TAKE A BOW
The return of The Steve Hillage Band takes top billing this month, with more live reviews from Trinity 4, Karnivool, Magenta, Gong, Katatonia, Roger Hodgson, Download Festival and more…
This year is proving to be a bumper 50th anniversary year for Gong fans. Straight from their tour promoting the acclaimed The Universe Also Collapses, the band are back on the road, this time under the auspices of their erstwhile guitarist, for the Steve Hillage Band’s first headline tour in 40 years. Hillage’s partner and half of System 7, Miquette Giraudy, completes the seven-piece.
A packed out Shepherd’s Bush Empire fills with the sound of trickling water and chimes as Rainbow Dome Musick teases the air. The screen flashes video of key events from the intervening decades, reeling in the years until Nigel Planer’s Neil from The Young Ones delivers his infamous line: “Oh no! Steve Hillage!” Then
the man himself takes the stage to a raucous welcome, strapping on his distinctive Steinberger guitar.
Once settled, he gestures to Giraudy, who triggers the sequencer line from Talking To The Sun. It’s an esoteric choice as set opener. Tucked away on Side Four of the Live Herald LP and later tacked on to the front of the CD of 1979’s Open, it’s not exactly the barnstorming messianic return to headlining that we might have expected. And yet it’s absolutely perfect. Here was Hillage circa 1978, foretelling the kind of electronica he and Giraudy would go on to pioneer many years later. The synth lines mesh and throb, underpinned by Dave Sturt’s pulsing bass and drummer Cheb Nettles’ tight groove, until the tension becomes unbearable and Hillage lets fly those soaring guitar melodies. He’s back, and that laser-beam tone can still split atoms like a fission reactor. The song receives rapturous applause, matching the palpable sense of occasion. This is a special evening and it’s off to a flying start.
“It’s too much!” the self-deprecating Hillage exclaims before the band launch into The Beatles’ It’s All Too Much. Hillage has always had a knack for taking songs and making them his own. His dynamic quiet/loud
solo on this 60s classic is wonderful. As it did 40 years ago, the song segues into The Golden Vibe. The unmistakable delay motifs which make up Hillage’s signature sound are greeted like long-lost friends. Doubled and harmonised by Kavus Torabi’s guitar, they sound fuller and more majestic than ever.
It’s all going swimmingly – until The Salmon Song. Ian East’s flute mic elicits feedback shrieks, and Hillage’s voice starts to show signs of straining to hit the heights. Fortunately there is no lack of back-up, with five musicians doubling on vocals, and Torabi’s oh-so English accent mimics Hillage’s own to a tee. The heavy riff kicks in, and the sea of bodies in the audience becomes more agitated as a veritable moshpit churns whirlpool-like
VENUE Shepherd’S BuSh empire, London
DATE 08/06/19
“STEVE HILLAGE IS BACK, AND THAT LASERBEAM TONE CAN STILL SPLIT ATOMS LIKE A FISSION
REACTOR.”
into existence. Sadly it’s not a classic rendition of the song, with a few mistakes surfacing, but that hardly matters as the positive energy here tonight carries the band through.
Hillage never played Sea Nature and Ether Ships (from the Green album) live in the 70s, and this is only their third outing ever. Tonight they’re spellbinding. From heavy beginnings to submarine atmosphere, we are guided leagues under the sea. Giraudy’s slow and deliberate rendering of the Vocoder section is tantalising, riding on our emotion and charging the air with expectation before a mesmeric finalé.
Lunar Musick Suite showcases the whole band. The three guitars (including Fabio Golfetti on glissando) create a fuller sound than Hillage ever enjoyed with other line-ups. Add the wind instruments from East and Giraudy’s expert synth playing, and there’s really nothing in that classic catalogue that these musicians aren’t able to master.
Solar Musick Suite appears in cut-down form but still delivers the most magical moment of the performance with the devious and devilish The Dervish Riff section. The interplay between the musicians is gobsmacking, and the floor responds as a mass of gyrating, pogoing bodies.
Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man follows and it’s a glorious version. That incredible composed solo and the accelerando outro blasting off into the ether end the set in spectacular style.
The Glorious Om Riff is a mandatory encore, and given the personnel on stage inevitably it morphs into Gong’s Master
Builder. It’s a genuine privilege to witness this mind-bending and time-spanning mantric music.
Returning for a second encore,
Hillage pays tribute to Daevid Allen and to the current Gong line-up for not letting this music fade away, and Not Fade Away ends a magical evening with a promise of more shows to come later this year.
Oh me, oh my!