaning of this song and share it" |
Replies:
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: November 07 2009 at 17:24
|
That's interesting; I had a completely different experience. Me and my girlfriend were up, at the seated places, right near the sound engineer; the sound was quite good, considering I've heard a lot worse in Paris, especially at L'Olympia. The Steven Hillage band was the opening act, they played about six songs between 7:40 and 8:15 pm (the main concert started after an half an hour long intermission). We felt the performance was great, the old songs still sounded powerful and daring, true avantgarde; much better then I was remembering them from the albums. The band was obviously enjoying it and they were extremely fun to watch. Having not seen Gong in the past, I can't rate this as a Gong concert, but I can definitely say this was one of the best concerts we've ever had. |
Posted By: Alucard
Date Posted: November 07 2009 at 18:54
|
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! ------------- Tadpoles keep screaming in my ear "Hey there! Rotter's Club! Explain the meaning of this song and share it" |
Posted By: The Runaway
Date Posted: November 07 2009 at 23:35
|
Lucky you! You got Pot Head Pixies on the set AND Didier Malherbe, while we had niether! I'm envious... ------------- http://www.formspring.me/Aragorn224" rel="nofollow - Trendsetter win! The search for nonexistent perfection. |
Posted By: oliverstoned
Date Posted: November 13 2009 at 06:47
|
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... |
Posted By: The Runaway
Date Posted: November 13 2009 at 12:13
|
I didn't think the drummer was bad, I just thought that if you wanna play Prog Metal, GTFO out of Gong, my friend. ------------- http://www.formspring.me/Aragorn224" rel="nofollow - Trendsetter win! The search for nonexistent perfection. |
Posted By: Alucard
Date Posted: November 13 2009 at 12:33
|
Blowie,
I think you didn't got Olivier's message right, who is BTW a big Gong fan and a complete Non Prog Metalist...maybe the drummer got a bad night and as I said above he wasn't very present in the mix and compared to former Gong drummers not very engaging, which gave the impression that he was always behind the band, which in consequence slowed down and broke sometimes the typical Gong flow IMO....but then again, even if I shared this impression with Olivier, Christophe and Michel that is still only our impression.
Cheers
Martin
------------- Tadpoles keep screaming in my ear "Hey there! Rotter's Club! Explain the meaning of this song and share it" |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: November 16 2009 at 08:43
|
^^^^^^^^^
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
------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: The Runaway
Date Posted: November 16 2009 at 08:49
The three reasons you mentioned were also at the gig I was in, and I still think it was mindblowing. Since when does sold out merchandise lower the rating of the gig? Be happy that there are more people in this world that actually listen to this sort of music  . They did approximately 2 hours at our gig, but I felt that the last 20 minutes were a waste (You's two 10 minute tracks), because, IMO, they were just electronic noise. Trading a few smiles and giggles with Hilly and Miquette made the concert much more exciting for me. But standing close to the stage doesn't do too much good sometimes, because the Miquette sounds just pop your ears again, and again, and guess what, AGAIN.  ------------- http://www.formspring.me/Aragorn224" rel="nofollow - Trendsetter win! The search for nonexistent perfection. |
Sean Trane wrote:Posted By: mrcozdude
Date Posted: November 18 2009 at 18:50
|
Hey does anyone know their touring setlist,any information would be great?
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/cozfunkel/" rel="nofollow"> 
|
Posted By: emdiar
Date Posted: December 05 2009 at 14:23
|
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.
The Oxford show suffered from a crap PA, and a `mid week rock audience`, even though it was Saturday, but Mike Howlett was on bass, which made up for that.
Best band ever! ------------- Perception is truth, ergo opinion is fact. |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: December 05 2009 at 14:43
 |