Original_To:  ALLM
Original_cc:  OLIVOTTO
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 13:26:00 N
From:         "OUT,
              OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-OUT..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Peter Hammill: Munchen Concert - a review by Marco

Hi gang! - Marco typing
        for those who may be interested here is the

------> PETER HAMMILL'S MUNCHEN CONCERT REVIEW

        As usual, those who don't care may hit <delete> right now. No other
subject follows. For those who care instead... enjoy and be envious :)  !!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Band: Peter Hammill, Stuart Gordon, David Lord, Nic Potter
        Location: Munchen - Germany
        Date: April 5, 1992
        Notes: "Nachtwerk" club. Very near a railway (shake-shake-shake
               at every passing train), accessible through the WORST
               underpass you can imagine.
        Curio: No posters of the concert in any corner of the city. And,
               of course, not even outside the club!!!

        Peter Hammill playes an amazing gig at "Nachtwerk" in Munchen last
Sunday. I and my initially reluctant girlfriend Mary drove for some 250 mi-
les in the beating rain (then to turn to snow) to see the gig.
        We got at the club in the afternoon, since we had no tickets and
wanted to buy them. We met a guy who told us to come back at 7.00 pm. So
we went around town for a while.
        At 7.00 a long queue was forming in front of the club door. The
doors were opened at 7.15 and the first 200 people swarmed in. We easily
got the ticket, and so we joined the rest of the audience in this cubic
structure (but with a good acoustic indeed). By the start of the show
there were about 500 people in the audience.
        At 8.00 on the nose the backstage door was opened and the band walked
on stage. Peter sat at the piano, with David in the background (physically,
not musically!) on another keyboard, while Nic "Mozart" grabbed his bass and
Stuart Gordon took his place at the violin.
        First number: "Just Good Friends". No drums (a constant of the whole
show), and the immediate feeling that the men on stage went along very well
together.
        This concert was part of the promotional tour for the "Fireships"
album, so a lot of new songs were played. The overall mood of the latest
work is very calm and orchestral (though this doesn't mean that it can't
kick you emotionally, of course), and this was well reflected in the
choice of the songs for the evening.
        After the second song, "Curtains" (from "Fireships"), Peter got
back to the "Out Of Water" album with a great and suffered version of
"Our Oyster". Then he took on his guitar for "Something About Ysabel's
Dance", always from "Out Of Water".
        Three numbers from "Fireships" followed: the three-chorder "I Will
Find You", the title-track (simply magnificent, with the endless repeats
of the chorus "we think we're fire-proof, we never think that we'll get
burned", and "given time".
        At this point we had been standing in the place for about 1 hour,
so Mary decided to go for something to drink... mad woman! She lost the
whole "Patient", surely one of the best numbers of the whole evening. It
is incredible how a quartet of musician without a dash of percussions can
make a song grow and bite. A special mention is dur to Stuart Gordon, one
of the best violin players you could ever hear (and he hasn't a solo career
though!). This man is able to get almost any sound from his violin, and
for more than two hours he smashed the public with solos which ranged from
one-minute notes to devilish scales which often brought him completely out
of the usual harmonic realm into the kingdom of pure noise. A show in the
show, believe me!
        After "Patient", the public which had been growing on the concert,
had a quite wild reaction to the start of "Stranger Still", a Hammill's
evergreen as some of you surely know. This slow and terrifying song was
brought on for 10 minutes, with the standard ending for voice alone. The
tension was *so* great that at the sudden end everyone in the place bursted
out shouting - a necessary release of the huge tension which had been created.
        "A Way Out" and "Traintime" (the latter with Nic Potter and his
bombing bass in the foreground) ended the show.
        The audience called for two encores, which were "The Future Now"
(what else?) and "Modern".
        And then... "Becalm, It's Done".
        It was one of the best shows I've ever seen, as for the quality and
feeling of the music. Even forgetting Hammill for a while, the band did a
heck of a work, creating a superb layer for Peter's voice.
        The tour continues, and will come and go between Germany and Holland
for the next two weeks more or less. Then Peter is expected to come to America,
though the dates haven't been completely confirmed yet so NO NEWS (for Rick
Meyer: I asked him after the concert, hoping to give you some more details
for Dewey, but sorry - no clear ideas yet. The best period seems to be July,
anyway).
        And then, in the driving snow, I had to turn my car and head for Italy,
where I got (exhausted) at 3.30 am.
        Just after we had passed the Austrian border, I asked Mary (who is not
extremely interested in music, and so good luck bringing her to see a gig of
this kind!) whether she thought it had been worthwhile to drive for 500 miles
in a day to see the concert.
        "I guess I would have driven a lot more, if I had known in advance",
was the answer.
        This should say it all, shouldn't it?


        Ciao, Marco
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU