I think I heard about this via a radio interview with Hammill. Who would have broadcast an interview with him in the desert of early-nineties radio? It could only have been Mixing It… Or maybe that interview was a different decade altogether, and it was a review in The Wire that led me to this particular release.
I saw Peter Hammill play at the Queen Elizabeth Hall five and a half years ago: I was lucky enough to get a fourth row ticket just feet in front of the man at his piano and guitar. I remember it starting very promisingly when PH played My Room from Still Life. But then it got more dense and indigestible.
I remember hoping that this live album, not quite stripped down to a solo performance, but with only three musicians, might have more room to breathe, compared with Van der Graaf (Generator). It does and it doesn't, moving from rough-edged singer-songwriter when he sings about relationships and other enigmas to hectoring preacher when he dissects freewill and other trivia. As in-your-face as a belligerent drunk; as neverendingly verbose as a stoner with a conspiracy theory. And it's nearly two and a half hours long.
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I saw Van der Graaf play in the seventies, and Hammill play solo in 1992. His solo gig was amazing - I can't remember what he played, but he held the audience spellbound.
Posted by: Patrick | 15 May 2010 at 06:18 PM