Billed as `The Joint Tour ll` Ozric Tentacles and Gong join forces once again and head out on a fourteen day co-headline trek around the UK as they did this time last year.
Tonight, the opening act is Gong who according to their social media pace create `Electric Vibrations at the Speed of Light`. I think the last time I saw the band was a decade ago when the line up included originators Daevid Allen, and Gilli Smyth amongst these progressive/psychedelic rockers. The band today comprises Fabio Golfetti (lead guitar, vocals), Dave Sturt (bass, vocals), Ian East (saxophone, flute), Kavus Torabi (vocals, guitar) and Cheb Nettles (drums, vocals).
The Beatles `Tomorrow Never Comes` is pumped through the pa as the lights dim and this quintet take to the stage. The band released a new album `Unending Ascending` earlier this month and tracks such as the trippy `My Guitar Is a Spaceship`,
`All Clocks Reset` and `Tiny Galaxies` were presented early in the set alongside an older track the uplifting `Rejoice!`
`My Sawtooth Wake` and `Through Restless Seas I Come` take us into an almost parallel cosmos with a meld of jazz, space and progressive rock with Sakia Maxwell joining and twirling like a whirling dervish with a psychedelic backdrop projected on and through the sleeves of her dress as her arms unfold and she becomes almost angel like. The pounding `Choose Your Goddess` is fairly mesmerising as the band close out this almost spiritual seventy five minute all encompassing performance. Ok it`s ten years since I last saw the band, but Daevid and Gilli can rest assured that new life has definitely been breathed into their creation.
Ozric Tentacles these days are original member Ed Wynne (guitars), his son Silas Neptune (keyboards, synthesizer), Vinny Shillito (bass), and Pat Garvey (drums, percussion) and are tagged as `Instrumental Progressive Space Rock` on their social media site. The band also released a new album ` Lotus Unfolding` last month. I saw the Ozrics a few times but always at festivals and the last time at The Phoenix Festival in 1994 so tonight would be a novel experience indoors.
The quartet share `Green Incantation` from the new album, which is wonderfully hypnotic, along with `Burundi Spaceport` which really evolves and `Lotus Unfolding` which has Sakia Maxwell joining and adding flute.
Her enticing dancing and moves that sway with the musical soundscape I have to say really added something, a kind of visual focal point other than the alluring projections on the rear screen backdrop.
Songs like the racing `Erpland` take us back in time along with the transforming `Kick Muck` and captivating `Sunscape` acknowledging the past and transporting us into another dimension mentally, well me anyway.
This seventy five minutes closes out with what I think was `Sloosh!` before we all head reluctantly home through a hazy and drizzly West Midlands winter evening.
I think looking back on the show I kind of enjoyed it and appreciated what I’d witnessed even more on reflection as there was so much to take in. Alongside the fascinating musical soundscapes of both bands the visual presentations from Fruit Salad projections really added a certain ambience and atmosphere to the night, for those of us lucky to attend.
The bands head out for a final fifteen day outing together next March entitled the Last Blast so if you don`t manage to catch this event this time around, you have once final opportunity.
You have been warned.
