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Guy Evans and Peter Hammill - The Union Chapel Concert
| Artist: | Guy Evans and Peter Hammill |
| Title: | The Union Chapel Concert |
| Label: | FIE 9115 |
| Length(s): | 58+60m minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1997 |
| Month of review: | 05/1997 |
Line up
Guy Evans, Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton, Manny Elias, Stuart Gordon,
David Jackson, Giles Perrin, Mat Fraser and Patou Soult (last three
are members of Echo City as is Guy Evans).
Tracks
Disc 1:
| 1) | Introduction | 0.41
|
| 2) | Fireworks | 3.51
|
| 3) | A Forest Of Pronouns | 7.53
|
| 4) | Anatol's Proposal | 4.10
|
| 5) | After The Show | 8.07
|
| 6) | Roger And Out | 3.18
|
| 7) | Accidents | 9.15
|
| 8) | Four Kinds Of Rice/Hello/Resolution | 11.32
|
| 9) | Women Of Ireland | 2.03
|
| 10) | Ship Of Fools | 7.45
|
Disc 2:
| 1) | Hamburg Station | 3.50
|
| 2) | Seven Wonders | 10.14
|
| 3) | Adagio For Strings (Barber) | 9.32
|
| 4) | Red Shift | 10.50
|
| 5) | Lemmings | 15.19
|
| 6) | Outroduction | 3.16
|
| 7) | Traintime | 7.39
|
This live CD was recorded at the Union Chapel Concert on November 3rd 1996.
Summary
Well, the reunion live album of VDGG one might call this. Okay they play
only one song in the line up (Hammill, Jackson, Evans, Banton) which
is Lemmings and Traintime is played by very musician in the line up
noted above, but well there's more to this CD than that...
The music
in that it is a strange live album which is presented to the public in
writing by Guy Evans. The sound quality is not too good (quality of a
good bootleg), but the fact that there are nine musicians presenting
their music in various line-ups among which a line-up of the classic
VDGG compensates of course. Additionally there's quite a lot of music
by Evans and Hammill (from Spur of the Moment) but also quite a lot
of tracks of Hammill solo not usually heard during live concerts. The story
here is that Evans played a lot of stuff by triggering his drumpad and
in this way some of the harder songs could be played. Judging from the
tracklengths especially the songs of Hammill solo have quite long renditions
and indeed 15.19 for Lemmings is quite long. The lengths of the
tracks already indicates a bit that improvisation is an important ingredient
on this album and in fact do not expect neatly played renderings of studio
material. The fact that most of this is underrehearsed will have had some
impact on this fact also, I presume. In addition to the Hammill Evans
tracks on the album there are also solo tracks by Jackson on Soundbeam, which
is some new instrument (Four kinds of rice/Hello/Resolution), Stuart Gordon
(Women of Ireland) and Hugh Banton (Adagio for strings by Barber arranged
for organ) and there's also some music played by Evans' band Echo City
(Hamburg Station). We should not expect this album to be a cohesive whole,
but I have to admit the music is played in more or less the same vein:
loud and strong and rather chaotic (the solo tracks are usually an exception
to this) and this is exemplified very well by the rendition of the Hammill
classic Traintime: all musicians are present, so it is not surprise that
the song sounds chaotic with a very percussive start and in the middle
violin, saxophone, guitar and vocals strive for domination and it is
impossible to tell who wins.
Conclusion
All in all a nice album, but you have to have a liking for the rather choatic
side of VDGG and friends and in fact if you're interested in live music of
Hammill solo, but are interested more in faithful renditions, you would do
better to pick up Roomtemperaturelive. A reunion that is not a cash-in is also
nice for a change, I think.
© Jurriaan Hage