Van Der Graaf Generator concert

Van Der Graaf Generator 2013 North European Tour

Date: 30 June 2013

Location: Barbican Arts Centre, London

Support: n/a

Special guests: n/a

If anyone’s keeping track of my posts and is wondering why nothing appeared last night, here’s the reason: I was out at this concert! And as much as I enjoy writing these reviews, given the choice of what I was doing tonight, I’d probably pick the concert again… but it’s not to be. I’m here typing stuff.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure how I found out about this concert, but I know it was an accident and I know it wasn’t that long ago – a few weeks maybe; it was a fairly spontaneous decision (relative to Yes, who I already have tickets for even though that’s over 10 months away.) But I’m definitely glad I found it. I managed to be on time for once, but only just: as I was arriving, an announcement came out of a loudspeaker saying ‘The Van der Graaf Generator concert will begin in five minutes, please take your seats’… and I didn’t have time to grab food or drinks or anything.

I certainly didn’t feel as knowledgeable about the whole event as the guy two seats along from me, who was telling me how this was his seventh time seeing them on this tour alone (I haven’t even seen seven bands this year yet! Let alone one band seven times) but I did have some idea of what to expect, as I knew the show was going to be based around two specific songs – ‘Flight’, originally a Peter Hammill solo song but now performed with the other original VdGG members (Hugh Banton on organ and Guy Evans on drums) and ‘A Plague of Lighthouse-Keepers’. ‘Flight’ was placed second in the set and ‘Plague’ was the final song before the encore, and both of them were absolutely brilliant in a live setting.

Rather than being note-for-note copies of what you hear on the studio albums, both of these songs had obviously been edited and changed for this tour – which is not all that surprising, given their release dates. Because of this, I didn’t realise until I was told afterwards that ‘Plague’ was extended significantly beyond its studio running time, because I was enjoying every moment and the minutes just flashed by. Compelling is the word I’d use, and given how everyone in front of me in the audience was sitting still and giving the band their full attention for the duration, I think most of them would agree.

There weren’t that many people sitting in front of me, though. I didn’t realise it until I got there, but I’d managed to get really awesome seats. It felt like I was so near to the band; Peter Hammill was the furthest away and he was around 3 metres from me. If I’d said hi to him in a quiet moment, he probably would have heard. Which reminds me of a moment during ‘Flight’. It’s a great song that plays with anticipation by having a lot of pauses, and during one particularly long pause, a random audience member began to clap, before being silenced when the music started back up again. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shake my head in disdain.

As for the rest of the setlist, there were quite a few picks from newer albums that I was less familiar with, but VdGG are a band that can still write songs (I struggle to think of a truly bad song they’ve done) and I actually enjoyed the fact that some of what I was hearing was fairly new to me, and I didn’t know what was coming. I particularly enjoyed ‘All That Before’ but maybe that’s because I identify a little bit with the lyrics. I would have been disappointed if there were no classic songs played, but I did get a couple towards the end. Sadly, I didn’t get to hear anything from ‘Godbluff’ – I would have given anything to hear a live version of ‘The Sleepwalkers’ – but I was given ‘Man-Erg’ (which according to setlist.fm is their most played live song, interestingly) and the encore was ‘Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End’ which I love as a song anyway, and definitely made for an appropriate finale.

The night was so good that I managed to forget all about the fact that I hadn’t had time for dinner and was in fact very hungry, and I like food so I can’t think of many bigger compliments to the band. However, I did later enjoy a Chicken McNugget meal at 10.30pm followed by a berry flapjack for pudding.

My motivations for going to this concert were partly the fangirl in me getting excited at the prospect of hearing the two extended pieces performed live, and partly the thought that, since the band have been around since 1969, I might not have a great many more opportunities to see them. And on the second point, I have to confess that as they came out onto the stage originally, I was struck by how old they looked, the hair, the faces, and especially the clothes. But you certainly wouldn’t have known it from the way they played, which had so much power behind it that I really can’t imagine them slowing down any time soon… maybe I’ll get to see them again someday. Maybe if they take the entire Godbluff album out on tour.