What is the most unusual concert you have been to

Gong.

       34 years on I am still uncertain as to just what the hell was happening on stage.

Aphex Twin. DJ set, Barbican, London, 2001.

The venue was the incredible Tropical Conservatory on the top of the Barbican.  We were handed wireless headphones by bemused looking Barbican staff, and entered the stunning moonlit conservatory, having to dodge low branches in the half light.  You could make out other punters by the red light on their headphones.   

The set was typical Aphex Twin, static noise, gabba, MC Hammer.  Take your headphones off, absolute silence, put them on again and you're transported back to whatever planet Mr Twins mind has come from.  Awesome.

Aphex Twin.  Essential Festival (I think), Finsbury Park

OK - don't want to hog the thread with Aphex Twin stuff, but he has a tremendous sense of the absurd...

I think it was the dance tent at the Essential Festival.  The stage was completely empty until a wendy house was wheeled on stage by a couple of roadies.  Aphex Twin was inside, puffs of cigar smoke occasionally wafted out the 'window'.  Whether or not he actually did anything in there didn't really matter, the ensuing set was an absolutely insane onslaught of beats, blips, and sounds so angular you could gash your head on them.  Some hardy souls in the crowd attempted to dance to it - the most successful moves seemed to be largely based on doing kung fu.  Rather than risk pulling a muscle I closed my eyes and let it pummel my brain.  

Towards the end the Wendy House was joined on stage by 4 or 5 people in 8ft teddy bear costumes with Aphex Twin faces - they jigged, danced, did kung fu, and pummelled each other.  

At the end of the set the teddy bears went home (presumably) and the wendy house was wheeled off stage.   Fantastic.

Steve:  Ref Gong.  I can't imagine that they had much idea what was going on?  Saw them the first time a couple of years ago with very low expectations - but they were superb.

Ha!  Saw Gong many times live the mid 70's.

Steve Hillage/Daevid Allen/Didier Malherbe/Tim Blake era - fantastic live sound, had their own sound engineer on all those tours who knew what he was doing.  Great performances never quite caught on recordings IMO.  Closest was Gong et Mort on BYG Actuel.

But I don't think they were particularly unusual - just a lot of dope and smoke on and off stage.

An evening of cardiacs music in the Bull and gate, Kentish town, there was no band playing just recorded music and quotes by the singer who is incapacitated by having a stroke. The evening was a charity event to raise money for Tim Smith's ( lead singer) recuperation. It comprised of Cardiacs back catalogue played way too loud for the venue and a smoke machine going out of control to the extent that you could not see a thing.

My partner and I thoroughly enjoyed it but it was very surreal.

Donald

I can no longer remeber the date but i once saw the Ukranians play at the Ludlow festival . The festival is held in Ludlow castle once a year  This event is a rather tame folk music /  food festival in the sleepy Shropshire town.

For those of you not familier with the Ukranians they were an offshoot of the Eighties indie magastars The Wedding Present who at the time where well known for very lively gigs and energetic mosh pits.

The Ukranians played a mix of  traditional Ukranian folk with fast  indie guitars added  in . The Ukranians attracted a smilur gig goer to the wedding present  , look up Davni Chasy or hopak on U tube and you will get the idea.

The gig itself took place outside within the castle walls , When i arrived it was clear  a large contigent of unwashed WP fans had made the effort. there was also a large amount of the Ludlow elederly and well to do expecting an afternoon of gentle Folk music  sitting with picnics on the castle walls etc .   The gig has to go down as one of the most energetic i have ever been to , Mosh pits , driunken Russian dancing and bemused but entertained elderley locals .. A great day out in the sunshine , there was even a raffle organised  andi still have the ticket .

Polly Harvey playing in a tent at the Hay Festival was also unusaul but really rather good.

must be Faust Birmingham Town Hall 1973- invited workman to join them onstage with pneumatic drill, just kept going!

Steve

1981, Rose theatre Kidderminster, Talisker Jazz who were a 3-piece (drums, sax, double bass) avant-garde jazz combo.

Absolutely atonal, tuneless, clueless. When not making some horrible noises with his bass the bass player simulated sex with his instrument.

Half the audience left after 10 minutes most of the rest of us about 5 minutes later - nice!

Plymouth Rock Festival 1987 at the city's football ground.

Was supposed to be an exciting end to an idylicc two week holiday in Devon and Cornwall with my wife on the occasion of  our first anniversary.

Learnt a few things on the holiday itself: the southwest is subject to highlevels of precipation, english guesthouses are grim and the maximum volume of vomit and diahorrea which may emanate from a woman is greater than you think.

As for the supposed musical event, ticket sales had not been sufficient so all the top bands such as Spear of Destiny withdrew at the last minute, leaving us with the spectacle of a few second rate local hopefuls and Captain Sensible who thought he could raise our spirits by mooning at the crowd. Oh and it was raining.

Atb

Ray

I attended a Dr Who concert on Monday last in Cardiff. The orchestra was the BBC Welsh Symphony and can only presume they were superb. I say presume because the BBc employed an absolute moron as its sound engineer because the pa delivering the sound-over for the episode being screened was so loud it completely obliterated the orchestra.  I spent the whole hour with my fingers in my ears! This was a very unusual concert in its format and also the worse one I have ever attended, you are all warned not to subject yourselves to a future one!

Tangerine dream circa 1977 with lighting show by laserium.

They completely filled the venue with dry ice for the entire show, synced the fan lasers to the bass sequencers and shone further lasers on two spinning ballroom mirrorballs ...you could see each individual shaft of green laser light through the dry ice.

Then Edgar let loose with the les paul and we all headed off to our personal universes for a couple of hours.

Those were the days.....

I've been to a few. The one that sticks in the memory for being not what the audience was expecting was ELO when Roy Wood was still with them at my home provincial (Essex) venue. To think that in my teens I could walk a quarter of a mile to see ELO, Chicken Shack, Sweet, Suzi Quantro, Manfred Man, Dr Feelgood and more! Of course, I didn't realise how lucky I was.

To the gig. The power went about half way through. There was about half an hour of milling around. A mic and practice amp were powered up from somewhere and we were treated to anecdotes, vocal quartets and jokes from the front. Plus some acoustic solo turns IIRC. After what seemed to be a very long time the power was restored and they stormed on, with apologies, into the early hours,  until the local police brought the proceedings to a grinding halt. 

Hell, that brings back memories.

From memory that smoke was via 'Concept Genie'

We bunked of school (well sort of - we had permission to go see the first holographic display that was in covent garden, studying physics was the excuse) of course having tickets for TD had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Green lasers are soooo 'last decade' now though!

...Devo's first appearences in the UK  were decidedly weird back in the day I saw them at Newcastle City Hall (1978?) ...the gig was preceded by the super 8 film "The Theory of De-evolution" ...then DEVO appeared standing all in a line facing left whilst the DEVO Coporate Anthem was played (worringly facist like at the time although that wasn't the idea) then the gig ...including "Wiggly World" when a unknown person ran from the audience zipped up in a DEVO yellow sleeping bag type thingy - jumped on the stage and began to ..erm' wiggle .....different to say the least!

Dug out the 'program' from TD  in 1978 (I think Matin must have seen them the year before this one)

Sorry for multiple posts but the software doesn't seem to want me to put multiple pics in a single frame tonight.

Have to say the laser effects, while outstanding at the time, look somewhat dated by those that are available today. Stepper motors have progressed somewhat I guess.

Graham - with regard to Gong.

My thoughts were that a guy well over six foot tall - without his 8" platforms, dressed in a silver spandex bodysuit, and wearing a tv on his head was something rather different than I was expecting!

The magic acts were also brilliant and again unexpected. Where did those gyrating floor rugs turn into full grown dancers come from - right in front of our eyes.. Music, as you say, was very good, from what I remember.

I remember seeing the Cramps in the late 70s in the backroom of a pub deep in the Worcestershire countryside. I think it was their first UK tour and whoever organised their bookings clearly had a great sense of humour or no idea. The room was filled to capacity (c100) with scrumpy fuelled headbangers age range 14-80. Don't know who experienced the greatest culture shock the band or the audience. Anyway a good time was had by all.

I think for me seeing Kraftwerk at the Velodrome in Manchester a couple of years ago, with four Olympic & Tour de France winning cyclists running laps during 'Tour de France' and Ralf Hutter utterly delighted to have some of his hero's involved in a Kraftwerk show.

Then at 9.30 we put on the the 3D glasses, and saw their wonderful back projections floating out over the audience. It was also great to look back and see an audience somewhat like those photos of 60's 3D cinema audiences all in matching glasses.

I have also seen Gong and Tangerine Dream, but not quite at the heights others have mentioned, although Tangerine Dream, on the Logos tour ware amazing as I had never heard samplers used live before, and it was hard to explain to friends the next day how the show sounded. Very ordinary by today's standards, but Logos captures that time and amazement perfectly, but you had to be there to feel the full impact.

I caught Gong at Glastonbury for about ten minutes (after seeing a very disappointing Bowie performance) and their stage attire, and the atmosphere was something to behold. I sort of wish I had gone to see Gong instead of Bowie, but it was an impossible choice to make, as Bowie had been so good the previous times I had seen him.

One other lovely memory of a live show was Orbital at Somerset House, the rain pouring down, and some people still working late in their offices coming to the window (probably in amazement) at seeing four thousand people dancing to the 'Dr Who' theme.

Happy memories.

in addition to the Faust concert i have mentioned in a previous post

Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come-Journey tour-again B-Ham Town Hall- Ange and Kala in support

Arthur dressed up as telephone box, hypodermic syringe etc-playing Bentley the drum machine- but what a voice

Steve

Those who saw Tangerine Dream on various tours and wish to know exactly when they saw them, and even if the that show was recorded and released officially, or otherwise should have a look at:

http://www.voices-in-the-net.de/vitn_concerts.htm and the links off that page.

The two tours with lazer shows were the USA 1977, and the European 1978, but they later had some of the early animated lights, though not quite on the Genesis 'Vari-light' scale, on later tours too, again synced to the bass sequencers.

I should also add that Aphex Twin at the Leeds festival in 2003 was quite amazing too, he never appeared on stage, except a brief glance around the curtain at the stage rear at the end of the show, but the music was quite something. Starting with a slow Wurlitzer version of the Rocky theme, the tempo and intensity of the music doubled every ten or fifteen minutes. After 45 minutes any sense of melody had gone, and another ten minutes later rhythm had been broken down beyond anything recognisable, and there was still another twenty minutes or so to go.

It all made sense musically as it built from what had gone before, but I know someone who popped into the tent about an hour into the show, and said it was too much to take. For the same reason the encore didn't work, as although it continued from where the set had finished, the break lost the grounding that had gone before.

Hi guys

Nice to know I' m not alone!

I've had a rummage in the loft and found my original programme too and it was indeed 1978. Portsmouth guildhall 21st march to be exact. Those photos from the programme don't do the light show justice though! I wonder whether they over did the smoke generator since the guildhall is a relatively small venue?

I've seen TD four or five times so I'm impressed I was within a year .....must've been sober at the time. Ive also found an old brochure for laserium from their run at the London planetarium also in 1978. ...their commentary included the immortal line..."free set of retina with every second visit"

Ive seen lasers used with quite a few bands since including weather report (comment from girlfriend - where's the lead guitarist? - she didn't last long!), judie tzuke and led zep (knebworth) but not sure the td show has ever been surpassed

....what I'd give to take my eos 7d back to those days...

Martin

A really interesting thread.

The tour programme for Tangerine Dream is intriguing as the line up must be from the Cyclone album and its the only time I've seen Chris Franke placed anywhere other than dead centre stage. I saw them play four times in the 80s with Froese/Franke matched with first Johannes Schmoelling then Paul Haslinger.

Some moments from the 1981 tour were incorporated into the 2 longer pieces on the Thief OST and it fits the mood of the heist movie starring James Caan . Second time around in 1983 at Manchester Apollo saw the band draw back the protective curtain they had used since a riot at Rheims cathedral in 1975.

Much as I adore Virgin records era Tangerine Dream I'd have to agree with Jamie L; Kraftwerk at the Velodrome  remains the most memorable concert I've ever attended. When those 4 riders appeared the penny dropped as to why such an unusual venue had been selected.

Martin

Nice to know I'm not alone too!!

Portsmouth Guildhall 21st March was the very evening I saw TD in 1978 - I was 16 years old.

According to Jamie's link above the show wasn't recorded - but it would be fun to track down something else from that tour.

Well well. I hope you enjoyed that show.

Just been listening to Quenzer from Faultline by Redshift. It is extraordinarily good, and I have to say rather beats TD at their own game. Awesome. 

Thank you so much for the tip Jamie/Steve.

Cheers

David