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Me and the Missus are still suffering the effects of jetlag. What world travelling wimps we are…
In the post: Porcupine Tree – Deadwing LTD Edition
Today, I saw “Revenge of the Sith”. Being a Star Wars fan (but not one of those fans who dress up as their favourite character or name their children Greedo) I have been looking forward to this film since George Lucas first announced the new trilogy. OK – I admit it. I enjoyed the previous two films too, but I saw them for what they were: pieces of entertainment aimed primarily at seven year olds. This time around it was different and Lucas made a film for the old people. It was a nasty, dark descent into Hell with lots of severed limbs and heads thrown into the mix. I enjoyed it a lot and when the two little infants were handed over to their respected adopted parents and the opening strains of the original Star Wars theme began to play, there was a little drop of moisture gathered in my eyes. It was the air conditioning, I tell you. The AIR-CONDITIONING! Good fun, but not for the kiddiwinks…
I’m going through a bit of a Steve Hackett renaissance at the moment. What with the two acoustic gigs I’ve seen and the multitude of recordings I’ve purchased over the last few months, it’s really a Hackett bean-feast at Chez Lock. This particular release I have been waiting for for nearly a decade. When we had satellite TV, I used to tune into all the German TV channels – OK, most of the time I was looking for pornography 🙂 but every weekend, some of the German channels (Bayern, was one of them) used to play old rock concerts from the 1970s. From this show, I managed to tape performances from Marillion, Peter Hammill and Steve Hackett. The only problem with the Steve Hackett concert was that I missed the first fifteen minutes of the show. This galled me because it was such a fine performance and it was never repeated again while I had the old dish.
Anyway, the self-same concert, recorded on 8 November 1978, is now available for the first time on DVD. I got my copy direct from SH’s online shop and so my copy has his signature scribbled on the cover…how dare he deface my DVD sleeve! 🙂 The performance is all here from me this time and we get to see Steve and his band (featuring his brother John) performing numbers from his first three solo albums.
The DVD opens with a pretty incendiary version of “Please Don’t Touch” and I still can’t forgive Genesis for not recording a version of this for their Wind & Wuthering album. The fools! But it doesn’t matter because Steve has done well on his own and this DVD shows just how strong he was so soon after leaving the band. Pete Hicks helps out on vocals for “Racing in A” and “Narnia”, but I’ve never been a particular fan of either song. I prefer the instrumentals. And we do get them…”Ace of Wands”, “A Tower Struck Down” and “Spectral Mornings” all get a strong outing, with Steve using his eBow for the latter track there. You also get to see/hear SH using the infamous Optigan keyboard for one number and it really is a curiosity. I am glad that they included it because it is a funny little number and one thing you always get with Hackett is a lot of dry humour. From the intros to the band (David Bailey on camera – cue applause from the unwitting German audience) to the use of filters on his voice for Carry on Up the Vicarage, you can see why all the fun stuff disappeared from Genesis after his departure.
The concert itself ends with a great medley consisting of the sublime “Shadow of the Heirophant”, complete with Dik Cadbury pulling off amazing vocal gymnastics to perform the vocals that were laid down by Sally Oldfield on the original (all together now: get yer knackers out of the vice, Dik!), which seques into an evil version of “The Angel of Mons” ending with drummer John Shearer going completely apeshit and providing the inspiration for Animal from The Muppets at the end of that track.
But it doesn’t end there… As this is DVD, you get an extra 14 minutes of unreleased stuff that wasn’t deemed fit for human consumption. So “Carry on Up The Vicarage” and “Star of Sirius” are now available to be heard. Neither is particularly strong, but it is good to hear/see them here.
The DVD itself features a 5.1 surround mix, but it didn’t really provided any extra depth to the performance. The really clever thing is that you can programme the DVD to playback the content in any order, so you can seemlessly add the cut footage back into the concert for a complete Hackett experience.
Look, I am a complete Hackett fan, so I say: BUY THIS DVD NOW! You get a great view of SH in the 1970s and it means you can throw away that crappy copy you bought for £25 off eBay, you moron! 🙂
I worked it out that I see Laurie Anderson every two years – what a lucky guy am I. “The End of the Moon” is the second of a trilogy of works by Anderson that began with “Happiness”, which I saw at the Barbican back in 2003. The latest performance piece features many different ideas about science and beauty and art and looking up. The stage is sparse with an old leather chair which is used to tell a couple of stories, a projector and Anderson’s musical rig which is her pulpit for the majority of the show. Around the stage there was about a hundred candles flickering and dancing, creating a very calm effect. Almost a sea of stars on the stage. The narrative thread is provided by Anderson’s employment as NASA’s “Artist in Residence” and she goes on to talk about why the guys at the Hubble Space telescope make the pictures of far-off stars psychedelic rather than try and get a realistic model of the stars (“well we think the people would like them that colour) to how new intelligent space suits that have been developed aren’t being sent into space, but being sent out to be used in desert warfare.
The mood of this piece is much darker than “Happiness” and I was left feeling a little bit down. But that’s not to say it is a miserable piece, there’s much to laugh at and Anderson’s use of language is both hypnotic and, in places, unnecessarily verbose. However, the quality of the stories shine through from tales of duetting with an owl in Italy to walks in the woods with her dog Lollabelle and the canine’s subsequent discovery that danger can come from the air. Yup, looking up is the theme of the piece. Looking at the moon, looking at turkey vultures swooping down on Lollabelle, looking at the Twin Towers falling…looking up. Danger can come from anywhere.
Interspersed between these monologues there’s Anderson musical pieces played out on the violin. Very often these are solo, sometimes accompanied by a backing track. This time around she used a harmonizer and delay effect on a couple of the performances to create a twin violin duet with herself. The music was very strong and it certainly broke up the stories and kept you interested in what was going on.
The performance itself is about 90 minutes long and it is a totally solo performance with Anderson operating the backing music, cameras and some of the lighting herself. That’s without all the dialogue. It’s a very involving show and if you get the chance to catch it, please do. It’ll send you out of the theatre thinking and looking up.
Coincidence is a funny thing. Throughout my life, I have noticed that coincidence (or “fate” or synchronicity) is a powerful and unexpected force. One of the more memorable incidences of coincidence happened when I was around 13 years old and I was with my grandmother visiting the grave of my recently deceased great-grandmother. In the cemetary, who should I spy but my errant father, the woman he left my mother for and the child they recently had together being wheeled in a buggy. As you can imagine, this was a smack in the chops and almost made me vomit on the spot. When you break it down, I suppose the chances were there, but considering that he lived in Kent, me in East London and we were visiting two separate graves in a cemetary that covered quite a large distance, it always leaves me a bit gobsmacked that our paths could ever cross. Ever since then, I’ve always been aware of the power of coincidence.
Take for example, my return journey from Las Vegas. While waiting to board the plane, I noticed my old boss of 2000/1 in the queue. In fact, he stood right beside me and we made eye contact, but being a completely faceless, chameleon-like chap, he totally failed to recognise me. And the coincidence? Well we were on the same place and sitting in the same row…number 42. I’d pre-booked my seats. I was in 42E and he was in 42A. That’s coincidence for you. Spooky, eh?
Tonight – Laurie Anderson at the Barbican. Let’s hope that the tube behaves itself this time…
With all the transatlantic travel, the body clock is a little up in the air at the moment. Here’s a picture of us on our hols:
In the post: VDGG tix to Shepherds Bush Empire.