Esoteric Antenna 2023
The enfants terribles of artsy frightfulness take their flock to nocturnal playground and treat them to a round of chilling grace.
The Bath Forum Concert
Apart from their 1975 live-in-the-studio recital, there’s not a lot of full-length live videos from VdGG’s halcyon days yet, judging by that one, witnessing this ensemble in vivo was a daunting, nigh on scary, endeavor – perhaps, much more fearsome than hearing them and letting the listener’s own fantasy sculpt a nightmare out of the band’s well-grounded numbers. Can they, a trio of septuagenarians, be still as arrestingly terrifying now? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Here’s a study in sonic intimidation – preserved for posterity in March 2022 and presented, in nuance-stressing Stephen W Tayler’s mixes, in both audio, on two CDs, and video, on DVD and Blu-ray – to emphasize the defiant independence of energy from age. There’s no surprise in seeing the veterans seated from time to time – the same happened before – but the vigor of the group’s delivery appears fascinatingly astounding indeed.
They don’t play it safe, starting the concert with “Interference Patterns” off 2008’s “Trisector” which only the hard core of the collective’s faithful fanbase would recognize right away, though that’s not required to find a blend of Hugh Banton’s organ and Peter Hammill’s electric piano – and his battle cry of “All that we see illusory” – extremely irresistible, a gambit destined to pull the spectator in and offer a deceptive, if inevitable, exit after the anthemic encore of “House With No Door” dispels in applause and silence. With the wild-eyed Guy Evans, customarily crouched behind the kit and accentuating the opening piece’s drift via the knitting-needles-like movements of his drumsticks, the delving into abject, albeit not too abstract, horror is diverting from the off – and betrayed by the sly gleam in the eyes of Hammill who, white-haired and clad in white garb, may look and sound similar to a deranged priest leading this progressive cult through the cymbals’ rustle into “Every Bloody Emperor” from 2005’s “Present”: the album’s title an important detail for the initiated – people living in the moment while being lured to a Gothic cathedral by Banton’s solemn passages. Still, the genuine delight will descend upon connoisseurs once the first chords of “A Louse Is Not A Home” hang in the air, as the band hadn’t performed the classic they never got to lay down as VdGG for nearly five decades – to intrepidly embark on the epic, gripping trip here to challenge any idea of feeling too old for such an urgency-driven journey towards claustrophobic enigma of a certain English group.
So when Peter straps on his guitar and steps forward to propel the oft-forgotten “World Record” gem of “Masks” and the majestic “Still Life” from “La Rossa” into the audience, the distance between the musicians is shortening whereas the scenic space is somewhat expanding to project histrionics from the stage alongside exclamatory stanzas – sung, like the rest of the lyrics, off the page – and Hugh’s lines that seem simultaneously unhurried and hectic. However, the momentum and impetus of the former nugget flow into the dynamically, and hysterically monumental, “Childlike Faith In Childhood’s End” and the vibrant urban anxiety of “Alfa Berlina” from the collective’s latest platter, "Do Not Disturb" from 2016, dissolves the latter one in a street triumph which is elevated by angular six-string riffs and snippets of solo. It’s only logical, then, to follow this relatively recent cut with a slightly earlier track “Over The Hill” to try and embrace mortality by way of two keyboards’ roll-call-and-response and inspired vocals, yet slide instead into captivating melodic madness: a fugue, in other words, wrapped in smile and jokes – something not pertaining to the years of the trio’s yore.
Neither is the intimate tones and light touches of “Go” – the eternity-bracing finale of the ensemble’s last album – that’s truly frightening live because it’s barely there, but it’s far from serving as the band’s farewell gift. It cannot, as “Room 1210” from the same record proposes nocturnally lively, funereally adventurous escape, and the multifaceted “Man-Erg” – the most solid staple of the group’s repertoire and the pseudo-parting piece here – raves and rages in a gloriously unhinged adolescent sci-fi manner, turning the artists into the pranksters of their youth. No matter what the players’ looks suggest, the lack of fragility in their performance is staggering – and their repertoire is different from VdGG’s previous concert document, "Merlin Atmos" which contained alternative highlights, all of this confirming the veterans as perpetuum mobile of blood-curdling art rock.
*****
