Right at the very end of Van Der Graaf Generator’s set tonight, the words “hers forever, in still life” have just come out of Peter Hammill’s mouth, and he walks away from his microphone, head bowed. As he does, Hugh Banton plays a riff on his organ that evokes a church choral recital.
If that sounds religious, then that’s because the feel of the show has been very much one of reverence. There are people here that are hanging on every word, every nuance, every note of what Hammill, Banton and drummer Guy Evans have done for the two hours they’ve been on this stage.
If prog more widely lends itself to such quiet adulation, even awe, then specifically Van Der Graaf Generator seem to lend themselves to that type of following.
Even watching them for the first time here (and a disclaimer, your humble MV reporter is a more “casual” fan than most in the Town Hall) you can see that VDGG are the type of band you can lose yourself in. Goodness me, every song is a rabbit hole, a journey, and I’d imagine with repeated listenings, these are the sort of songs that reveal themselves more each time.
In short, Van Der Graaf Generator are the sort of band that people have as their specialist subject on Mastermind.
But, there’s plenty of fun in this too. Not least Hammill smiling as he sits at his piano and saying: “well, we made it at last!” The context for this is that the tickets went on sale in 2019, so there’s an element of making up for lost time – but then, the music is timeless so it’s kind of fitting.
“Interference Patterns” is short and to the point (if there is a point, of course) but it feels like “Over The Hill” has got things into full swing. It’s interesting to watch Hammill and his mannerisms as he sings not just this song, but the others too, and he jerks, and twitches as if cajoling the words out of himself.
Each one has its peaks, troughs, little crescendos, you name it. The Hammill solo tune (“we used to play it in the band before one of our breakups” he deadpans) “This Louse Is Not A Home” is added because they’ve just relearned it, but things really change gear with the brilliant “All That Before”. Hammill plays the electric guitar, and the combination of riffs and organ is not a million miles away from Deep Purple. “La Rossa” and a haunting “Go” end the opening set.
Its split into two, because as Hammill points out “we need to rest our aging bodies” (each of them is in their 70s) but the break is almost an opportunity to refresh yourself and process what has gone on before.
The second half, though is much more of the same. “Lemmings” is wonderfully discordant – and indeed the music walks a tightrope between madness and sanity and is never sure which is which.
“Alfa Berliner” begins with its hail of sirens, and the main man downs his instruments for the first part of “The Sleepwalkers” before the gear change at the keyboard as he near roars the vocals towards the end.
“Room 1210” calms things a little, before “Man-erg” ends the set, with Hammill cheerily introducing it with the words “well, here we go and there we went” and they really did, before the aforementioned “Still Life”.
I was researching the band quite heavily – in truth a lot more than usual – in the lead up to the gig and came across this quote. Hammill once said: “We love making a racket, and that has to do with chaos, which is pretty punk”. And for all that punk rock was supposedly a reaction to prog, its hard to watch this without thinking that Van Der Graaf Generator are just disrupters from the top draw. There was a genius at work here. It was baffling at times, bewildering at others, but my word, it was compelling. Stunning, on all kinds of levels.
