As readers of Facelift will know, I’ve been immersed over the last week in putting together a selection of pieces looking deep into the curation of Gong’s latest album ‘Bright Spirit’, and one of the recurring themes is that it marks the beginning of the end of a particular cycle for the band.
Photos: Georgina Filby Howitt
Although the cycle is still some way from its conclusion (luckily the band have a series of tours and festivals to complete before the year’s end) there was still a sense of release, with the shackles being off for the latest gig as part of their co-headlining tour with highly entertaining ravey-spacerock-infathomables Henge. Possibly it was the febrile atmosphere within the Manchester’s New Century Hall, a cavernous, buzzy venue, created the band’s hometown crowd, dominated by tie dyes, wild beards, deelyboppers and illuminated mushroomed accoutrements, not to mention a certain joie de vivre.
Gong were opening tonight, at the incongruously random (and early) start time of 6.50pm, and if Kavus told Facelift in his interview in January that one of the features of joint tours was to ‘pick your best champions’ for your shortened set, then firstly, they got their selection spot on, and secondly, it still didn’t feel particularly truncated, with the band’s performance extending to an hour and a quarter.
The repertoire somehow managed to incorporate this current band’s greatest hits whilst the best bits of ‘Bright Spirit’ infiltrated appropriately: the uncoiling snakes of saxophonist Ian East heralding the quite startling eastern-inflected riff of ‘Dream of Mine’, whilst, as promised ‘Mantivule’, the ‘dotting’ instrumental so reminiscent of System 7 and Ozric Tentacles has made its first appearances on this tour, Kavus Torabi’s repeating motif setting off all sorts of responses from around the band.
‘Rejoice!’, I was informed to my right, had been on the point of retirement the previous summer at Manchester PsychFest, but here it was again, benefitting from yet further new angles on the dual solos from Kavus and fellow guitarist Fabio Golfetti. ‘Tiny Galaxies’ too, purveyed its own Sixties sounds, drenched in vast swirling swathes of sound.
My notes throughout this gig are punctuated by words such as ‘joyous’, ‘upbeat’, ‘celebration’, and indeed the gait of the band was infectious: Dave Sturt beaming throughout, his head often raised to the roof in exultation; Fabio the rock, creating the bedrock of sound on glissando; Kavus a bundle of energy, circling constantly the vast stage, circuiting behind the drum kit, popping up on either side of his sidemen at will. Ian East felt like a maestro tonight, with so many telling incursions as counterpoint or full-throated solos. With such a vast stage, drummer Cheb Nettles was unusually exposed, giving full visibility not just to his highly dextrous, powerful drumming, but an insight into the passion behind his own screaming, high end backing vocals. A colossus.
Highlight of the evening for me was an astonishingly vibrant ‘My Sawtooth Wake’, which, since becoming aware of secrets of the track’s origins (it is inspired by the story of revelatory madness of the 1960s lone British sailor Donald Crowhurst) has added, for me, a whole new layer of significances: it’s pounding, unremitting rhythms; its undulating, rocky tempos; even the brief hint of a seagull’s call from saxophone.
‘The Wonderment’, the band’s latest single, recalls Steve Hillage’s ‘Rainbow Dome Music’, not just through its oscillating keyboard bedrock, but the glissando which underpins it, whilst soprano sax and lead guitar solo beautifully.
And yet there’s still time for the band’s new/old epic: the previous album’s ‘Ship of Ishtar’, (with Kavus’ exhortative vocals against a minimal backdrop which allows Dave Sturt’s bass to find its own meandering voice) melding into ‘Master Builder’ with its usual riot of incantation, incessant rhythm and stop-start conclusion. ‘Stars in Heaven’ rounds things off in grandiose style. There’s a sense that the crowd have been subjected to enough of a wealth of experiences and emotions for the entire weekend… but for many of tonight’s crowd it’s merely an aperitif for the somewhat different, but equally arresting Henge. The tables turn in Liverpool tonight where the running order changes once more…
The Canterbury scene(zine) continued.... 