VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

The Bath Forum Concert ESOTERIC

TPeter Hammill and co’s post-pandemic live set.

here are some groups whose live sets feature nearperfect reproductions of their studio recordings with every note and beat neatly in place, everything presented just as you heard it on the album. That’s never been the Van der Graaf Generator way, then or now. In trio formation, they’ve become even more angular and combative than usual. This setlist, featuring both venerable and newer material, isn’t there to be revered but experimented upon, probed and interrogated in order to reveal new revelations.

THE AUSTERE PRESENTATION SUITS THE MUSIC WELL.

The Bath Forum Concert captures the trio on their last UK date before they decamped to Europe, where Peter Hammill fell seriously ill, resulting in the remaining tour dates being cancelled. In spite of that, this live album finds VdGG on absolutely cracking form. Consisting of two CDs with DVD and Blu-ray containing full video footage with the whole shebang mixed into 5.1 surround sound by Stephen W Tayler, whose stunning remixes of the Charisma catalogue in 2021 were so transformative, it’s a feast on all levels.

A Louse Is Not A Home, from Hammill’s solo album The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage and 1970’s House With No Door, the oldest number in the set, become renewed and recoloured here, age and hindsight lending weight to the lyrics. The subdued Go is heard in pin-drop silence while Masks and Man-Erg receive beatific renditions. “Sometimes it’s very scary here,” as Hammill once said, and this music is teetering, tested to near destruction. Even with Hugh Banton’s multitasking keyboard and bass pedal work filling the air with both heavenly and infernal textures, theirs is a sparse sound, stripped to the bare essentials, propelled by Guy Evans’ expressive drumming and turbocharged by Hammill’s stentorian rasp. When all these inherently volatile elements combine, the sense of danger infused in the music is simply thrilling as it takes off.

There are some groups whose concert performances are bedecked by elaborate sets or enough lighting to illuminate an entire city. That’s never been the Van der Graaf way either. The video footage presents the trio on a bare stage, delicately lit with minimal changes throughout the two-hour show. That austere presentation suits the music well. Without any distractions, there’s a sense of sitting close to the players as they set about the task at hand, each with the air of ageing professors holding forth on some arcane, complex theory.

Hopefully this release will come as some kind of consolation for disappointed fans who missed out on seeing the show in the flesh after Hammill’s illness. Visually and audibly, it’s impossible to fault this package.