THE INTRO

Caravan’s epic new box set is the talk of the town, and there’s more hot news from Van der Graaf Generator, Neal Morse Band, Faust, Public Service Broadcasting, Anneke van Giersbergen and more!

Caravan will release a four-years-in-the making 37-disc box set Who Do You Think We Are? on August 20 via Madfish, in a limited edition of 2,500 copies. As well as remastered versions of the group’s 16 studio albums and four official live albums, the set includes 11 discs of previously unheard concert tapes – from soundboard recordings to audience bootlegs – a DVD of vintage European TV performances from 1971 to ’81, two books, posters – including a poster/map of Canterbury created in the style of the In The Land Of Grey And Pink cover artwork – a replica press pack, and Steven Wilson’s stereo and 5.1 mixes of their 1971 album, In The Land Of Grey And Pink.

“I’m surprised there was interest out there, but pleased as hell that they [Madfish] came up with the idea, because they’ve done a fantastic job,” says Caravan mainstay Pye Hastings.“It’s a life’s work, basically. It’s a great retrospective of the band’s career and I’m thrilled to bits with it.

“The band have progressed from the four young guys to the band we have today, through half-adozen bass player changes and two keyboard player changes. It’s quite exciting to look back on it.”

The group’s original keyboard player, Dave Sinclair, says: “It shows how much so many people have enjoyed and supported the band over the years and allowed it to flourish. When I visited the Madfish offices back in July 2018, I was amazed to see so much material in boxes that had already been sent in by fans and friends of the band.”

At the time of interview, the box was still in production and Sinclair was particularly looking forward to seeing the video of their 1971 Marquee performance. Hastings, who’s been interviewed for the liner notes, has gone through the live recordings, and says he was particularly taken by the line-up from 1973 to ’74.

“The John Perry, Dave Sinclair and Richard Coughlan version of the band live-wise was quite an eye-opener,” he enthuses. “We were so tight in those days. It was a cracking band to play in. I thought, ‘Christ, that’s good!’”

Sinclair’s favourite of Caravan’s studio albums remains In The Land Of Grey And Pink. “I was more involved in that than any other, composing the Nine Feet Underground suite, and helping to arrange the other tracks on the album,” he says. “The other

members of the band were also

in top form and we were enjoying working with our new producer David Hitchcock. Apart from the Decca Studios we were also one of the first bands to use George Martin’s newly opened AIR Studios in Oxford Circus.”

Caravan remain the group most closely associated with Canterbury and the box set includes a Caravan’s Trip Down Memory Lain map of the city.

“Looking back, yes, we were in the Canterbury Scene, but I don’t think we were really aware of it as a phenomenon at the time,” says Sinclair. “A few years ago, I went with friends back to Lexington House in Canterbury, to the ‘Nine Feet Underground’ basement flat where I wrote some of the Caravan classics from 1970 to ’71. The walls and shape were the same, but everything else had changed. I couldn’t help laughing to myself when I saw that where my piano had been there was now a cocktail bar! A lot of these nostalgic spots are mapped out in a special sheet in the box set, showing many of the most frequented places and bandmembers’ homes.

A great idea.”

Listening back to this half-century of music, Hastings identifies Caravan’s signature style as, “a whimsical, jazzy approach towards the whole thing which appears distinct from other bands.

And at times it was a bloody racket. And you can print that.”

See www.officialcaravan.co.uk for more.