CARAVAN
VENUE ulu, london DATE 16/11/2018 SUPPORT curved air
“Whew, it takes it out of you!” gasps Geoffrey Richardson after an enthusiastic spoons solo. As he also plays about nine other instruments with equal gusto tonight he’s entitled to take a breather, but as they celebrate their 50th anniversary, Caravan show few signs of taking any easy options.
Their music remains delightfully circuitous yet consistently groovy, and the 23-minute set-piece of Nine Feet Underground, to which everything else is a hors d’oeuvre, is as lovely a live moment (or stream of moments) as any set can offer. The line-up now may bear scant resemblance to the quartet who formed when exiting The Wilde Flowers in 1968, but Pye Hastings is still there, and Richardson joined in 1972. Keyboardist Jan Schelhaas did a three-year stint from 1975, then defected to Camel (there’s a jokey shout of “traitor!” when this is mentioned), then rejoined Caravan in 2002. Add in bassist Jim Leverton, who’s been with the band for over 20 years, and there’s an authentic amount of Caravan heritage here.
All of which they tap into instantly, beginning with Memory Lain, Hugh/Headloss and I Wish I Were Stoned. You couldn’t get more definitively Caravan than those whimsical spirals of psychedelia, gentle jazz and productive progressive meanderings.
Look up ‘Canterbury Sound’ in the dictionary and the pages play these tracks. When they then glide into the sweet, summery pop of Golf Girl and Love To Love You from their classic 1971 album In The Land Of Grey And Pink, the mood is already established as one of uplifting bucolic charm. Not that Caravan sound fey or lightweight: it may be partly down to the compact but atmospheric venue, but they’re surprisingly chunky tonight, the full house’s heads nodding in approval.
But while Caravan’s newer material doesn’t reach the lofty levels of their heyday, the
Nine Feet Underground journey isn’t just a lazy stroll down memory lane. For all Hastings’ onstage diffidence (he leaves the talking to Richardson), its wilful volte faces and threepoint-turns still surprise as much as soothe. Caravan at 50 did it all over again, all over us.
Prior to Caravan’s arrival, their contemporaries Curved Air deliver a subtly mesmerising set of folk-and-fusion-tinged rock. Sonja Kristina still embeds herself in the heart of their music, spinning soulfully, her hands twirling in happy-hippie uninhibitedness. Compelling narratives emerge through songs like Young Mother, Marie Antoinette and Vivaldi, with Paul Sax’s violin to the fore. New young guitarist George Hudson is a find, his solos matching Sax’s all the way. Unlikely 1971 top four hit single Backstreet Luv, an odd, sinister serpent of sound even now, raises nostalgic smiles.
“CARAVAN’S MUSIC REMAINS DELIGHTFULLY CIRCUITOUS YET CONSISTENTLY
GROOVY.”