Peter Hammill, Mr Averell and Van der Graaf Generator
My friend Laura and I went to The Hague (Den Haag) early. From where
we live it's about an hour travelling by train. We arrived around
four, and then had an early diner in a small restaurant nearby.
Because of my nervousness (always at the day of a concert, and
especially so at the day of a VdGG-concert) we went to the doors of
the Theater aan het Spui at
around six. They would open at seven.
There was a drizzle, and the people on the other side of the glass
door felt sorry for us and let us in early. Now we were in the
entrance-tent. There were drinks here, but they needed to be payed
with coins. And coins, they, errr... yes... inside! So again we
waited, not in the rain anymore, for the entrance to the stages and to
the counter selling coins.
I had (being nervous) extensively asked where stage two would be (the
"small stage") and ran towards it once let in. To my surprise there
were musical instruments on stage in the hall, so I asked to be sure. Oh, yes,
Peter Hammill would perform here, the person behind the mixing-desk
confirmed me. It was a small hall of about hundred, no more than two
hundred people, and the first three rows were filled with small tables
and chairs. Fantastic! I was in the middle of the front row, and sat
back, legs stretched, no more than two metres from the central
microphone. We went out to fetch coins and then drinks and waited for
Hammill to take to the stage.
It is good to see how much he fits in there, a festival of madly
strange and madly brilliant poets. I had seen him perform at this same
festival ten years earlier (in fact, if my memory serves me well it
was the same hall too!) and knew from several interviews he really
liked the Crossing Border Festival. In one of the Crossing Border
folders-papers there were tips from performing artists (Michel Faber
on VdGG: "the enormous band that at last is being received with the
respect they always deserved in the first place. Progrock? They're
more close to Pere Ubu"), and I translate the quote from Peter Hammill
from Dutch: "I am interested in Sinéad O'Connor/Sly & Robbie,
Värttinä, Michel Faber, Mr Averell, Salif Keita, Michel Houellebecq,
John Parish, Mercury Rev and Helen Simpson. With all of these I am not
quite sure what to expect. But isn't that the spirit of Crossing
Border? Where you probably will find something totally unexpected? So
don't take this list too seriously."
At seven there was a short introduction by someone from the festival,
and then Peter Hammill walked onstage, dressed in a dark blue blouse.
He assured the audience he was only going to read his poems, all of
which were song lyrics. He held notes in his hand and stood behind a
microphone and a music sheet stand to put the notes on. I don't
remember the 'setlist,' but I do remember he opened with The Siren
Song, and also read Curtains, Fogwalking of course (amazing! at the
end he was whispering the lyrics to a totally quiet hall), Unrehearsed
(yes!), Bareknuckle Trade, In a Bottle, and Still Life. And he also
read... In Babelsberg! He introduced it by saying Berlin was - besides
London - the one city he knew best. Although he wouldn't want to boast
about that. He didn't want to boast about any knowledge about any
city. In fact, he didn't want to boast about any knowledge apart from
his having none at all! And he added something along the lines of:
"This is one song we won't play later tonight, although... well, we're
not sure about the setlist yet. In fact... I'm not sure about the
setlist of what I'm doing now!" (although Laura understood that Hammill said:
"All I'm sure of is the setlist of what I'm reading now.")
It's good to hear the lyrics being read. It gives the listener new
angles of interpretation, there's new emphasis, accents, rhyme,
rhythm, and sometimes even whole new meanings. It all sounds so much
different, almost like you hear the lyrics for the first time...
Peter Hammill reading in Den Haag, 19 November 2005 (photographer unknown).
Well, afterwards we had some hours to ourselves and ended up in the
central hall where Mr Averell had just started his performance. I was
amazed. I was thrilled. I sat there, mouth wide open, enjoying his
crazy performance. I have hardly any words to describe what happened.
I know I am prone to exaggerate (on many occasions I have a habit of
doing so), but I assure you I don't right now. There isn't much I can
compare them to, except for Judge Smith (suggested to me by Laura).
Yes, they do have the same theatrical appearance, they're telling
stories to their rapt audience, and the fun they're having doing so
drips off from the stage and into the listeners, if you know what I
mean. There was René van Commenée himself, front stage, singing,
telling, being crazy, sometimes playing the accordion, there was a
vibraphone-player, there was a cellist (enjoying himself very much),
and there was a guitarist, sometimes two (one of whom was Tammo
Heikens, you may know from his cooperation on Curly's Airships by
Judge Smith). All lyrics were in English. Centre stage, apart from the
microphone for the singer, was a telephone on a stand next to it.
During one song Van Commenée walked to the telephone and started
talking through it, a hilarious moment. An other song was about
chocolate (Bitter Need), and Van Commenée confessed to being an addict
(lyrics something along the line of: "I want cocoa solids forty-five
percent at least, no! fifty-five percent, no! sixty-five percent!").
And, as was to be expected, at some point in the performance, Van
Commenée switched to English and introduced... mister David Jackson!
Who then with obvious delight played one song with Mr Averell (Helter
Skelter, a song about the Chernobyl-disaster of 1986) and improvised
one or two more. It reminded me of the one time I was lucky enough to
watch a concert by David Jackson, accompagnied by René van Commenée on
percussion (it was in 1992). Now the roles had switched. What
fun!
Mr Averell in Den Haag (with David Jackson), 19 November 2005 (photo copyright beeld.nu).
After the concert we had some time off. So we went to the stand where
they sold albums, just next to the stage. I bought an album by Mr Averell
called Out Of My Mind and got a free chocolate-bar with it, with a
picture of Van Commenée on it and the words Bitter Sweet. "Collect
them all!" Seeing him behind the stand I couldn't resist telling him
how much I had enjoyed the concert. Also behind the stand was David
Jackson, doing his share of work, talking excitedly to anyone who would
talk to him. Only twenty minutes later we saw him in one of the many
hallways of the theatre, pushing a large flight-case.
It was now only eight thirty. Three more hours to go before seeing Van
der Graaf Generator. We missed the concert by Salif Keita, but we did
see Boubacar Traoré. A wonderful experience. He is a very prominent
and influential musician from Mali (along with for instance Habib
Koité, Ali Farka Touré and Salif Keita), and he sings worksongs about
the poor who, day in day out, toil to earn their living. He is a
performer since the early sixties (!). All he did was stand there,
guitar around his neck, accompagnied by a gourd-playing young man.
Well. It's become a long story. When we entered the large hall (stage
one) Mercury Rev was still playing their last songs. They seem to me
to be like a cross between Pink Floyd and R.E.M. or so. It was
absolutely no problem to go to the front of the stage after Mercury
Rev had left, and we took position in the second row, just in front of
Banton's organ (left as seen from the hall). We saw the stage being
built up, and again David Jackson was there, adjustig some tape, a
sheet of paper, the microphones. Only now, being so close to the
stage, I read the word "Aquarian" on Evans' bass-drum.
First there was a Dutch novelist, Tommy Wieringa, who read three
short stories, seven minutes in total. He confessed to not knowing
what this Graaf-band was all about, and got away with it. He read a
story about being on a nearly deserted train-platform with just one
other person, and hearing the voice from the speaker announce:
"Careful! There may be pickpockets about!" To which he concluded to
himself: so that must be me, and-or him! There's no-one else here!
"That," as was his final line, "is the way fear works."
Then Michel Faber took to the stage, a copy of the gatefold-sleeve of The
Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other in hand, to introduce the band he had so long been an
admiring fan of, as he proudly admitted. He started in Dutch (he was
born in Den Haag) but soon switched to English, and read us some
information he had found on the internet about the Van der Graaf
Generator-device. Amongst other things I learned the electrostatic
energy was especially dangerous when sucked into a fan. Yep! And
walking off the stage Faber was greeted by the four, walking onto the
stage.
They opened with Lemmings (an enormous set-opener!), then Scorched
Earth, then Every Bloody Emperor. For the first time I got tears in my
eyes listening to Every Bloody Emperor. Being up front is a completely
different experience. Previously I had seen them in the Royal Festival
Hall, London, rear stalls, row B, and in the Melkweg, Amsterdam,
almost wholly in the back of the hall. But now, only a metre away from
Banton's feverish hands and feet, I was wholly sucked in to the
machine and had the feeling my hair was standing up. Of course, I was
just head-banging to the music!
I am not quite sure anymore about the running order of the set. But
they played Still Life. And The Sleepwalkers. And Man-Erg. What a joy
to see Evans busy during Man-Erg! My guess is that in reality he is the
central musician of the band. He's the one cueing the others, he's the
one counting off the bars, he's the one recollecting the others at the
end of the chaotic pieces. And, speaking of which, there were some
chaotic parts in the set! Heavens! What noise! I hadn't seen and heard
them so 'loose' before. This is most certainly not a band ready to
quit. This is a band starting to really enjoy themselves, a band
daring to let loose the practice and rehearsals, and just stand there,
on the stage, showing to have some serious fun! Sure, there were
mistakes. And there were improvisations. And also mistakes masked as
improvisations and improvisations masked as mistakes etcetera,
etcetera. It was a room full with fans loaded with electrostatic
energy! I am thinking of buying (or building!) myself a Van der Graaf
Generator!
And then, after Man-Erg, we clapped and cheered, and they bowed, and
Hammill walked to the front of the stage and said something like:
"Well, the traditional way of doing this is - we exit stage left, you
rage like hell and try to shout us back, and then some minutes later
we return and do an encore. But let's don't, shall we...? So we will
just play one more song, and then we're off." And so I got a chance to
see Banton dance, dance with his feet on the pedals to the beat of the
encore, which was Darkness. What a night!
Van der Graaf Generator in Den Haag, 19 November 2005 (photographer unknown).
