Storming Through Post-Apocalyptic Abysses on the Electrostatic Wings of Van Der Graaf Generator (2011)

Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Venue: Teatro Comunale / Vicenza / Italy
Concert date: 08.04.2011
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: €40.00 (advance) / €48.00 (day of show)

The British titans of prog rock Van Der Graaaf Generator are still, well into the 21st century, an unbelievably innovative, utterly unique yet thoroughly modern-sounding band, effortlessly delighting music gourmets all over the world, whether with excellent new studio releases like the current album “A Grounding in Numbers” or with jaw-dropping live shows like their Friday gig in Vicenza, where in the middle of the Teatro Comunale hall they held the entire audience in a trance practically from start to finish, so most people were still reeling with delight long after the show was over.

Catching these unbending prog rock legends in Italy is always an exceptional, unforgettable and deeply emotional experience, since these thunderous heralds of the post-apocalypse have always enjoyed the greatest respect from the Italian crowd out of all of continental Europe. Since 2008, when they released the album “Trisector”, Van Der Graaf Generator have operated as a trio made up of original members: the brilliant vocalist, occasional guitarist, electric piano player and lyricist Peter Hammill, undoubtedly the band’s central figure, organ grandmaster and occasional bassist Hugh Banton, and drumming wizard Guy Evans. You couldn’t tell for a second that longtime saxophonist and flautist David Jackson is gone, even though they didn’t part ways on the friendliest of terms.

The seating layout of the hall, with its varied mix of seats, guaranteed maximum comfort for the audience and an ideal stage and sound system for a band of this caliber. As befits true English gentlemen and would-be professors of the natural sciences, the trio started playing right on the announced time. Hammill and Banton sat down facing each other, one at the electric piano, the other at the organ, which was fitted with bass pedals, and kicked things off with a maximally dramatic opening, the first bars of “Interference Patterns” (Trisector, 2008). The ‘sharp-tongued doctor’ Hammill, who is also highly esteemed for his colorful solo career, is, despite his respectable age, still a fantastic singer in astonishing form, constantly surprising with his exceptional control of a rich vocal range. He glides from high to low registers as if it were nothing, and even in the spots where he screams so hard his frail body starts to shake on the spot, he still sounds incredibly in tune.

With “Mr. Sands” they dove into one of the best and most complex pieces from the new album, which also supplied the melancholic “Your Time Starts Now”, where the often overlooked, gentler side of the band came out for the first time. As far as drumming technique goes, Evans is a jazzer from head to toe, which he proved again and again throughout the night, from the way he holds his sticks to his outstanding feel for rhythmic improvisation, massive fills and busy work on the cymbals. He cashed in on that last one especially on the first “Godbluff” (1975) classic of the evening, “Scorched Earth”, when the gates of hell swung open in epic fashion and all the longtime devotees got their fill. Of course, the trio is (rightfully) extremely proud of their latest studio achievement, so they quickly reminded the audience of it and carried on with fresh treats, the fantastic versions of “Lifetime” and “Bunsho”.

VDGG are wonderfully inventive when it comes to picking their live repertoire, so they change it often and skillfully balance long-standing classics with newer favorites, which means every show can hold some surprises that many never thought they’d get to hear live (again). The biggest surprise of the night, and with it one of the concert’s highlights, was the performance of the epic classic “Gog”, which originally comes from Peter’s solo career, specifically from the masterpiece “In Camera” (1974). It doesn’t happen very often that VDGG decide to play one of Hammill’s solo creations, but when they do take on such a feat, they pick a piece from his solo treasure chest that is stylistically akin to their sound and on which all three musical masters originally played together. During “Gog” a hellish atmosphere took over the hall, which fit perfectly with the song’s gloomy lyrics and its chaotic yet epic nature, while the band was bathed in red light and curtains of smoke for most of the time.

But the pampering of the longtime fans’ gourmet appetites was far from over, because the next classic brought another sizable surprise. “La Rossa” joined the excellent renditions of epic evergreens, picked especially for the Italian audience, since this “Still Life” (1976) classic has always been very popular in Italy. “All Over the Place” from the current studio effort, with its baroque motif and mischievous rhythmic twists, eased the tense and gloomy mood a bit, but only a smidge, so the intensity was still ever-present.

They returned to the album “Trisector” with the super-epic “Over the Hill”, where they also thrilled with some colorful improvisational passages. The main set was slowly drawing to a close, which all the longtime devotees realized with sadness the moment they heard the opening bars of the epic evergreen “Man-Erg”, one of the few VDDG classics that almost never goes missing from the live repertoire and that could perhaps be called their most recognizable song. It is also one of the more vocally demanding pieces, which made Hammill’s excellent interpretation all the more impressive.

For the encore  they delivered another magnificent “Godbluff” classic, “The Sleepwalkers”, in a brilliant way that’s hard to describe in just a few words. That meant that, apart from “The Undervoer Man” and “Arrow”, where the saxophone is truly indispensable, they played most of the pieces from that legendary album. During the grand finale Banton especially came alive with a gastronomic organ passage that he stretched out accordingly, and besides the usual organ grandeur he also impressed with his fluent use of the bass pedals throughout the show. To thunderous ovations that just wouldn’t die down, the legendary trio bowed to the audience and marched off the stage.

For many of us, it was yet another magnificent, unsurpassable performance by prog rock legends, one for which it’s extremely hard to find enough superlatives to do it justice. It passed all too quickly and left us in a deep post-concert afterglow for a long time. Despite the fact that all three members passed sixty long ago, VDGG still play like youngsters, something virtually none of their contemporaries among the prog rock pioneers can claim today. VDGG need no cheap masquerade or sinfully expensive stage setups in the style of certain prog rock countrymen who lost the creative drive to touch their audience’s hearts long ago. It’s simply incredible what magic a trio of people can conjure on stage with a firm faith (even stronger than ever before) in their original mission: constantly pushing the boundaries of sound across still unexplored musical horizons.

photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Setlist

1.Interference Patterns 2. Mr. Sands 3. Your Time Starts Now 4. Scorched Earth 5. Lifetime 6. Bunsho 7. Gog 8. La Rossa 9. All Over the place 10. Over the Hill 11. Man-Erg —encore— 12. The Sleepwalkers

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