Backed by the exceptional virtuoso violin of Stuart Gordon, the main man started out on acoustic guitar with 'The Comet, The Course, The Tail' and 'Shingle'. The audience were held spellbound by the vocal contortions and lyrical genius that are the Hammill trademarks. Hammill has an almost hypnotic hold on his followers and tonight was no exception. He performed material from his new CD, 'Clutch' such as 'Bareknuckle Trade' but never overdid the hard sell - in fact, the new work was hardly mentioned.
Hammill's rapport with the audience was still as keen as during his Van Der Graaf Generator days - well spoken, eloquent but always light hearted and his audience just love playing their part! The set was typically full of light and shade, tempo changes and mood fluctuations, but the captivated Hammillites new just when to applaud, they new his songs as well as he did. In fact, at one point they helped out with an opening line of one of the older numbers when Peter forgot it himself. Audience and man became one. 'What's It Worth' showed the more subtle side of Peter and received a great response.
The set had started with Peter on guitar, then he moved to grand piano for the last couple of numbers of the first set. Set two started as set one finished, piano accompaniment before moving back to centre stage with guitar.It must be said, the Stuart Gordon was amazing on violin - subtle passages, some with an eastern feel, to raging, firebrand work which nearly saw his bow ripped to shreds - I've never seen a violin bow take so much punishment, I didn't think it'd survive - but it did, just! The sound engineer of the evening handled things remarkably well - a big voice in a relatively small hall couldn't have been all that easy.
The set finished all too soon but, Hammill came back on for just one encore. He took to the piano once more, hinted that the opening chord was C major and let the audience guess the number. Yes, someone got it right. It was a VDGG classic and topical, 'Refugees' - well, up went the hair on my arms and the back of my neck. What a way to finish!!
Tonight's gig was part of a mini-tour which at long last saw Peter Hammill gigging away from London. I think he enjoyed it - I hope he'll be back!
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