Van der Graaf Generator, July 4 at the Opera House, Toronto

I didn’t expect them to play “Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End”. I also didn’t expect the line “Believing that what waits for us is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past” to nearly bring me to tears. Life has been full of surprises lately.

The VdGG logo from '75 to '78 was a sort of Escher triangle representing the "V" in "Van"—very prescient considering the band is now a trio (Hammill/Banton/Evans) and their latest album is called Trisector. With saxophonist David Jackson absent, the stage is also set up in tripartite fashion: Hammill’s keyboard on the left, Banton’s "manuals and pedals" on the right, Guy Evans’ kit in the middle. The Opera House has no seating, so I chose a spot in the centre-left on the floor.

The audience sported much gray hair and many beards, and talked in public about things like downloading the entire Ash Ra Tempel catalogue then never finding the time to listen to it. Oh, we should all have such problems! I spotted a few young ’uns up front as well.

When Van der Graaf Generator walked on stage at 9:00, my first feeling was total affection. There’s Peter Hammill – I love that guy! I deliberately hadn’t listened to any of their music before the gig, nor had I studied the setlists from the tour very closely. I did know they would be playing a good chunk of new material from Trisector, which I’d never heard. Present, their first reunion album, was a huge disappointment and hadn't inspired me to scoop up its sequel. I was looking forward to hearing the new songs live, as the rawness of the live setting would probably put them in their best light.

They started with “Interference Patterns” off Trisector, a jigsaw puzzle of a song that put the audience on its toes from the off. A transitional jam led to the first classic of the night, Godbluff’s “Scorched Earth,” a song that to me exemplifies the “serious fun” ethos of VdGG. The audience came alive at this point, giving the song a huge ovation. Hammill switched to guitar and tuned up while politely announcing the previous two songs. The next song emerged from another jam—good lord, it’s “Lemmings.” This was a mad dash through the maddest song from their maddest album, It’s not a handsome song, nor was it a pristine performance. After several precarious moments on the cliff’s edge, Hammill led the charge to its finale with a lusty “hey!” clearly audible off mic.

Van der Graaf Generator aren’t especially tight; they’ve never performed polite recitals of their recorded work. They push the songs to the ragged edge in their excitement at playing together, they probably push even harder these days without David Jackson’s sax to drive the riffs along (Jackson split acrimoniously from the band after the Present tour). It's easy to get caught up in their excitement watching them work through these songs and realize that most of the transitions don’t really have counts—they rely on eye contact, head nods and vocal cues to make it through these beloved labyrinths. Hammill is in fine voice for a 60-year-old heart-attack survivor. I don’t know how he does it—my heart’s wobbly just witnessing them race through the material.

“Childlike Faith…” was both unexpected and devastating, as I mentioned earlier. Hammill dropped the guitar and stalked the stage for the sinister carnival crawl of “The Sleepwalkers,” another immense track from their glory days. Guy Evans whacked the cowbell like it’d been very naughty. The song now has some extra dynamics in the instrumental section towards the end, showing they’re not afraid of trying new ideas, no matter how sacred the song is. “Man Erg” was the last song of the set, its instantly recognizable opening chords sending a ripple through the crowd. There, now they’ve played half of Pawn Hearts and half of Godbluff. I couldn’t have hoped for a better set list.

After such an epic-laden set, I expected some (comparatively) light relief for the encore, and that’s what they delivered via “Nutter Alert” from Present. With a bow and a wave, the three gents of VdGG exited stage left.

I was up for another beer and a few minutes to collect my thoughts. However, the bar staff were already packing up, so I went out to wait for a streetcar to take me across town. I met a few other pilgrims—a guy from Hamilton who would see them again the next night, a fellow of Russian extraction who had seen the band in Moscow in 2005, and someone else from B.C. who’d made the trip east for the gig. We talked about other Hammill gigs and whether the lack of Jaxonsax left too big a hole in their sound. I didn’t feel like talking much about such “could have beens”; I had just seen Van der Graaf Generator and I thought it was perfect.

I’m still coming back to that line from "Childlike Faith..." every day: “What waits for us is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past.” When a 27-year-old Hammill barks it on the Still Life album, the line's hopefulness comes across as blustery; a bit cocky from a young man in a more promising time. When the 60-year-old Hammill sang it 10 feet away from me at the Opera House, it sounded to me like the absolute truth.

Despite what I said at the end of my previous post, I don't think I've reached my live-gig saturation point. If I hadn't been sick last weekend, I would have gone to see Black Betty at Pub 340. I didn't even know about this band until a week ago, when I started to see posters for their show. I figured any band with the gumption to align themselves with Leadbelly and Ram Jam might be worth checking out. Then, while home from work and browsing the StonerRock.com album reviews forum, I saw their name again, had a listen at their myspace site, and got all stoked about their show, which happened to be that very night. That kind of coincidence is a good omen. Unfortunately, the future Mrs. Mule provided the necessary sanity check. If I'd gone, my sinuses would have probably imploded as the first power chord was struck.

There would have been power chords, most assuredly. Black Betty are a heavy outfit, especially for a duo. They've got massive guitars, massive drums, and massive singing...yes, actual singing. Righteous [mp3]. I'll have to track them down soon to get the album and maybe do a little reviewage of my own here.

My big thing with attending live shows is avoiding regret, the kind that pierces me when I see old gig posters for bands like Husker Du, who played here in 1985 when I was a full two years away from having a clue, and then it was too late; they were gone. Or the kind of regret that nags me in the present, as it's doing these days as a reformed Van der Graaf Generator tours across Europe and England.

They've pared down to the trio of Hammill, Evans and Banton, having booted out David "Jaxonsax" Jackson at the end of their 2005 tour. The ousting was done with utmost secrecy from the band, which generated a tornado of speculation amongst the fans and making for a fractious few weeks on the PH/VdGG mailing list, let me tell you. For many people, Jaxon's multi-sax attack was VdGG's signature, and so the new "power trio" format was greeted with nervous anticipation. Hardly anyone dismissed them outright, however. And, bless them, they're making it work, with Banton cranking it to the max, keeping himself busier than ever on organ and pedals, and Hammill playing a lot more guitar than he's done in VdGG lineups past. "This is a f***ing brilliant grunge band with unorthodox instrumentation!" gushed a fan after one of their first shows. They've dusted off material like the fearsome "Gog" and personal favourite "Meurglys III (The Songwriter's Guild)," and even added two new songs to the set. While the 2005 reunion was imbued with a lot of nostalgia, this incarnation is something truly new, and they're pushing their playing and their music forward. It's progressive rock, after all.

I've thought about reviewing the whole VdGG catalogue here in an attempt to express how much this music means to me, but I've been finding lately that the more I plan, worry, and think about this blog, the harder it gets to sit down and write. Maybe I'll get down to it; that's the kind of difficult music I originally planned to chronicle here. As I've learned, though, this is no place for planning.

Think of the Children
As you might guess, I’ve made a few trips to A&B Sound for pre- and post-Christmas shopping. Lately they’ve set up big displays that follow
you all the way to the cashier, flaunting impulse buys for every age and taste. One of these shelves is marked “For Mom” and features the Bon Jovi box set, the new Brian Wilson album, and other mom-friendly audio/visual treats. Next to that display are racks of stuff “For Dad”—Sin City, the AC/DC catalogue, and the recent reissue/remaster of Van der Graaf Generator’s The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other. You mean people like me actually breed? If you know anyone whose dad asked for that in his stocking, call social services.

The VdGG remasters are actually pretty keen, and if I didn’t already own multiple copies of these albums I’d be snapping them up. The only reissue I’ve bought on sight is their third album, H to He Who Am the Only One (1970). I now own four copies of this record, sorry to say. But the new one has bonus tracks…spectacular ones! The first addition is worth the price alone—“Squid I/Squid II/Octopus” live and unhinged in the studio during the Pawn Hearts sessions in 1971. This is a 15-minute medley of early songs that formed a big chunk of VdGG’s live set up to the band’s implosion in 1972. It’s glorious to hear the band in full blow, just like you might have on the Six-Bob Tour. Listen to mad boffin Hugh Banton’s organ sing to the heavens then puke its guts out, or marvel at how he summons the heaviest sound in the universe for the rush to the song’s end. Reel from the unrelenting Guy Evans at the drum kit, almost willing the whole enterprise to fly apart while shouldering his rhythm section responsibilities with ease. Hammill in manic young man mode screams into the din, but for most of the track he backs off and lets his band do their thing. It’s thrilling to hear them play live in such a high-fidelity environment. Their BBC sessions captured some of the group’s raw energy, but lacked this recording’s ripped-to-the-tits spontaneity, and no bootleg from this era comes close sonically. The last song is an earlier take of H to He’s third track, “The Emperor in his War Room,” a gruesome, spiteful treatise on tyranny where a warmongering politician is visited by the ghosts of those he’s sent to death (“In the night they steal your eye from its socket/and the ball hangs fallen on your cheek”). Other than its spectacular lyrics and “War Pigs” worthy imagery (I think H to He is by far the most Sabbatherian VdGG album), this track is most famous for Robert Fripp’s guest appearance, sitting in on guitar. Although Fripp isn’t on this version, Jaxon lays down some extra flute where the guitar solo eventually appeared, marking this take as a carefully measured run-through for the heavier version that made it onto the album. Not something that’ll make you re-evaluate the larger work, but as an archival curiosity for fans, it’s gold. Keep it in mind for Father’s Day in case the old man really digs that copy of The Least We Can Do…

The old codgers in Van der Graaf Generator got back together in 2004 and released their first album in nearly three decades earlier this year. I've finally heard it now. I moderated my expectations and avoided taking the orgasmic praise of both the album (Present) and their live shows to heart. So why haven't I immediately fallen in love with it?

I nearly fell out of my chair when I visited Head Heritage on Saturday. Top man Julian Cope, one of Difficult Music’s latter-day spiritual leaders despite the fact I’ve never heard one of his records, has given album of the month honours to one of my cornerstones of Western civilization— Pawn Hearts by Van der Graaf Generator. Cope’s lengthy assessment of this three-song barrage of existential crises almost glows with unhinged rockdog prose and affection for the unloved and unlovable: "This was rock’n’roll only because no other category would fit, and rock’n’roll was slack enough to accommodate this mongrel gang of weaners whose only common ground was that everyone hated them all."

It’s an album I’m underqualified/too chickenshit to write about, so read the review and consider it a guest entry in the next-to-nonexistent Difficult Music classic album series. Thanks, Mr. Cope.