HW: (off) Litmus at the Bull and Gate - January 25th

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 04:06:47PM -0000, trev typed out:
> Naaaaa John, I doubt very much if anyone will be there....you see, Judge 
> Trev and Kev Ellis are gigging at the Horse and Groom, Islingword Road, 
> Brighton on the same night AGAIN.
> 
> This happened before..a couple of months ago and while we pulled an 
> audience of between 4-5 thousand, Litmus did manage to pull 2 passers by in 
> because they were drunk.

	You must have bust the doors of your venue off, then, because 
Litmus had pleasantly close to a full house.

	I was trying to do too many things with the night, and only 
arrived at about nine, by which time, I soon learnt, that they had been 
playing for about an hour and had broken the snare drum. It didn't seem 
to slow them down; Marek was using an extra tom for the time being and 
it gave his drums a very martial sort of crack. The replacement snare, 
when Colin bravely fetched it, wasn't quite as distinctive.

	The band had kept most of their new material for the second half 
of the set, so other than one of the best versions of `Under the Sign' I 
can remember (though, it must be admitted, I was already cheerfully 
drunk and probably more forgiving than usual) I mostly saw songs I 
didn't know. I did however steal the set-list off the stage (no-one 
seemed to want it) so can tell you that the whole thing went:

Temple
Twinstar
Earthbound
Evil
	You Are Here
	Infinity Drive
	Dreams of Space
	Sonic Light
	(Theta Wave) Inductor
Mothership
Tempest
Under the Sign
Helios
	Astronomy Domine
Kings of Infinite Space
`Masson Riff'
Endless Skies
	Right Stuff
	Hero With a Wing
	Ejection

	I came in mid-way through `Tempest', and so there was an awful 
lot that I missed which I'd rather not have, but what I saw was between 
good and absolutely bloody electric. In particular, the `Astronomy 
Domine', which I'd have thought the lack of a keyboardist (still) would 
prevent, was downright head-melting, and Simon's guitar work deserves 
maximum credit for his effectively taking up the space of two 
instruments without resorting to widdling. Martin was in fact playing a 
keyboard, set up in the dark behind Anton, during `Helios', and I 
thought that was a good (if slightly HW!) compromise, which might let 
them resurrect `Planetfall' (though I guess Simon might have to take the 
keyboard part) and maybe other things. Otherwise, the final triplet was 
complete fan service really, but I never ever expected to see `Hero With 
a Wing' done live, and I'm not sure it can be done as anything more than 
a special treat for people who know the Captain Lockheed album 
backwards, but on that level it was very rewarding.

	The new stuff, despite my forgiving mood, didn't grab me as much 
as it might have; `Kings of Infinite Space' could teeter towards being a 
"power ballad" like `Lost Stations' or it could become an epic 
piledriver and I don't think this is worked out yet. The thing on the 
set-list as `Masson Riff', which I'm guessing won't be its final title, 
is really quite a lot like a second take at `(Theta Wave) Inductor', 
which keeps me happy as a concert-goer but doesn't really stand out as 
new development of the genre. It's probably the best new thing that I 
saw, however, and it would be unfair to say there's not good stuff in 
the brew; it's just not as shockingly brilliant as `Mothership' and 
`Under the Sign' and indeed `Far Beyond' were when I first heard them. I 
hope there is stuff like that to come though, and on the showing of this 
gig I'll certainly be out the front waiting for it to hit me.

> why why oh why does their manager "Colin of the Yamato" (who is also a 
> traitor to the empire) repeatedly ensure that their gigs are completely 
> empty because they coincide with the magnificent performances of the mighty 
> Judge Trev.

	Well *quite*. How are they supposed to turn up and worship, 
after all?

> You see, they are far too young to have any sex appeal like wot i ave - an 
> essential in the space rock community...cough!
> 
> jt (57)
> 
> THE BUS PASS COMETH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

	May it be like the gasman, ever threatened but never actually 
present, yours,
		Jon

-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk